1936-02-11

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A message from His Excellency the Governor General transmitting estimates for the financial year ending March 31, 1937. was presented by Hon. Charles A. Dunning (Minister of Finance), and read by Mr. Speaker to the house.


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On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. A. HEAPS (Winnipeg North):: Will the Minister of Justice say whether it is the intention of the government at this session to bring in legislation with regard to the repeal of section 98 of the criminal code?


Hon. ERNEST LAPOINTE (Minister of Justice):: There will certainly be some legislation with respect to that section.



GOVERNOR GENERAL'S SPEECH


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Monday, February 10. consideration of the motion of Mr. A. G. Slaght for an address to His Excellency [he Governor General in reply to his speech at the opening of the session.
Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: At the conclusion of his
long address yesterday, my right hon. friend the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett) said that he would like very much to offer to this side of the house his helpful cooperation in the difficult task with which governments of the present day are confronted. I think it was a fortunate thing for my right hon. friend that he made that statement at the end of his speech rather than at the beginning, because until the moment he made it there had been, I must say, nothing in his remarks which could have been construed as in any way helpful. They were, indeed, directly the opposite.
May I say to the leader of the opposition that he has had a long and exceptional parliamentary experience. He spoke very often from this side of the house of the great burden which rests on the shoulders of a prime minister, and the need on the part of the Prime Minister for the cooperation of hon. members in all parts of the house. I hope the right hon. gentleman will keep that in mind now that he is on the other
side of the house. I shall welcome very much, the government will welcome, what he is able to give in the way of cooperation in dealing with the great problems which we have before us for consideration from day to day in these times. I hope that my right hon. friend will not again find it necessary to spend his time wholly in criticism or sarcasm, or in remarks that for the most part are facetious and in no way constructive or helpful.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon.
friends opposite are groaning a bit, but may I ask them just how, in seeking to be "helpful", their leader began his discourse yesterday. The first thing he did was to say that no doubt, as Prime Minister, I should find considerable difficulty in having so large a following. It was very natural that he should make a remark of that kind. Heaven knows with a very much smaller following he had enough difficulty to cope with all the time he was in office. The following he has behind him at the present moment is eloquent of the results of difficulties and discussions which he had at different times with sopae of his colleagues and members of his party.
The leader of the opposition was at particular pains to try to tell this house what had taken place during the formation of the present government. I heard him say repeatedly, when he was on this side of the house, that matters which pertained to the cabinet, and to his own party, were their business and nobody else's, and that it might be just as well for other people to mind their own business. I give him back his own words at this time. May I say that I think it ill became him, knowing the problems that face any first minister in the formation of a cabinet, to seek, at the very beginning of a parliamentary session, to create prejudice, not only as between different members of a party, but as between different parts of the country, by an appeal to race such as he sought to make in the remarks he offered at that time.


Mr. BENNETT:: Mr. Speaker, I must inform the right hon. gentleman that I made no such statement, and the effort he is now making to create the very situation to which he refers is entirely out of order. I read from the statement made by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe).


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am not
referring to that remark at all. That is one of many remarks. I am referring to what my right hon. friend said about my colleague the
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present Minister of Public Works (Mr. Cardin). He undertook to tell this house what he assumed had transpired in the formation of the present government.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It is true.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My right hon. friend knows more, apparently, about the formation of the present government than its members do.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It was not the formation of it. It was a circumstance in connection with the men who were offered positions in the government.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My right hon. friend knows the rules of the house, and if he can just keep still for a little while he will set a better example to his own following and the rest of the house than he is doing at the present time.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Speaker, no hon.
member of this house has the right to misrepresent another. My right hon. friend was misrepresenting what I said, and I claim the right to correct the misstatements made by the Prime Minister. That is a question of order which I have the right to bring to the attention of the chair.


Mr. SPEAKER:: I would ask the hon.
leader of the opposition to state what the misrepresentations are.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is exactly what I
was doing. The right hon. gentleman made statements that were not in accordance with the facts as to what I had said, and I corrected him. I should have addressed the Chair in so doing.


Ernest Lapointe: A fine point of order!


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Fortunately
my right hon. friend's remarks are recorded on Hansard. Perhaps I may read to him just what he said. My right hon. friend intimated that one of my colleagues, who had been a colleague for many years, had gained the position that he now holds in the cabinet by "training his guns" on his leader. Does my right hon. friend deny that?


Richard Bedford Bennett: My right hon. friend has said that he would read from Hansard what I said. Let him do that.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Well, I shall. My right hon. friend, referring to the hon. member for Richelieu, is reported in Hansard as follows:
But the little corporal from Sorel was not thus to be denied'. The support the party had 
received from the province enabled the little corporal to train his guns upon the Prime Minister-


Richard Bedford Bennett: Quite so.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: [DOT]
-and in the words of Abraham Lincoln, "the coon came down." For we find that the little corporal had1 been able successfully to maintain his position. The little corporal from Sorel had become the emperor of the day.
And then, bringing out the real point of the remark, which as I have said was intended to create racial differences if possible, my right hon. friend ended by saying:
In that position I am sure he will-
Referring to the present Minister of Public Works.
-in the words of the Minister of Justice, cast no reflection upon the people he represents and will discharge his great_ duties with fairness and with a sense of obligation that comes to one who is from a province that took the lead from 1930 and is now able to enforce its will upon the Prime Minister.
I ask if the remark, that one province in this country is able to force its will upon the Prime Minister, is not, in the relation mentioned, a deliberate effort on the part of the leader of the opposition to create prejudice against the province of Quebec.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Do you want the answer now?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: 
Richard Bedford Bennett: I will have to rise again to assure the right hon. gentleman that the statement he made is incorrect. I never heard the contents of that advertisement until this moment.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I thought that would bring my right hon. friend to his feet.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Then is the right hon. gentleman making a misstatement for the purpose of having that done?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My right hon. friend has eyes as well as ears, and he must have 'been looking at the ground all the time he was going through the west or he would have seen this glaring poster in front of him in every corner of every village or town to which he went. When he says he does not know anything about this poster-


Richard Bedford Bennett: No, it was not up when I was in the west.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I guess my right hon. friend thought he would get out first. I have just been reminded that after my right hon. friend was out of sight other members of the party struck out the words "Vote Bennett " and had it read " Vote Conservative." Here is something that perhaps my right hon. friend does know a little about. Perhaps he will tell us he is incorrectly reported, but I find the following quotation which was sent pretty generally throughout Canada in the last week of the campaign, or at any rate very near the end of the campaign. Speaking at Sherbrooke-and I am sure my right hon. friend remembers that occasion-he said:
In the last session $1,000,000 had been voted as a stabilization fund to maintain the price to producers of dairy products. " I regret to say that the first cheques will not be paid until October 15 "-
The election was on October 14.
-Mr. Bennett continued, "and I hope that you farmers within the sound of my voice, when you get your cheques the day after the election, will not have qualms of conscience because you voted against the government that gave it to you."
That is, the government that gave these cheques out of a million dollar fund; the implication being that if the government changed their might be no cheques. Does my right hon. friend mean to imply that members on all sides of the house who had to do with voting

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the appropriation that was made at that time were not entitled to any credit that might come from that appropriation?


Richard Bedford Bennett: It was opposed by members of the opposition.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes, it was opposed and very rightly, for the reason that they were perfectly sure that my right hon. friend was putting through that million dollars for the purposes of an election, and no better evidence as to that could be adduced than I have pointed out. I might direct attention to other reports that were sent out, inspired or otherwise, to the effect that the bonus on wheat was expected to be paid on "Monday," the day of the elections, and so on. "Bribe" I think is not too strong a word-one bribe after another made to the electorate out of public funds by my right hon. friend himself. Yet he undertakes to find fault with some anonymous circular that he brings into the house for the purpose of creating racial prej udice.
That, Mr. Speaker, is not all. I think my right hon. friend knows something of the use to which the national radio was put by his party during the general election. I think he knows something about "Mister Sage" and his scurrilous and libelous, misrepresentations over the government-owned radio. Isay to my right hon. friend that as Prime Minister at that time he should not have permitted for one minute the use of the national radio in siudh a manner. He will have during the session plenty of chance to excuse himself on the score of what was permitted in that respect. It is true that there again his party sought to shield itself under anonymity. They had not the courage to come out and say who was supplying the money for these broadcasts. They had not the courage to say by whom they were written. They had not the courage or the honesty to say the broadcasts were political propaganda-propaganda of the worst type any party has ever put out, because it was most insidious in its nature and constituted an abuse in the use of national radio facilities during a political campaign. But he, as Prime Minister at the time, permitted all that to go on. I tell him now that that sort of thing will not continue under either the present or any other radio commission in Canada.
Let me come to the next matter to which my right hon. friend referred. He seemed to think it was an extraordinary thing that the speech from the throne should contain the following clause:
It is proposed to restore to parliament its control over taxation and expenditure by end-



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ing all measures which have deprived members of the House of Commons of this control, and which have served to invest the executive with unwarranted arbitrary powers.
My right hon. friend asked if there was ever anything so silly. Well, it shows how far, long continued practice may come to influence one's attitude of mind. I am perfectly sure that five years ago my. right hon. friend would not have sought to take away from parliament its control over taxation and expenditure and then tenm as silly an effort made to restore it. My right hon. friend asks what control was taken away. Well, I think that during the last parliament there was sufficient protest from the opposition side of the house against the use of the blank cheque and of the peace, order and good government clause of the relief legislation to enable him to know what is being restored at the present time. My right hon. friend knows very well that, as far as the control of taxation and expenditure is concerned, the only way in which this House of Commons can exercise that control is by having estimates brought down in connection with all public expenditures, and by having supply voted in the form of appropriations which give in detail the amounts required and the precise purpose for which moneys are to be used. I wonder if this country realizes how much money has been spent under the authority of the blank cheque, which was obtained every year from parliament under the allegation that it was needed to meet an emergent condition, and whioh was obtained in one instance under closure, and which would have had to be obtained in subsequent sessions in bhe same manner but for the desire of the opposition, not to prolong discussion in this house unduly.
Let me give the figures. The total expenditures made by order in council under the relief acts, which gave the government this blank cheque and other arbitrary powers, up to November I, 1935, just a few days after the present administration came into office, amounted to $192,000,000; in other words, more than the total expenditure of Canada in any fiscal year up to the fiscal year 1914-15, the year of the beginning of the Great war. That is to say, up to the time of the Great war this country's total expenditure had never equalled in any one year the amount of money that my right hon. friend paid out of the public treasury without appropriations during the time he was in office. Not a dollar of that amount was scrutinized in advance by hon. members of this house, or presented in a form in which it could be examined and voted upon.
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The Address-Mr. Mackenzie King
Richard Bedford Bennett: Surely the right hon.
gentleman desires to say "annual."


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Not a bit; I stand by every word I have said. More than that, loans amounting to 195,000,000 were made by my right hon. friend. This House of Commons was not asked to approve those individual loans. This House of Commons was treated as though it did not exist. The only people who received loans were those to whom the Prime Minister decided to give them between sessions and after parliament had prorogued.
But that was not all. Guarantees were given as well-guarantees to banks, to different interests of one kind and another, totalling how much, do you suppose, Mr. Speaker? On November first last, no less than $160,000,000. One railway company got a guarantee of $60,000,000 just about two days after parliament had prorogued. Not a word was said to parliament while it was in session about the necessity of giving any such guarantee to this road. Other guarantees were made on an extensive scale. I will not take time to put them on record, though I might well do so. The total amount of these guarantees outstanding on November first, however, is worth noting-$160,000,000. These are all obligations that have still for the most part to be met. In other words, in loans and guarantees and expenditures there was a total obligation upon the treasury of $447,000,000, or nearly half a billion dollars. Over the outlay of this vast sum the House of Commons as such had no real control. The people of Canada are talking about the size of the national debt, about the tremendous obligation there is on the shoulders of the people in the matter of taxation. Here is how $447,000,000 is accounted for. Will anyone tell me that any such liabilities would have been incurred if this House of Commons had had the right, which is its first right, a right and a duty above all other rights and duties of the House of Commons, to supervise in the most careful way every dollar of public expenditure?
I have in my hand an authoritative treatise on parliamentary grants by EHirell. Let me read a paragraph or two to illustrate the truth of what I have been saying as to the rights and duties of the House of Commons. I quote from page 3:
The most ancient, as well as the most valued, prerogative of the House of Commons is the right of supreme control over taxation, to which the right to control issues is a natural corollary. The prohibition of raising taxes without parliamentary authority would' be nugatory if the proceeds, even of legal taxes, could be
fMr. Mackenzie King.]
expended at the will of the sovereign. The right, therefore, of appropriation was a logical consequence of the right of levying supplies. The chain of historical evidence undeniably proves that a previous and stringent appropriation, often minute and specific, has formed an essential part of the British constitution.
All that was violated by my right hon. friend, not for one day but for every day for five years. Yet now he says: Isn't it a silly thing to suggest the restoration to the House of Commons of a power that will protect the rights of the people and enable the house to fulfil its constitutional duty to see that these rights are preserved? Let me give a further paragraph, as it appears at page 9:
The supreme control of the Commons over public grants, as already mentioned, necessarily demands the complete right of control over the manner in which those grants are spent. This second right must be inseparable from the first if the control over the grants is to be effective.
Yet, what did my right hon. friend say when we asked that the grants being made to the different provinces be audited by the auditor general? He said that to propose anything of the kind would be an insult to the provinces. Let me read only one more brief quotation, as it appears at page 18:
All the rules as to financial procedure are measures intended to protect the house against itself, to prevent hasty grants and ill-considered increases in the responsibilities of the people, while at the same time such rules are the best safeguard of the minority against the autocracy of the majority.
That is what we had during all of the last five years,-autocracy of the majority, and no real security or protection of the rights of the people themselves.
Of all the paragraphs in the speech from the throne, in my view the one which undertakes to restore to the House of Commons its control over the expenditure of public moneys is the most important of all. There was nothing which contributed so much to the return to this parliament of Liberal members in such large numbers as the knowledge on the part of the Canadian people that if we were returned we would see to it that once again the control by the House of Commons over expenditures and taxation would be duly and fully restored.
My right hon. friend next touched upon the textile inquiry. A little later in the day he took exception to any question being raised about the validity of certain laws which had been referred to the supreme court. He said he did not see why that matter had to be brought' up, and that it would have been much more fitting if the statutes could have operated a little while until trouble developed

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somewhere and a suit was entered. However, when it comes to an inquiry into the conditions of employees in an establishment such as the one at Sherbrooke, when it comes to an investigation of the circumstances under which several hundred people without a day's notice were turned out in the middle of winter to shift for themselves, my right hon. friend says, "I wonder that the Minister of Justice did not see that that commission is unconstitutional."


Richard Bedford Bennett: No, I did not say that; pardon me again. I said that I wondered if the Minister of Justice had looked into the question of the validity of it. I did not say it was or was not, and I gave the reference to the Manitoba case.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am surprised that my right hon. friend was so keen to raise the point at all. If he had really been concerned with the well being of the employees of that great concern, and with the way in which the industry itself is carrying on, I think he would have been glad to see the inquiry proceed. The point I make is this: My right hon. friend was quite prepared to let the whole of his new deal legislation go into force at once' whether it was constitutional or otherwise, whether it was valid or invalid. Before the election he said, "I am so concerned with the well being of the working class in Canada that I do not care whether it is constitutional or not; I am going to see that this legislation is put on the statutes. Here, however, is one measure which is valid in every particular, and we find that at the first moment my right hon. friend is eager to take exception to the inquiry involved. If he had taken the trouble to look at the order in council-and I think he could have got it, if he had wished to have it, because I know he has a way of getting these documents from the privy council, whenever he wants them-


Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Speaker, I must
object to that statement. The statement is made that I have a method of getting documents from the privy council whenever I want them. The rule communicated to me by the Clerk of the Privy Council is that any orders in council passed during the five years we were in office he furnishes to me upon request, and that he had followed the same practice under the previous administration. I have received no document from the privy council' nor would I think of asking for any document of the privy council, except in the proper method, since the advent to office of this government. I must ask the right hon. gentleman to withdraw a statement which 12739- 6 J
would leave the impression that I had some method of getting from the privy council documents to which I was not entitled.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: What my right hon. friend has stated bears out what I have said. He has stated that he thought his practice was a correct one, and I am not taking exception to it. He knows the correct method, and if he had wished to have a copy of the order in council, had he not already seen it, he had but to follow the correct method, which he himself has just mentioned.
May I say to the leader of the opposition that he may rest his mind as to the validity of the powers given this particular commission. The commission has powers respecting not only one industry, or one province or any particular concern in one province. The language is broad; perhaps I should read it:
The minister further observes that in order to determine the responsibility of employers and to enable appropriate action to be taken, not only with regard to safeguarding the interests of employees and of the public, but also of the industry itself, it is essential for the government to be fu/l'ly advised with respect to all matters surrounding the operations and conduct of the industries immediately concerned and interrelated and allied industries.
That takes into account not only the textile industry at Sherbrooke but the textile industries throughout Canada; do not let that be forgotten. Let us not forget that the concern at Sherbrooke intimated that its action in suddenly thrusting out great numbers of employees was due to an arrangement between this government and Japan. If any arrangement between the Canadian government and Japan is going to operate in that way with respect to any industry in Canada, the sooner we find out the facts of the situation, the better. We intend to go very fully into the whole position of the textile industries in Canada, and to consider competition not only from Japan but from Great Britain and everywhere else. The company in Sherbrooke said it was necessary to take such action to save the situation. In other words, it seemed to be necessary to deprive the employees of their wages. The commission will be interested in attempting to ascertain if, during the time the employees were deprived of their wages, the bonuses, salaries and the like of officers of the company were also cut off. My right hon. friend talks about-yes, what is it?


Richard Bedford Bennett: I assume the right hon. gentleman in accordance with the rules will lay the order in council upon the table. Quotation by a minister from a public document necessitates its being laid upon the table.

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William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes, I shall lay It on the table, with pleasure.


Richard Bedford Bennett: So that we all may read it.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes; it has already been published in the papers. Possibly the simplest method would be to place it on Hansard. My right hon. friend may then feel that we are trying to do full justice to the situation. It is as follows:
Certified to be a true copy of a minute of a meeting of the committee of the privy council, approved by His Excellency the Governor General on the 27th January, 1936.
The committee of the Privy Council have had before them a report, dated 24th January, 1936, from the Minister of Finance, stating as follows:
On the 18th instant the following telegram, dated at Sherbrooke, Quebec, January the 18, 1936, and signed by Ant. Deslauriers, city clerk, on behalf of the city council of the city of Sherbrooke, was received by the Right Honourable the Prime Minister, and the Honourable the Minister of Finance:
" Special emergency meeting city council held to-day strongly ask that your government intervene immediately over the situation that has developed whereby our largest flat silk industries employing over a thousand hands has suddenly closed down leaving these people without employment Stop. Our city unable to cope with alarming situation and request your government take immediate steps to remedy this condition Stop. City cannot take care of such increased unemployment."
Also on the same date representations appeared in the press to the effect that according to word received from Sherbrooke uncertainty in the textile market, due in large part to Japanese competition in certain artificial silks, had forced the Dominion Textile Company to close its rayon plant at Sherbrooke, Quebec, and that the plant closed down would remain inactive until the present situation in the industry had been clarified. The Montreal Gazette of January 18, also contains the following relative to the foregoing representations:
"G. Blair Gordon. President of the Dominion Textiles, who is in the United States at present, last night confirmed the report in reply to a telegraph query. His message added ' Hope to reopen when we can see possibility of manufacturing goods which can be sold.' "
Upon receipt of the telegrams from the city council of Sherbrooke, an officer of the Department of Labour was immediately sent to Sherbrooke to report to the government upon the existing conditions. The report received by the government evidences the necessity, if the request of the city council of Sherbrooke is to be met and the present situation in the industry clarified, for investigation much more searching and extensive than is possible at the present time either by officials of any of the government departments or by the tariff board, and that it can most effectively be made by the appointment of a royal commission, clothed with powers to make the inquiry as searching and extensive as may be necessary.
The minister observes that the sudden cessation of operations in industrial establishments,

especially in the winter season, at a time of widespread unemployment, cannot fail to render more acute the distress and suffering of wage earners and their dependents, and also places upon municipalities and governments additional and unexpected financial burdens for relief. He is further of the opinion that industry generally and especially an industry which has had for years the benefit of the protection afforded by the customs tariff, should recognize its responsibility to carry on operations with due regard to its obligations to employees and to the public, and not to arbitrarily shut down its plants.
The minister further observes that in order to determine the responsibility of employers and to enable appropriate action to be taken, not only with regard to safeguarding the interests of employees and of the public, but also of the industry itself, it is essential for the government to be fully advised with respect to all matters surounding the operations and conduct of the industries immediately concerned and inter-related and allied industries;
That in this connection it is essential that full and complete information be available to the government covering a period of years with respect to costs, profits, wages, salaries and bonuses, tariff protection, investment, volume of production, and all other matters and things which together with information already available to the government will enable sound conclusions to be reached regarding the position of this and other branches of the textile industry in relation to British and foreign competition, and in particular, the extent to which the employer can reasonably and properly be expected to maintain employment over periods of temporary difficulty.
The minister recommends that for the purpose of making the said inquiry and examination, including the causes of the existing or any other such sudden cessation of industrial operations as may be referred to him, the Honourable W. F. A. Turgeon, of the Court of Appeal of Saskatchewan, be constituted a Royal Commissioner, under Part 1 of the Inquiries Act, Chapter 99 of the Revised Statutes of Canada. 1927, for the purpose of making such inquiry and examination, and that such commissioner have the special authority specified under part 3 of the said Act.
The minister further recommends that the commissioner be instructed to make his report as speedily as possible.
The committee concur in the foregoing recommendations and submit the same for approval.
E. J. Lemaire,
Clerk of the Privy Council.
After having read the order in council, it is perhaps not necessary to table it, but I shall be very glad to do so if that is desired. I think the order makes perfectly clear the purpose and intention of the government.
My right hon. friend had a great deal to say last session about state intervention. Now that the election is over and an act of state intervention of the character set forth in this order in council is taken, he immediately busies himself with raising objection to the particular form of state intervention applied

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in this instance. I am inclined to think this is the most effective form of state intervention possible with regard to those matters which affect the lives of human beings. If any industry thinks it is being adversely affected by any act of this government, all it has to do is to make known its desire to have a full inquiry made into the way in which its activities are being conducted, and it will get an inquiry with expedition.
We heard on the eve of the general election from more than one head of a great industry in this country-and I might have cited these instances had I felt inclined to do so this afternoon-that if a Liberal administration were returned and anything were done with respect to the tariff, there would be as a consequence an immediate shutting down of the industry involved, with consequent loss of Employment on the part of employees. In some instances, advertisements were circulated bearing upon them the names of the companies concerned, without question for the purpose of intimidating and of influencing their employees at the time of the general election. I gave my word at that time to the working men of this country that, if anything of that kind were attempted, it would not be long before the particular industry would be given every opportunity to show why it was necessary for it to take the action it did.
The day after this order in council was passed, the company at Sherbrooke found it possible to reopen. It issued a statement to the effect that, after all, it did not think the competition fr.om Japan was going to be so serious. I can imagine what we would have heard from my right hon. friend to-day if no action of that kind had been taken. I personally should not have been the least surprised to have seen the closing down of this particular industrial plant followed by several others. My right hon. friend would have waxed eloquent indeed on the effects of the arrangement made with Japan. But all he could say yesterday was that he would prophesy that two years hence we would be a sorry lot for having restored trade relations with a great country like Japan. He said that was only a prophecy, but he would make it nevertheless. Well, I do not take much stock in my hon. friend's prophecies. Five years ago he told the electors that he would end unemployment, but he had to admit yesterday that unemployment in Canada was worse at the time he went out of office than it had been at any other time in the whole of its history. In the circumstances, I do not think my right hon. friend's prophecies amount to very much.
Mr.. BENNETT: That is not what he said.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: His words will stand. We will see them in Hansard. I think I have given their purport.


Richard Bedford Bennett: No.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: It is fortunate we have Hansard because I notice that my right hon. friend every now and then denounces the press for printing things he never said.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Hear, hear.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: And there it ends; but, fortunately, the records of this House of Commons are kept where they are available to every hon. member, and we can see them for ourselves.
While on the question of our trade with Japan, may I say that the effect of the restoration of normal trade relations between Canada and Japan has been to put back to work thousands of men in the province of British Columbia and in other parts of this country. It has increased that purchasing power of which we have heard a good deal in recent years, which is so necessary to the people of Canada at this time. Instead of creating unemployment, it has been, along with another international agreement to which I shall refer a little later, a most important influence in helping to increase employment in industry, employment on the railways, and employment in many other directions.
My right hon. friend's next reference was to the legislation on unemployment. I shall not take up the time of the house at the moment in going into that question, because the bill itself will come before us very shortly. I should like, however, to direct attention to my right hon. friend's remarks with regard to the dominion-provincial conference, which discussed among other matters how most effectively the different provinces of the dominion and the municipalities might unite in solving the problem of unemployment. He said that he had never read a document so full of goodwill, so full of praise from one end to the other. May I tell my right hon. friend that good will is the basis of good work. The trouble with his administration in its relations with the provinces was that there never was a basis of good will. Good will is the thing above all others we have been seeking. We have it at last in this country as between the provinces and the dominion. Instead of ill will we have good will, in the effort to see what can be done to advance the commor interests of our country.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Ontario looks like it.
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William Lyon Mackenzie King: I shall not
say more at the moment with regard to the work of the dominion-provincial conference. The record is there and speaks for itself. Any hon. member who looks at it will have reason, I think, to marvel not only at the number of subjects dealt with, buit at the great care evidenced in the preparation of the agenda and the effective arrangements made for the consideration of the most important problems, as well as ait the very successful manner in which the conference was carried on during the period of an entire week.
My right hon. friend also spoke about the wheat question. I am going to leave it to one of my colleagues to reply to him on this particular subject. All I want to say in a word is this, that, in nine and a half weeks following its appointment, the old board made net sales of only 12,500,000 bushels of wheat, whereas the new board, appointed on December 3, 1935, in the first six weeks of its operations, made net sales of 65,500,000 bushels. This accomplishment is all the more noteworthy, in 'that it was achieved without disturbing the price structure. May I here remind my right hon. friend of what he said last night as to his colleagues being fully informed on all ' mattem. I remember our waiting in this house, not for a few days or weeks, but for months, until the right hon. gentleman could be here, where I am ait this moment, and tell his colleagues as well as the house what he was going to do with respect to the matter of the sale of wheat.


Richard Bedford Bennett: What he was going to do, certainly, because we had nott discussed the matter.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: No, it was all solely in my right hon. friends head. And yet he says thait hiis was a cabinet in which all members helped to make and control
policy.	.
The Bank of Canada was another subject to which reference was made. A MI is mentioned in the speech from the throne in connection with the Bank of Canada and it will be time enough to discuss that matter when we reach it.
As regards the reference to the supreme court of several enactments passed at the last session of parliament, the leader of the opposition criticized the Minister of Justice for having appointed counsel to 'Uphold the legislation I wonder what his criticism would have been if the Minister of Justice had appointed someone to oppose it. The Minister of Justice was kinder to my right hon. friend than I was prepared to be. I suggested to the minister that we ought to ask my right

hon. friend whether he would not accept a retainer, or, as he often generously acts without a retainer, w'hether he would not go before the supreme court and argue on behalf of his own legislation. The Minister of Justice said, however, that he thought that might put the right hon. gentleman in an embarrassing position. I must say I agreed with him, for if the legislation cou'ld noit be supported it would be indeed very embarrassing to the right hon. gentleman. I should, however, have liked to see my right hon. friend trying to defend that legislation before the court, and that for two reasons: In the first place, he would have done it very well, and in the second, I would wish him to feel that 'the desire of the present government was to give the legislation every possible opportunity thalt could be afforded to have its validity proved. That step at least has been taken, and I think my right hon. friend will agree with me that the government has adopted the right course in endeavouring to uphold to the utmost of its power the legislation which this parliament -put through. The fact that we have referred the legislation to the court, shows that we are carrying out what we had promised at the previous session we would do if we were returned to power.
I cannot agree with the leader of the opposition when he says that it would have been much better-nicer, I think' was the word he used-to have allowed all this legislation to remain on the statute books, until here and there actions were started and litigation commenced in the courts. I do not want to refer to a matter of domestic policy in another country, but I tMnk that possibly it is appropriate to call attention to the confusion and the difficulty that have arisen in the United States as a consequence of legislation which had been on the statute books and had been administered for a period of years being declared ultra vires by the supreme court. We have tried to avoid anything of the kind happening in Canada, and in doing so I believe we have taken an entirely right step.
There are only two other subjects to which I will refer before I conclude; they are the two which I imagine are uppermost in the minds of hon. members. The first is the Canada-United States trade agreement. That agreement will come up for very full discussion in the course of another few days. There is at the present time on the order paper a notice of motion which I have given asking the house to approve of the agreement. There will subsequently be introduced bills which will provide the necessary legisla-

The Address-Mr. Mackenzie King
tion for giving effect to all of its provisions. In due course, therefore, we shall have ample time to discuss the merits of this agreement.
What I wish to touch upon this afternoon is the impression which my right hon. friend sought last night to convey, that this agreement, so far as Canada is concerned, was the result of hasty and possibly immature action. He resented very strongly the fact that the government should have concluded, in something less than a month after its return to office, an agreement so far-reaching in its nature. He began by referring to the negotiations having extended over a period of weeks. He then reduced the period to days, and finally got down to the point where the agreement had been arrived at in an hour or two. If my right hon. friend had been aware of the facts he would have known that in those three weeks no government ever worked harder on any measure than did the present administration with respect to this particular agreement.
The mover of the address (Mr. Slaght) was kind enough yesterday to make special reference to myself in connection with the negotiation of that agreement. He gave to me personally all but exclusive credit. This I desire immediately to disclaim. There is no man in this House of Commons who is more conscious than I am of the fact that any power which the leader of a political party has comes in the main from his following. His power comes from the men and women who are his supporters and who have been his supporters through the years. If I have been able, in connection with the negotiation of this particular agreement, to play a part that has been helpful, I attribute it above all else to the fact that it was known, when I went to Washington, that for nearly seventeen years I had had the loyal and wholehearted support of the Liberal party-a party which from one end of Canada to the other had advocated a reciprocal agreement with the United States -and that at no time had the leader of any other government in this dominion behind him such a following as I had at the time I began the negotiation of the agreement. In other words, there was a guarantee at once that we were in earnest; that we meant business, and that we were in a position to carry out effectively what we might undertake to do.
Contrast the position of my right hon. friend? He had a couple of years within which to show his bona fides. He had all the time required to make perfectly clear what his following would do, what he was able to do, yet weeks, months, years slipped by, with nothing or very little in the way of
negotiation on his own part. Toward the end of last year there came the document which my right hon. friend put on Hansard last night. If that document meant anything, why did he not continue to proceed on the basis of negotiations that was laid down in it? He did not need to place that document on Hansard in order to have it known. He took good care to give it to the electorate at the beginning of the recent campaign. He took good care throughout the campaign to have it more or less inferred that he had been negotiating on the right lines: he was going to get concessions on lumber, on fish, on cattle, on milk and cream; he was going to get concessions on potatoes; he was going to get concessions on other things. It was all set out in this particular document. But in order to get it, it was necessary for him to get back into power. Now, was not that the fact?


Richard Bedford Bennett: No.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: It is an inference, then, that is very apparent.


Richard Bedford Bennett: No.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I say, and I
repeat, that my right hon. friend by his actions, in dilly-dallying as he did over a period of a couple of years in seeking to negotiate an agreement, gave the strongest reason to the people of the United States, and particularly its government, to believe that he was halfhearted about the whole project. Not only that: take his whole political life in relation to the matter of trade with the United States, and contrast it with the position of Liberal leaders in this House of Commons. He knows that since con-federationup to 1911 an effort had been made on the part of both political parties to get a reciprocal agreement with the United States. He knows that under one Liberal administration, that of the Hon. Alexander Mackenzie, an agreement was negotiated but was defeated by the senate of the United States. He knows also that under another Liberal government, the great administration of the Right Hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier, a splendid agreement was negotiated with the United States; and he knows, better than anyone else, that no one in Canada worked harder to defeat that agreement than he himself.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Hear, hear.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: And he says,
"Hear, hear." May I recall to him the words of the Right Hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier in reference to himself when he came into this house, I think it was-
88	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. Mackenzie King


Ernest Lapointe: In 1911.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: -as a young
member. Sir Wilfrid Laurier said that he thought my right hon. friend (Mr. Bennett) would live to see the day when he would regret having opposed a reciprocity agreement with the United States.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Oh, no.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Oh, yes, he
did: he would regret having done it, and he would come to see the wisdom of an agreement being negotiated with that country. That prophecy came true. It is not like the prophecies of my right hon. friend. He shakes his head and says "No." Then he explains his whole position, because he now makes it perfectly clear that he never actually intended to try to secure an agreement.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Speaker, I must once more rise to a point of order. The right hon. gentleman has no right to misrepresent me. I said, when he stated that the Right Hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier said I would live to regret it, I have not lived to regret the action I took in 1911, any more than Clifford Sifton did before he died. I have not lived to regret it. That, I repeat. That is all I desire to say.


Ernest Lapointe: That is a matter for a speech, not a question of order.


Walter Edward Foster: It is not a question of order.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It is a point of order to this extent, that he has no right to misrepresent what I said.


Walter Edward Foster: There is no point of order there.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: We have just heard what my right hon. friend has said with respect to his zeal in making a treaty with the United States. I wonder whether he still holds to the sentiment he expressed at the time he was opposing the reciprocity agreement of 1911. My right hon. friend does not say.


Richard Bedford Bennett: With respect to that
treaty, yes.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Well, let us see what my right hon. friend said at that time and see how his words would impress the government of the United States when my right hon. friend went to negotiate an agreement with them, or how they would impress the Canadian people as to his belief in the wisdom of an agreement of the kind. Speaking in this house on November 20, 1911, my right hon. friend said:

Mr. Speaker, the risk was real and the danger imminent. I doubt not that when the proposals to which I have referred were first introduced, they were regarded merely as trade proposals; but when it was ascertained that in their ultimate results they involved the whole future of Canada, then it was that the national spirit of our people was aroused. I venture to think that the right hon. gentleman who so successfully leads the opposition in this house would not have introduced those proposals if he could have foreseen that there would have arisen around them an agitation, the results of which were so vital to the imperial and national future of the country. While I mention the name of the right hon. gentleman, may I be permitted to tender to him my sincere congratulations upon his having attained another anniversary of his natal day, with the expression of the hope that he may be long spared faithfully and illustriously to serve the state in the position which he at present occupies.
Mr. Speaker, in that portion of this great dominion in which I am privileged to reside, a very substantial portion of our population has come from the great republic to the south, and one of the strongest reasons I had for opposing the reciprocity agreement was that it threw into the melting pot for solution a question that involved a problem in patriotism. When we remember that so large a portion of our population came from that great republic, where they inherited traditions that were at least not favourable to monarchial institutions; when they learned through the medium of the American press, that, however much their former political parties differed with each other, they showed unanimity in favour of these proposals, and when they found American public men preaching a doctrine that indicated that the consequences of this agreement would be the absorption of western Canada at least by the great republic, and at all events rendering impossible for all time the commercial and organic union of those overseas dominions and the motherland which comprise the British Empire, it was little wonder that these people allied themselves with those who were in favour of the reciprocity pact. But it is a pleasure for me to say on behalf of these new settlers that as soon as they discovered that the Canadian people were not in favour of the agreement, they responded to the prevailing sentiment, and made it apparent that they proposed to devote their time and energies to the upbuilding of this great country just as they had done in the land from which they came; and, as they are settlers who are accustomed to pioneer conditions, they are enabled, now that this question is settled for ever, to assist us in laying the foundations of a great state.
The question "settled forever"! No reciprocity with the United States as long as my right hon. friend had anything to do with it. That is the explanation of the remarks made by the present Postmaster General1 (Mr. Elliott) in the course of the last campaign: that it would be impossible for my right hon. friend to negotiate an agreement with the United States. Anyone who had declared

The Address-Mr. Mackenzie King
himself in those terms, and said he still held to them, would find it impossible to make a reciprocity agreement.
May I give another reason why there was strong cause for supposing that my right hon. friend would never succeed in negotiating an agreement. The people, not of this country alone but of other countries, know how he negotiated the Canada-United Kingdom agreement, and the kind of negotiator he was at that time.


An hon. MEMBER:: Not bad.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Not bad! It could not have been worse. I am not speaking for the moment of the terms of the agreement; I am speaking of the methods of my right hon. friend in negotiating it. It was generally known as well that my right hon.. friend had gone out of his way to help to create, or at least to prolong, a trade war with another great country, Japan. One who thinks in terms of economic nationalism, who advocates that we must have at least some form of commercial conflict with other nations, is not likely to be the person whom any country is going to trust and in whom it will have faith when it comes to the negotiation of a trade agreement.
I was more than amazed when I heard the leader of the opposition suggest that the President of the United States, while negotiating with him, might be a party to an agreement with another political party in this country. I was amazed that he could even think of such a thing. I am sure the president must be relieved that his government did not get very far with my right hon. friend, if that is the sort of view he entertains with respect to the responsibilities of one holding the highest position in his land. It was not worthy of my right hon. friend.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Now, Mr. Speaker, I will have to raise the question. The question of order, neatly put, is this: Has any speaker the right to misrepresent a statement made by another? It is represented that I suggested yesterday that the President of the United States had some form of arrangement or agreement with the right hon. gentleman with respect to a trade agreement. I stated yesterday positively that I did not hold any such view and could not possibly hold any such view. I do suggest to you, sir, that the right hon. gentleman must not be permitted to make statements containing three-quarters of the truth and then make statements that are wholly inaccurate with respect to what I have said. I call upon the chair to say to the speaker, whoever he may be, that he must not
attribute to other members statements they did not make.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: On the point of order, if it be such, may I read what my right hon. friend said last night as reported in Hansard at page 60:
The Postmaster General (Mr. Elliott), in the speeches delivered during the campaign, said that the President of the United States would not negotiate with the Bennett government, and the Prime Minister of this country said that he would negotiate a treaty in ninety days. Does that mean that they had an arrangement that no agreement was to be made with that government, or does it mean this-
Mr. Mackenzie King: Shame.
Mr. Bennett: I beg your pardon?
Mr. Mackenzie King: I say "shame" to the right hon. gentleman when he insinuates that a government with which he was dealing would enter into such an arrangement with another government.
Mr. Bennett: That is what I am trying to say.
Mr. Mackenzie King: And I say, "Shame."
And I repeat it at this moment.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I say again that the inference that has been drawn from the statement is not the proper inference. On page 61 of Hansard my right hon. friend will also find this:
Mr. Bennett: ... and I decline to believe that the government of tihe United States was a party to any arrangement that would reflect upon itself. I say, shame; I agree with the Prime Minister; but the shame is to those who went about the country and tried to induce the people to believe that the United States would not carry on negotiations with the Conservative government of the day, but that there had to be a change of government to make a bargain with the United States. That is what I say.
There is the statement.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Perhaps I ought to have read the other statement made by my right hon. friend as reported at page 61, at the top of the page just before what he has now quoted:
I ask this question: Did he make that statement by reason of having any arrangement with the United States government or anyone connected with it.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Exactly; that is what I
say.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Very well,
I shall not seek to say more. Let me say to my right hon. friend that I feel very much relieved that he now repudiates what he said yesterday, and that he has made it perfectly clear, that as the leader of a political party in this country,-he was not insinuating that the President of the United States had entered into an agreement with some other party while

The Address-Mr. Mackenzie King
negotiating with my right hon. friend. I accept my right hon. friend's statement; I am very happy to accept it.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Once more I have to say-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Hon. gentlemen opposite may have a huge majority, but the rules of this house are going to be observed. We have rights in this chamber, and hon. gentlemen opposite may as well begin to understand that through force of numbers and power they are not going to take from us, however small we may be, any of our rights. My point is this: At page 61 I said yesterday positively that I made no such statement, that I declined to believe any such statement. When the right hon. gentleman says he accepts my statement of to-day, that was simply the statement I made yesterday, and the right hon. gentleman has no right thus to misstate what I said.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Well, Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to leave myself and the leader of the opposition in the judgment of the house and to allow the English language to speak for itself.
What I really desired more particularly to tel! the house is something of the nature of the negotiations which took place. As I have said, my right hon. friend has done his utmost to create the impression that the agreement was reached in a hasty manner and without due consideration. The present administration was returned to office on October 23. October 24 was Thanksgiving day. I attended Thanksgiving service in the morning and like a good many others, in expressing my thanks to providence for its many blessings, I included thanks for the country's deliverance from the government which for the five previous years had been in office. In the afternoon of that very first day of office, I called on the United States Minister to Canada, Mr. Norman Armour. I told Mr. Armour that I had come at once to confer with him because my colleagues and I regarded as the most important of all the questions before the people of Canada that of the negotiation of a trade agreement between the United States and Canada. I asked Mr. Armour if he would assist me in arranging an interview with the President of the United States at the earliest possible moment.
On the following day in council my colleagues and I immediately began to go over the whole matter of trade negotiations between Canada and the United States. As my right hon. friend very rightly said yesterday,

everything that could be known with respect to the effect of the United States tariff upon Canada, and of the Canadian tariff upon the United States, and what was possible in the way of an agreement, within certain limits, had been worked out with great care by the members of the public services of this country and of the United States. All that ground had been gone over during the preceding year or two, and the information was immediately available to the administration. Most of it, not all, but a good part of it, had been available to my right hon. friend for nearly a year before. It naturally also became available to my colleagues and myself the moment we came into office. I want to be the first to express my appreciation of all that was done in a preliminary way, and done with great efficiency and exceptional skill, by the officials of the public service of this country.
We went over all the material very carefully. We had many meetings of council dealing with the question. What was even more to the point my colleagues the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe), the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning), the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Euler) and the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Usley) along with myself were constituted a committee of the cabinet to go very fully, and in detail, along with members of the service into the different matters which had to do with the questions that would come up in discussion with the United States. Within a day or two after we had gone over the ground with the officials here and had seen, as far as it was permissible to see, what had been placed before our predecessors in office, we immediately sent the officials of the Departments of External Affairs, Finance, Trade and Commerce, and National Revenue, who had been dealing with these matters, to Washington to get into touch with officials in the United States. We pointed out what concessions we were prepared to make, and what concessions we thought we ought to obtain. After our officials had taken up matters there with officials of the United States government, keeping in touch with our government over the long distance telephone and also by telegraph, as the United States officials were keeping in touch with their government, I went to Washington myself to have the interview with the president which had previously been arranged for the earliest possible date. My right hon. friend says that the press stated that I was leaving Ottawa on account of my health. I do not think the press said anything about my health; I believe it was said that I was going to take

The Address-Mr. Mackenzie King
a short vacation largely to get a chance to think over many matters after having had a very strenuous time in opposition, in a general election and in the formation of the government. I do not believe any one in the country thought that was anything out of the way.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Hear, hear.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: But may I say this; I was determined to take no vacation until I was perfectly satisfied it was going to be impossible to effect a beneficial agreement with the United States or until an agreement had been secured. I might immediately upon the formation of the government have gone on a vacation. I admit I was pretty tired at the time, but I felt the important thing for the people of Canada, and the most important of all the immediate duties of the government, was to see if we could work out a mutually beneficial trade agreement with the United States. I knew that every day that passed was going to make it more difficult to effect an agreement. We all know that as a government approaches the time of a general election it is more difficult for it to carry on negotiations. We all know that as a government is about to meet its parliament or congress, its ministers and others are more busily engaged than at other seasons, and with congress about to assemble the first week of January, with the general election coming in the United States this year, I believed there was not a moment to be lost, and my colleagues felt the same. We therefore devoted our time to the work of this agreement to the exclusion of everything else that it was possible to exclude.
It is not the number -of years, it is not the number of months that are taken to do a thing; it is the intensity of effort and the will and determination given to a task that count in negotiations of this sort. As I have said, every hour, every moment of my time and much of the time of most of my colleagues was occupied with these matters until the day I went to Washington to confer with the president, and pretty much all thereafter until I returned to sign the agreement. When I was fortunate enough to meet the president our talks together were in the nature of interviews finally to determine what could and would be done. Every phase of the situation had, as I have already said, been reviewed with the departments of government in the United States by their own ministers, matters had been reviewed with the different departments here by our ministers, I mean the departments
immediately concerned with the questions involved in the agreement, and then by the cabinet as a whole. Before I left, we knew exactly what we were prepared to do. There were a few matters outstanding. These matters had an important bearing upon any final arrangement that might be made. It was these matters that above all others I had to discuss with the President of the United States.
After I had had my conference with the president, the committees which had been active here and in Washington came together again and worked as hard as they possibly could, night as well as day, until finally we were able to iron out all the difficulties that had presented themselves up to that time, and to reach the terms of a final agreement on the night of Saturday, November 9. My colleagues knew how far I was at liberty to go before I left. I wished to make perfectly sure that they would know every detail before the final agreement was effected. I therefore returned to Ottawa immediately after reaching the point where I had an agreement in such form that it simply awaited the approval of the government here, having had the approval of the government of the United States before I left. I asked members of council to meet me early Monday morning November 11, which was Armistice day. I do not often do public work on Sunday, but I did ask two or three of my colleagues to meet me on my return to Ottawa on Sunday night, the Minister of Finance, the Minister' of Trade and Commerce and the others I have mentioned, so that I might at that stage go with them in detail into the different points that had come up for further consideration. When the cabinet met on Monday we were in a position in a very short time to give our unanimous consent to the agreement which had been arrived at. Thereafter it had to be put into final shape for formal signature, a not inconsiderable task in itself. I mention these things in order to make it perfectly clear that the agreement as it was arrived at was the result, first of all, of the work which had been done by members of the public service of Canada, work which had been done in part under the auspices of my right hon. friend, and the importance of which I wish to be the first to acknowledge; work which was materially aided, may I say, by the legations both here and in Washington. And that is another feature I should like to bring to the attention of hon. members. I do not believe it would have been possible to have made such an agreement in so short a time but for the good will which prevailed on the part of our

The Address-Mr. Mackenzie King
friends in the United States. legation here, the good will which prevailed towards the United States on the part of our representatives at Washington, and the faot that in these legations we were able to come into immediate touch with- each other personally at a moment's notice instead of having to negotiate by correspondence.
I leave the matter there. When we come to the discussion of the agreement itself I shall then discuss its merits. But may I say to the house at this moment, that I believe the agreement which has been reached between the United States and Canada is one which will be productive of infinite good to both countries. I shall go further and say that I believe the action taken by the United States and Canada in negotiating this agreement will help to make for a better condition of things in other countries and other parts of the world. During these last few years the different countries of the world have been going mad through basing their actions on a false doctrine of economic nationalism, through having nothing to do with their neighbours, regarding trade as a species of warfare, instead of a matter of mutual interest. This agreement marked an improvement in that position, a complete change to another direction. I believe we will live to see the day when this agreement between the United States and Canada, will be held up as marking a new beginning in the relations between the countries of the world; a new beginning in the direction of more in the way of trade and of international friendship; and of less in the way of those things which make for ill to the world at large.
Before concluding I desire to say a word on the question of sanctions arising out of the Italo-Ethiopian war, and Article XVI of the Covenant of the League of Nations. Here again, I wish to reserve until a more appropriate time the discussion which this house will doubtless desire to have upon that subject. All that I shall deal with at the moment is the inference which I thought my right hon. friend sought to convey yesterday that Doctor Riddell, who is the advisory officer of the government at Geneva, in having proposed that oil and some other commodities should be added to those already included in the economic sanctions against Italy, was acting under instructions from the present [DOT] administration. My right hon. friend went out of his way to say that he had had long experience with Doctor Riddell, and that he could think of no officer who had been more careful in the matter of taking directions from his government, who had been more punctilious

about telegraphing for instructions and the like than Doctor Riddell had been. I am sure the impression left on the minds of those who heard my right hon. friend was that Doctor Riddell, with respect to this all important matter, at least must have communicated with the government and received substantial instructions from the government.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Quite the opposite.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: In order to make I he position clear may I give the house very briefly the main stages which have to be taken into account in considering this question of sanctions.
On October 7, 1935, the Council of the League of Nations concurred in the conclusion of the Committee of Six that Italy had resorted to war in disregard of its covenants. On October 11, 1935, the assembly of the league passed a resolution taking cognizance of the action of the council, calling attention to article 16 and recommending the establishement of a coordination committee to advise on sanctions to be applied. Between October 11 and October 19 the committee of coordination recommended the imposition of four economic and financial sanctions. Between the same dates, October 11 and October 19-all the dates are of course, in 1935-the Canadian delegation to the League of Nations concurred in the assembly resolution and participated in the committee discussion and recommendations. I ask you to notice, Mr. Speaker, that all the dates to which I have thus far referred were during the time my right hon. friend was Prime Minister and while his government was in office. The present administration did not take office until October 23. Prior to October 23, in fact as late as October 19, the Canadian delegation, the delegation which my right hon. friend had appointed and to which he had been giving instructions, concurred in the assembly resolution and participated in the committee discussions and recommendations.
When the present government took office we were immediately confronted with the recommendations of the committee, and our first duty was to say whether Canada would carry out these recommendations, whether we would apply sanctions with respect to the export of arms, credits to Italy, imports from Italy and the export of certain key products to Italy. On October 29 I issued a statement to the effect that Canada would apply these sanctions. The sanctions were enforced by Canada on the following dates:	Embargo
on the export of arms, October 31, 1936; prohibition of credits to Italy, November 15,

The Address-Mr. Mackenzie King
1935; embargo on imports from Italy, November 15, 1935; embargo on exports of certain key products to Italy, November 15, 1935.
That in a word is the whole story, apart from the feature to which special reference was made by my right hon. friend. He said that the hon. Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe), who was acting Prime Minister during the time I was absent, was wrong in having issued a statement to the effect that the proposal to impose an oil sanction was not the proposal of the government of Canada but was one which had been made by Doctor Riddell on his own responsibility. Let me say at once that I take full responsibility for what the acting Prime Minister did and said during the time of my absence. I would do so in any event; but I do so particularly because before taking the action he did my hon. friend and colleague communicated with me in Georgia where I was on vacation, and I expressly stated to him that I thought he should inform the people of Canada that the action with respect to oil sanctions taken at Geneva, which was being stated by the press to have been the action of the government of Canada, was not in fact the action of the government of Canada but that of the committee of the league itself.	[DOT]
That is the whole story, except as to whether or not it was a fact Doctor Riddell acted on his own authority or was acting under instructions from the government. Let me say at once that I agree with my right hon. friend when he says that Doctor Riddell is a very efficient public servant. I think on many occasions he has rendered Canada admirable service at Geneva. I have reason to believe that up to the time about which I am to speak he had been scrupulously careful about waiting until he had received instructions before taking action. I must say that having held that opinion of him, I had full confidence that nothing would be done at Geneva which might be construed as having been done in the name of Canada which the government of Canada itself had not authorized in the first instance. What was my amazement when on reading a morning paper I found that Doctor Riddell at Geneva was reported to have proposed to add oil, coal and steel to the list of commodities which by sanctions were to be prohibited from export to Italy. No instructions whatever had been sent to him authorizing anything of the kind. I immediately asked the under secretary of state if he could throw any light on the matter. I ascertained that a communication had come from Doctor Riddell
, saying that a question was likely to be raised at the league, with respect to the particular commodities to which I have referred, and asking what he was to do with respect to them. I recalled then having had this partir cular point mentioned and having directed that word was immediately to be sent that no action of any kind was to be taken by Doctor Riddell without specific instructions from the government. I asked whether that communication had been sent, and was informed that it had been sent within an hour after receipt of the communication from Doctor Riddell. So that so far as the present administration is concerned I say we gave specific direction to Doctor Riddell that he was to do nothing in, the matter of extending sanctions without express direction from the government itself.


Abraham Albert Heaps: What was the date of the motion made by Doctor Riddell at the League of Nations?


Richard Bedford Bennett: It was not a motion; it was only a suggestion.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I believe I can ascertain the date, but may I say to the hon. member that it was a suggestion or motion made in the committee of coordination. Speaking from memory I believe the date was either November 2 or November 4, but I shall seek to advise the hon. member accurately.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Was the date of that suggestion by Doctor Riddell prior to the statement of the right hon. gentleman to the effect that he and his government were in favour of sanctions?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have already stated that the government's action on sanctions was made public by myself on October 29. It was November 2 or November 4, I am not positive as to the date that Doctor Riddell took the action to which I have referred.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Would Doctor Riddell's action at the League of Nations be equivalent to carrying out the intention of the government as expressed by the statement of the Prime Minister?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: No; the action of the government had specific reference to an embargo on the export of arms, the prohibition of credit to Italy, the embargo on imports from Italy, and the embargo on certain key products to Italy, all of which were definitely named and set forth, and had been decided upon by the committee of coordination at Geneva.

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May I say to my right hon. friend, because [DOT] I understand his difficulty in appreciating the situation, that the committee of coordination at Geneva was not a League of Nations committee in the sense in which I have no doubt he regards it. It was not a committee of the assembly nor a committee of the council. It was a committee of representatives of different countries represented at Geneva who took under review the question of deciding what particular sanctions the different countries that were representatives of the league would agree upon. This committee set up a further committee of eighteen.


Mr. CAHAN:: Was not that committee
set up by the council?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: By the president of the committee.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Quite so.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The president himself named this subcommittee of the coordination committee.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: It was action agreed upon
by the council, I understand.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I shall not
contradict my hon. friend at the moment, but I am pretty sure I am right and that he is mistaken, and that it was not a committee that was approved formally by the council at all. However, the committee as I say took under review from October 11 to 19 in the manner I have described the question of what particular sanctions should be applied, and sought to ascertain through communication with the different governments reipresented at the league whether or not they would be agreeable to these particular sanctions. When ' agreement was found to exist between practically all the countries that were members of the league, then the different countries were notified of the decision that it would be desirable to have the sanctions imposed, and each country took its own action on its own authority, as my right hon. friend yesterday said it was its duty to do. In other words, there bad been a violation of the covenant and the different members of the league had an obligation to impose certain penalties as a result of that particular violation.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Would the right hon. gentleman explain what Doctor Riddell said or did or moved or suggested?-because there is some doubt in my mind.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am coming to that. Doctor Riddell's statement of what he said was this. He had understood that the question of adding oil, coal, iron, copper-


Richard Bedford Bennett: Steel.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: -steel and one or two other commodities was to come up for consideration on a particular day-I think it was November 3-and he sent a telegram stating that the question was likely to come up and asking for instructions. The answer was sent to him, as I have said, within an hour after this communication had been received, telling him to take no action at all, to exercise no initiative in any way in a matter of the kind; to wait for instructions from the government before acting on any of these matters. It so happened that within a very short time after Doctor Riddell had sent his first cable the question came up, wholly he says unexpectedly.


Richard Bedford Bennett: In the committee.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: In the committee. He had thought it would be another day or two before it would come up, but coming up in this unexpected way he did not wait until he had received an answer to his first cable but took it upon himself to make the proposal that oil and certain other commodities should be added to the list of articles which were to be prohibited export to Italy.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Was it a suggestion or a proposal, may I ask the right hon. gentleman?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think possibly much depends upon the value to be attached to either word. It was a suggestion; it was a proposal; I take the terms as being more or less synonymous. What I want to bring out very clearly is this, that Doctor Riddell as regards the action he took says, and I think quite rightly, that he was not in any sense to be regarded as acting for Canada, that he was simply acting as a member of a committee on which he had been asked to serve and on which he had been working with other members.


Richard Bedford Bennett: And whose proceedings were private, as I understand it.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I understand that the proceedings, as my right hon. friend says, were private or rather were supposed to be private. May I say this, which I think should be made quite clear with respect to the question of oil being added to the list of sanctions. That matter had been proposed before Doctor Riddell proposed it, by one of the European countries. As a matter of fact, from what he says to me, it seemed to have been taken for granted generally that oil would be included in the sanctions, and

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apparently oil received at that time very little in the way of discussion or consideration at all. The discussion took place more particularly in reference to copper and in reference to derivatives of natural products. There sSems to have been a difference of view between members as to whether the sanctions should be confined to natural products or whether they should also include derivatives, and in order, as it were, to equalize the matter between the different countries Doctor Riddell as a member of the committee says that he made the suggestion he did, and made it with the best of intentions and in all good faith.
That I think is the whole story. I believe that Doctor Riddell thought he was doing what was right, that his intentions were entirely right. I do not criticize him on that score at all, but I do say that he had no authority and no right to take any step that was at all likely to be of importance in a critical situation such as there was in Europe at that time without specific instructions and authority from the government of Canada, especially as it was impossible to have the action he took at Geneva interpreted otherwise than as part of the action of the government of this country. When the statement appeared the government immediately communicated with Doctor Riddell and reprimanded him for the action he had taken. He was told in plain language that he had exceeded his authority, that he should not have taken the step he did, and that he was not to take any further action without most careful and full instructions. I have since so expressed myself to Doctor Riddell in Ottawa. On receipt of the government's cable Doctor Riddell immediately cabled back regretting that he had by his action embarrassed the government. I think he embarrassed more than the government. I think his action served to embarrass the country as a whole, and to embarrass to some extent, although it may have been well intended, the whole situation in Europe.
My right hon. friend says that we should not have taken any further step in the matter. May I say that when we became aware of Doctor Riddell's statement and of what he had done, we considered very carefully whether we should not immediately publicly repudiate his act, and it was only because we were most anxious not to take any step which might possibly embarrass the situation in Europe or which might appear even remotely to indicate an exception on the part of Canada to what was being done by other parts of the British empire, that we refrained from taking any action of that
kind. In addition to that we were anxious to hear from Doctor Riddell himself the circumstances surrounding his action and to know fully from him what it was that caused him to take the action he did. We wanted to know all the circumstances pertaining thereto. For these reasons-and I think they were good reasons, wise reasons-nothing further was said at the time about the matter.
If other countries had referred, as they should have done, to the action taken at that time by the committee as the action of a committee and not as the action of any member of the committee or of any particular country, or government, nothing further would need to have been said. But the situation wholly changed when after a short time the press of England and of Europe began to refer from day to day to the proposed application of an oil sanction as the especial desire of the government of Canada, and gave to it the designation of the Canadian proposal, and when representatives of the British and other governments at Geneva were being told that the proposal was Canada's proposal and that they should hasten their action because Canada was anxious and insistent in the matter. I do not know whether hon. members realize the extent to which that impression was being created throughout Europe. Let me read some of the references as they appeared in the British press. The News Chronicle of November 4 has the following:
Far the most interesting event at Saturday's sitting of the committee was Canada's proposal that the list of key products to be barred to Italy should be extended so as to include oil, petrol, coal, iron and steel. We hope this body will proceed at once to examine and report upon how far general acceptance can be obtained for the Canadian proposal.
And on November 5:
The ban on these exports proposed by the new Liberal government of Canada will not come into force ... until the conditions exist for making effective. The proposal originally made by Canada to place an embargo on these and other products ...
The Morning Post of November 5 carried the following:
Oil and coal sanctions. Canada's proposal discussed.
The Canadian proposal is in a way the touchstone of the practical value of economic sanctions.... It is also of interest that Chile made certain reservations this morning on the Canadian proposal.
I quote next from the Observer of November 4:
Canada's new proposal. Serious effect on Italy.
The most important proposal before the
committee of eighteen to-day came from Canada, who brought forward the suggestion that

The Address-Mr. Mackenzie King
petroleum and its derivatives, coal, iron, cast iron and steel, be added to the list of banned exports to Italy.
Mr, CAHAN: Are these cables from Geneva or are they editorial comments?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: These are articles which appeared in the newspapers of England. I have quoted from the News Chronicle, the Morning Post and the Observer. I will give one from the Daily Telegraph of November 4:
Ban on coal and oil urged. Canada's move at Geneva.
Canada, supported by Great Britain, to-day proposed that exports to Italy and to Italian possessions of oil and its by-products, coal, cast iron and steel, should be prohibited.
Next I quote from the London Spectator of November 22:
No rapid results can be looked for unless the extension of the list of key products proposed by Canada is agreed on.
And on November 29:
Canada, very properly dissatisfied with a list of key commodities from which the master key was absent, proposed that petrol and coal should be added, provided that the non-league states were willing to cooperate.
These articles lion, gentlemen will I think agree, are not at all uncertain in the emphasis they place on the proposal being one, not of an individual, not of a committee, but of the government of Canada, and of the present federal government as distinguished from all preceding governments.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: It is simply an exemplification of Geneva politics.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend knows a good deal about that, and he can speak with some degree of authority.' He has asked about dispatches from Geneva. I have one or two which I might read and which appeared in our own Canadian newspapers. I quote the following dispatch from Geneva, dated November 5, which came through the Associated Press:
An official communique said a Canadian proposal adopted by the sub-committee provided that the list of "key products" barred to Italy should be extended by various articles "as goon as conditions necessary to render this extension effective have been realized."
Then there is a dispatch dated London, November 26, by the Canadian Press:
Official quarters mentioned that Britain already agreed in principle to the proposal at Geneva of Doctor W. A. Riddell of Canada, that coal and oil be added to the list of products not to be sent to Italy, when such an embargo could be made effective.

Then there is a dispatch from Geneva, November 26, Canadian Press-Havas:
League of Nations circles believed to-night an oil embargo against Italy will go into effect early in December, in conformity with Canada's proposal to the League sanctions committee.
I might quote a great many more, but I think that what I have quoted is sufficient to show why, when the press, not only of England and Europe but of all the countries of the world, began to refer to the matter of the application of oil sanctions as Canada's proposal, a proposal of the Canadian government, the time had come, having regard to the critical situation that was known to exist at that moment in Europe, to make very clear, so far as Canada was concerned, that it was not Canada's proposal, that it was not the Canadian government's proposal, but that it was simply the proposal of an individual member of a committee and should have been known, if it was to be designated at all as a proposal, as that of the committee which had been appointed to review these matters.
What did Sir Samuel Hoare say, speaking as Foreign Secretary in the British House of Commons, as to how this particular proposal should have been designated? I quote from a report that appears in the London Times of December 6, 1935:
As to the embargo upon oil, about which there has been so much public discussion, I need only say that, as in the whole field of collective action, so in this particular part of it, we are prepared to play our part. The League has already agreed to the embargo in principle. Great Britain has already agreed to it in principle. I should like to make it quite clear that no one government is any more responsible than another for this collective decision, or indeed for any of the sanctions proposals. These proposals are put forward by subcommittees on which many governments are represented. They are laid before the Committee of Eighteen on the responsibility of the Whole subcommittee from which they come.
If that statement had been made some time before, it would not have been necessary for the Minister of Justice, in my absence, to make a statement which I would have made myself had I been here; but it was after the statement was made by the Minister of Justice, making perfectly clear that this proposal was not the proposal of the Canadian government or, in any particular of Canada., but was the proposal of the committee, that the British Foreign Secretary at the time saw the wisdom and the desirability of making that abundantly plain to everyone in Europe and elsewhere, wherever his utterance might reach.
What my hon. colleague the Minister of Justice did was exactly what the British Foreign Secretary did in the statement I have

The Address-Mr. Mackenzie King
read. He issued a statement of fact, which made it perfectly clear, without commenting in any way at all on the merits of the proposal, but dealing exclusively with its origin, that this sanction proposal was not a Canadian proposal but was one of the committee of the league. He simply stated the truth.
Now I ask hon. members of this house: do they think it was not desirable for the Canadian government to make the truth perfectly clear, particularly at the time? After all apart from other considerations there is such a thing as a sense of proportion in international affairs as in all else. Do hon. members think that it is Canada's role at Geneva to attempt to regulate a European war and to say what other countries are to do with respect to the manner in which a European was is to be carried on? I think it appalling to contemplate the possible consequences of even such action being taken by any representative of this country in Geneva; and not desiring that Canada should appear in any such light or be placed in any such light, the government took good care to make clear the position, as it did.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Is there any difference between the responsibility of a suggestion being made by a member of this committee, who happened to be the representative of Canada, and subsequent acquiescence in and approval of the whole report or proposal of the committee?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: There is a very great deal of difference, and my hon. friend knows there is. The question of approval is a matter for consideration. I am glad my hon. friend has interrupted me, because it will help to make the matter quite clear in an all important particular which is evidently in his mind and of which I have not spoken as yet. The question of oil sanctions has not yet been approved. There is as yet no acquiescence.


Richard Bedford Bennett: By anybody?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: By anybody. I cannot make that too clear, that whether there will be an actual application of oil sanctions remains yet to be considered. When that proposal comes before this country, if it does come, it will be considered on its merits. Up to the present time there has been no proposal for application made and there has been no acquiescence in any proposed application. What we wished to make perfectly clear was the exact position of Canada with regard to the origin of a proposal which is still being considered.
May I add this: my right hon. friend has
referred to what he read in a paper as he went through the Panama canal about the action of-


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: May I interrupt? I was
probably mistaken, because I was away myself, and what I read I read in the papers. But I understood that after this suggestion had been made in committee, and made public, the leading nations, England, France, others, concurred in this sanction being applied, the only reservation being an inquiry as to the time and circumstances under which it should be applied.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: After the committee had considered this matter they communicated with different countries to ascertain whether they would approve an oil sanction. My hon. friend is right in saying that countries were circularized to that effect, but few replied.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The subcommittee of the co-ordinating committee actually reported in favour of it, and had the statement made by Sir Samuel Hoare been made by the Minister of Justice I do not think anyone could have made any complaint. But it was the terms in which the statement was made that I was speaking of yesterday.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Now my right hon. friend is changing his ground entirely. It is now a question of the terms. I am very glad, however, to have my right hon. friend, say that all he objected to was the terms in which the matter was referred to rather than the matter itself. I am very glad to know that that is my right hon. friend's view. In other words, he thinks it was wholly proper that the government of Canada should have made a statement similar to that which was made by Sir Samuel Hoare, and which made it perfectly clear that this proposal was not Canada's proposal or the Canadian government's proposal.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I think what should have been done was exactly what Sir Samuel Hoare did-to say that any of these proposals emanating from the subcommittee in the report to the main committee were the proposals, not of any government, but of the subcommittee reporting to the committee. I think that would have been the proper thing. But it was vastly different from what was said.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: When I was interrupted-


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I beg pardon. I was simply seeking information.

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William Lyon Mackenzie King: I know that my hon. friend is always more than polite, particularly towards myself. May I say that when for the moment I stopped speaking I was referring to what the leader of the opposition said with regard to the effect on his mind of what he read in a paper as he was going through the Panama canal; the fact that something had been said in an Italian paper, drawing its own inferences and conclusions from the statement that had been issued at Ottawa. I would like to ask my right hon. friend and other hon. members of this house, knowing the very critical condition of affairs in Europe at that time, and that, by pressing the matter of oil sanctions at that stage, a situation might have arisen in Europe the like of which has not been known since the great war, whether this government would have been kept free from criticism if it had not made known that this was not a Canadian proposal but was a proposal of the whole committee. I am not at all sure that, when the whole story comes to be told, it may not be discovered that, but for the action of the government of Canada in this particular matter, at that particular time, the whole of Europe might have been aflame to-day. What would then have been said of "Canada's proposal"? That is a matter worth considering. I had all this very much in my mind when the other day I was speaking of the appalling consequences of the possible result of words spoken, or action taken, without mature consideration and due authority.
I think I have covered all that I wish to say on that matter at the present time. There is one further subject to which I ought to refer, because it was a promise made by my right hon. friend, and I am afraid it is one that he is apt to overlook. He was critical of the statement I issued on the night of the general elections, October 14, and he said he was going to ask some one of his followers to put this statement on Hansard. I have noticed very often that when my right hon. friend wants to evade a subject and not have it come up again, he states what he is going to do at some other time, and then it is not done. I do not want to have him trouble any of his immediate following, and on the other hand I do not want this statement to go unnoticed; so with his permission and that of the house, I will conclude what I have to say by reading the statement myself. I think it admirably sums up the significance of the recent campaign, and indicates pretty clearly the will and wish and views of the people of Canada.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Is that the statement I referred to yesterday? Is it the full statement? The statement I had in mind seems rather longer than that.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: No. I know my right hon. friend will regret the length of this statement, but it is the one to .which he referred:
I thank the people of Canada for the confidence they have to-day expressed in Liberal principles and policies, in the Liberal party, and in myself as its leader. The Liberal party has placed its trust in the people. The people to-day have reciprocated that trust in abundant measure. It will not be betrayed.
I congratulate the members of the Liberal party on the splendid campaign they have waged. We have been attacked on all sides, and we have won on all fronts. To-day's overwhelming victory is the response of the people made effective through organized effort in a great cause, which was begun the moment the Liberal party went into opposition in 1930, and which has been carried forward with increasing vigour and determination. In this great effort, men and women, young and old, have equally shared. It has been furthered by a strong and helpful Liberal press; and by efficient organization in all parts of Canada- from the headquarters of the National Liberal Federation in Ottawa and provincial Liberal associations in the provinces, to the committees of Liberal workers in municipalities and in the remotest rural polls.
The whole-hearted cooperation of the Liberal ' premiers and governments of eight of the nine provinces of Canada was an exceptionally significant feature of the campaign, and one which may be expected to contribute in no uncertain way to the solution of many of our country's perplexing problems.
To-day's victory is a victory for democracy. It discloses that the people may be relied upon to exercise their judgment clearly, in spite of innumerable and unscrupulous efforts to divert the electorate from the real issues before them. It constitutes a great deliverance; a deliverance of the people from one-man government, from mistaken policies, and from autocratic leadership. It is a triumph for broad principles and policies, as against promises and pledges recklessly and extravagantly made for the sole purpose of winning an election. It is a declaration that tradition, experience and achievement are still regarded by tbe Canadian people as one of the greatest assets a political party may possess. It is a direct response to the Liberal protest against all forms of dictatorship in Canada, whether they incline towards Fascism, Socialism or Sovietism, and equally against endless and dangerous experimentation in matters of government. It is a direct response to the appeal for the maintenance of British parliamentary practice and procedure. It proclaims the end of tbe superman idea. It is dear evidence of the desire of the people of Canada to maintain high standards in Canadian public life, and to enjoy a tone in the discussion of public affairs wholly different from that to which, both in and out of parliament, they have become accustomed during the last five years. It makes clear that the people of Canada have had enough of "blasting" methods, and of the "iron heel";

The Address-Mr. Mackenzie King
that they wish to see concord replace discord, and cooperation replace dissension within our own borders; and that good will and not ill will should prevail between Canada and other countries.
The results afford the strongest condemnation of the attempts made by the Bennett government to debauch the people with expenditures from the public treasury, and of the efforts made by Mr. Bennett himself to intimidate the electorate through fear, by raising the bogeys of communism, of the undermining of Canada's industrial standards by unrestricted oriental and other foreign competition, and of the wholesale destruction which he said would await industry under a Liberal government. They afford a conclusive condemnation of the unworthy means employed in the endeavour to effect a so called national government in Canada; to do, after an election, what no political party was prepared to sponsor in the campaign itself. It is proof of the folly of individuals, whatever their motives, summoning new political parties into being, giving them their names and programs, and expecting any appreciable measure of support. It is to be hoped that the campaign of 1935 will witness tile end of hysteria, and a speedy return to sanity, in the discussion and administration of the country's affairs.
In the present campaign, the Liberal party concentrated upon the issues which it considered to be vital to the recovery of our national life, but it by no means restricted its discussion to them. It made its position clear upon all questions of immediate concern. The results of to-day's voting may, therefore, be regarded as an all but unanimous endorsation of the principles and policies set forth.
To-day's election discloses that the people share the view, which the Liberal party has all along maintained, that unemployment is Canada's most urgent national problem. It is an endorsation of the Liberal proposal to deal with this question by means of a representative national commission, and by policies which will serve to revive industry and trade.
The results make equally clear that the people generally share the view, kept to the fore by the Liberal party, that trade is the basis of industrial and commercial development; and that a Canadian government should do all in its power to negotiate trade agreements with all countries willing to trade with Canada on a reciprocal basis. The results make clear that the people of Canada are opposed to planning for scarcity by the restriction of production, of trade, and of employment, and that they are not satisfied with the Ottawa trade agreements, and welcome the prospect of their early revision. Everywhere Mr. Bennett has said that the verdict of this election would be a verdict for or against the empire trade pacts of 1932. There can no longer be any mistake as to what the people think of those agreements and of Mr. Bennett's methods of their negotiation.
The election is an unmistakable verdict in favour of the liberation of external and internal trade; and in favour of a reciprocal agreement with the United States, and of the restoration of trade with Japan upon a mutually beneficial basis in the case of each of these countries. It constitutes a demand for the abolition of the extravagant increases in the tariff, together with the removal of arbitrary taxes and
12739-7i
regulations, as imposed by the present administration, which have had the effect of strangling the commerce of the nation, exploiting consumers, and robbing railways of business. It is a demand for an end to the making and altering of tariffs by executive action, and for the substitution of stability for uncertainty in the administration of customs laws. It is an overwhelming condemnation of the policies of economic nationalism, economic isolation, and economic imperialism, upon which the present government has proceeded in all its legislation; and a corresponding demand for the substitution of policies which will make for economic freedom, national expansion, and international good will.
The election is an endorsation of the Liberal view that credit is a public matter, not of interest to bankers only but of direct concern to every citizen. It is a verdict against a privately owned and controlled central bank, and in favour of a properly constituted national bank to perform the functions of rediscount and the control of currency issue considered in terms of public need. There can be no mistaking the demand for a restoration to the government of Canada of control over credit and currency issue. As the campaign proceeded the issue of the control, by the people, of all functions of government, through their representatives in parliament, and not by any other power, became increasingly clear. The electorate has declared that a responsible ministry, not organized finance and international money power, is to control in all matters of state.
The election is an overwhelming verdict against amalgamation of the railways of Canada and against the creation of other monopolies, whether related to the agencies of transportation and communication, production, trade, industry or banking.
It is a verdict for the democratization of industry and the rights of labour and consumers to have their voice heard and influence felt in the control of industrial policy. It is a warning and rebuke to arrogant employers of labour who have sought to intimidate their employees and to prevent them from enjoying the free exercise of the franchise which is the birthright of every Canadian citizen.
Above all, the election is a demand for the restoration of responsible government in Canada, and government not by a single individual but by the collective wisdom of many minds. The people have expressed their determination to end one man government and to reverse the trend of the past five years in the direction of dictatorship. They have overwhelmingly condemned the present government and the abri-trary and autocratic methods by which it has proceeded from the day it assumed office, and the manner in which it has persistently defied the unmistakable will of the people.
It is a verdict in favour of personal liberty, electoral reform, and of measures which will, among other things, prevent the national radio being surreptitiously used by any political party for the defamation of character.
It is a verdict in favour of the reduction of the burden of public debt and taxation, and in favour of the attainment of a balanoed budget.
It is a verdict in favour of those courses in international relations which will make for peace and good will.
It is a verdict in favour of a more equitable distribution of wealth, with increasing regard
100	COMMONS
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to human need, to the furtherance of social justice, and to the promotion of the common good.
These are all principles and policies which the Liberal party has consistently and continuously espoused, and for which it has steadily fought. We began the fight for these policies and principles in the parliament of Canada. We carried our advocacy of them to the people in byelections and in provincial elections. The voice of the people, though clear and decisive, remained unheeded, and their will and wish ignored. We have now submitted our policies to the people in a general election. We have received their endorsation. We shall proceed to put these policies into effect.
A century ago Liberalism in Canada had its birth in the struggle for political liberty and responsible government. The existence of both has been threatened in the period of time that Mr. Bennett has been at the head of affairs. They have been maintained in the measure they have only by continuous and strenuous effort on the part of Liberals in and out of parliament. They will now be fully restored by a Liberal government.
In the new era which dawns to-day the struggle for the rights of the people will, in the realm of economic liberty and security, be carried on as never before. Poverty and adversity, want and misery, are the enemies which Liberalism will seek to banish from our land. They have lain in wait at the gate of every Canadian home during the past five years, and their menacing mien has served to destroy the souls as well as the minds and bodies of an ever increasing number of men, women and children in our land. We take up at once, as our supreme task, the endeavour to end poverty in the midst of plenty, starvation and unnecessary suffering in a land of abundance, discontent and distress in a country more blessed by providence than any other on the face of the globe, and to gain for individual lives, and for the nation as a whole, that "health and peace and sweet content" which is the rightful heritage of all.
The people of Canada have made clear that, in their opinion, "present material interests," and a course of action which does not distinguish between materialistic and spiritual values, must make way for something nobler in the conduct of a nation's affairs; and that self-seeking and selfishness, however much they may appear to lead to worldly success, are not the paths of true greatness either for an individual or a nation. The people of Canada to-day have reaffirmed their faith in the ancient and beneficent precepts that it is only by sharing each other's burdens and doing unto others as we would have others do unto us that men and nations can serve their own best interest and the common good.


Mr. J. S. WOODSWORTH (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, it is quite unnecessary for me to attempt to cover the ground gone over by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett) and the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King), nor do I consider it necessary to repeat the formal compliments which have already been given. I might how-

ever express my appreciation of the very kind reference to myself made by the hon. member for Parry Sound (Mr. Slaght).
We have heard a good deal in the way of echoes from the last election and the general political situation. I do not intend to spend much time on that sort of thing. It may be inevitable that we should have some crowing by the victors, although I must say that the spectacle is not very edifying. While there may be something in the statement that we have been delivered from a one man government, we might ask whether we have been delivered from minority government. The point made by the leader of the opposition was not, I think, answered by the Prime Minister, the fact being that of all those who were eligible to vote only some thirty-five per cent did vote for the party which now is represented on the government side in such very large numbers.


Mr. McLEAN (Melfort):: A lot of persons who were counted as voters were dead and buried.


James Shaver Woodsworth: The fact that such a large number of members were elected by a minority of votes does not really touch the point, because the government, having such a large majority, is able to exercise almost complete control over legislation that may be proposed in this house, and certainly can determine whether or not any legislation shall pass. As a matter of fact, of the total vote cast, 4.392,227, the Liberals received 2,058,699. The plea	used to	be made	that	we	should
have representation by population. I have wondered, in view of .the figures I have just given, whether there should not be some change in the electoral system that would give a larger measure of equity.
I have in my possession a document which is now worn almost thin. It is entitled Liberals and Labour, and was issued by the National Liberal committee in 1921, publication	No 11.	Resolution	No.	10	therein
accepts the principle of proportional representation. I do not know whether that is today a part of Liberal policy. We in our corner every once in. a while for some fifteen years tried to bring that particular resolution of the Liberal party to the attention of the Liberals. For nine years of those fifteen the Liberals were in office, and it does seem to me that if they are true to the principles they enunciated and gave to the public some years ago we should have something in the nature of electoral reform brought down at this session of the house.
The Prime Minister referred to those of us in this section of the house and classed us all

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together as independents. I would almost have thought he would do us the courtesy of using the names which we have chosen and which have become familiar to the whole country.


Mr. STEVENS:: It is the new democracy.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Instead of that he rather arrogantly classes us all together as independents. We are not Liberals; we are not Conservatives, we are a strange assortment that has to be put all together.


Miss MACPHAIL:: Thank heaven for that!


James Shaver Woodsworth: I suppose if the Prime Minister chooses to adopt that terminology we shall have to submit, but I suggest that it does not add to the clarity of our discussions or the good will of an assemblage of this kind when one individual, even a prime minister, attempts for his own purposes to class together people who have just come through a campaign in which they have very clearly set out their differences one from the other, and to say that "although I put these all together in one group, it is manifest that these people differ among themselves."
But since we have all been put together I point out that one of the most significant features of the recent election is that over a million people voted for one or another of the groups or individuals that are neither Liberal nor Conservative. I think it is a remarkable thing that a million people in Canada should express dissatisfaction with the old historical parties and with that for which the old historical parties stand. I would remind the government that although they seem to be so firmly entrenched, those wrho are to be classed as independent, the riffraff as it were, do represent over half the number of votes that were cast for the Liberals who are now in the seats of the mighty.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I ask my hon. friend what term he would use in describing the parties other than the official opposition and the government? What term does he suggest? I did not wish to be offensive; I was seeking what I thought would be the most acceptable term in referring collectively to those groups which are other than the official opposition and the government.


James Shaver Woodsworth: If the Prime Minister must refer to them, possibly the phraseology which he himself has just now used might be acceptable.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: What is that?


James Shaver Woodsworth: "Groups other than the official opposition." It may be proper to group together those who are standing on more or less the same platform as the Liberals, but I repeat, it does not add anything to the understanding of our national problems to attempt to put together groups that have very little in common and then to proceed further and say that these groups differ among themselves. I just point that out in passing. My point is that these groups who are so classed together obtained from the electorate half as many votes as those obtained by the Liberals.


Mr. DUNNING:: They do not agree as well as we do.


James Shaver Woodsworth: One of the most humorous slogans of the election in my judgment was this: "Elect King and get action." I wish it were true, because I have been long enough in this house to desire action above almost anything else. I would point out that the government have, as they boast, a very large majority in the house. Further than that, as they again boast, most of the provincial governments are of the same political complexion as themselves. Under these circumstances I would say that the government have absolutely no excuse for lack of action. It is clear that with a large majority in the house and with most of the provinces of the same political complexion the government have absolutely no excuse for non-action. Undoubtedly a large number of people voted for the Liberals in the hope of securing action. Now the Liberals have their chance. We in our small group will do our utmost to cooperate with the government in any sort of progressive legislation. We are small in numbers, but we represent a constituency of nearly 400,000 people. Our attitude in the house in the past has been and will continue to be that of giving support to a government on any progressive legislation, and we wish the present government well in the great task upon which they have entered.
I hold in my hand a leaflet which indicates the Liberal party's position on some immediate problems. It was issued by the National Liberal Federation of Canada, 114 Wellington street, Ottawa, just prior to the election.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Two years
ago.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I suppose the position would be the same to-day as it was two years ago. So far as I can see the leaflet is not dated. Additional copies of the leaflet may be obtained at a cost of

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thirty-five cents per hundred. As I read the speech from the throne my thoughts were directed to this leaflet. As a matter of fact, in that speech very little progressive legislation is adumbrated-very little. We have a very small legislative program before us. I may be permitted to call attention to several items, the absence of which is very significant.
The leaflet indicates, in the opening paragraph, that the Liberal party considers "unemployment of first concern." In the speech from the throne we find the observation that unemployment is Canada's most urgent problem. That being so, it is unfortunate the Prime Minister had not a word to say concerning unemployment in that short three and a half hour speech of his. As unemployment is one of Canada's outstanding problems, I say it is unfortunate the right hon. gentleman did not say something about it.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not wish to interrupt my hon. friend, but I must remind him that I did refer to legislation, and also mentioned the amount of employment which had been given as a result of one or two measures for which the government is already responsible.


James Shaver Woodsworth: More employment may have been mentioned, but I believe hon. members will bear me out when I say that no statement was made as to what the government intended to do with regard to the great problem of unemployment. In the leaflet before me the Liberal party had stated that we should have a representative national commission. I believe that is promised in the speech from the throne. They had this further to say, however:
As permanent measures the Liberal party is pledged to introduce policies which will serve to provide employment by reviving industry and trade-
Then I should like to draw attention to the following words appearing in bold type, "And to introduce a national system of unemployment insurance." The government may say that we already have such a system, and that its constitutionality is now being tested before the courts. I am aware of that; but we have no indication from the government as to what it proposes to do or what its attitude may be. We know very well that last year the Liberal party criticized severely indeed the proposals offered by the then government. What are we to expect in the next year or so? What are we to have by way of relief in the meantime? Those

are the matters about which I am concerned. There is no definite proposal put forward by the government in the speech from the throne.
Again we find that this leaflet calls for the "control of investments," and the following paragraph appears in relation thereto:
The Liberal party believes the financial mismanagement of industry is largely responsible for many conditions obtaining to-day.
To prevent exploitation of the public through the sale of watered stocks and worthless securities, it believes an investment control board should be established, with supervision of issues of securities by companies incorporated under federal charters.
I quite agree with the idea behind that statement, but we have no indication in the speech from the throne that anything of the kind is proposed. So far as I know this matter is not before the courts. The constitutionality of a measure of this kind is not in question. Why does not the government propose to implement the statement of policy it gave to the country?
Further than that with regard to the democratization of industry, to which the Prime Minister referred even as late as the date of the leaflet, which was issued on the night of the election, we find this:
The Liberal party believes that industrial reconstruction is the problem of the future. It will seek in industrial relations as opportunity offers to give to workers and consumers a larger share in the government of industry.
So far as I can see there is no indication in the speech from the throne that anything is to be done at this session to implement that promise. I wish something could be done. Meantime many workers are engaged in industries in which they have no chance for anything like freedom. It is not sufficient simply to pass pious resolutions of this kind-I will not say "to make promises," because the Prime Minister is supposed not to have made any promises. I say it is not sufficient to pass resolutions and send out statements of this kind without seeking to implement them at the earliest possible opportunity.
Then, in a reference to the "more equitable distribution of wealth," we find this paragraph:
The Liberal party recognizes that the problem of distribution has become more important than that of production, and believes that personality is more sacred than property. It will devote itself to finding ways and means of effecting a fair and just distribution of wealth with increasing regard to human need, to the furtherance of social justice and to the promotion of the common good.
Those are fine sounding phrases with which we may all agree. But I must ask this: What indication is there in the speech from the

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throne that at this session any legislation will be brought down to carry out the statements contained in the leaflet?
Under the circumstances I should like to propose an amendment to the address in reply, seconded by the hon. member for Rose-town-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) that the following words be added to the motion:
"We respectfully regret, however, that Your Excellency's present advisers have not indicated that they have any policy or intend to take definite and immediate steps to end the prevailing poverty and insecurity of the masses by making available to the people of Canada the great actual and potential wealth of the country."
I think all hon. members have recognized the serious nature of the depression through which we have 'been passing. I, for one, sympathize with any government called upon to administer capitalism under these conditions. Frankly, however, what I am afraid of is that with the slightest move toward an upswing in conditions, the government will refuse to take that radical action so essential under existing circumstances. On every side we are hearing talk about returning prosperity, and I suppose if some slight betterment in conditions comes to us there is no doubt that the government will take credit for having brought this about. That of course is the ordinary practice of politicians. I would say this, however, that as I analyze the situation, and as we have been trying in past years to place the case before parliament, I cannot believe we are going to have any permanent prosperity, and I am suggesting it is time to give attention to some of the more radical policies which we believe to be necessary. In the first place, we face a greatly increased productive capacity. In his book on Technics and Civilization, Mr. Lewis Mumford states that the average workman to-day has the equivalent of 240 mechanical slaves, and can do in a week what would need four years and seven months to do unaided. If the ordinary working man is capable with machinery of producing such a great quantity of wealth or new material, what are we going to do with the workmen who "are not .needed? Undoubtedly that is one of the main problems that face us at the present time. I do hope that in this house we shall not begin once more to say that either one government or the other is responsible for unemployment. Undoubtedly unemployment is due to grave economic maladjustments. The question is: How is any government going to solve this problem?
The federal reserve board in the United States recently reported:
In February last industrial production was 90 per cent of the 1923-1925 averse, but the employment was only 80 per cent and payrolls only 64 per cent.
I fancy that conditions obtaining in Canada are very similar. What do those figures mean? They mean that production is up; that employment is lagging, and that payrolls are lagging still more. That is a serious situation from the strictly economic standpoint. Let me repeat: It means that production is up; employment is lagging, but payrolls are lagging still more.
The United States government has appropriated some twelve million dollars to make surveys into the trends of employment and production. Some of the facts which instigated the inquiry were these: From 1919 to 1929 volume of production in manufacturing industries increased 37 per cent, while employment dropped 2 per cent. Freight car loadings increased 6 per cent from 1923 to 1929, and employment on steam railways declined 10 per cent.
I will just interject that they have no Canadian National railway problem there, and that is one of the reasons I am using these American figures. Further, according to the statement before me, coal production increased 10 per cent from 1919 to 1929, while employment dropped 14 per cent. Despite an increase in production of agricultural commodities, 800,000 agricultural workers were displaced between 1919 and 1927. That the trend shown by the data given above has continued since 1929 is indicated by the fact that the output per man hour in manufacturing industries is estimated to have increased approximately 25 per cent between 1929 and 1935.
You see the seriousness of those statistics. In commenting on a similar situation in Great Britain, W. G. Gray, president of the British Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, says:
We are face to face with something entirely new in human experience.
My quarrel with Liberal doctrine is not that it advocates individual freedom and all that kind of thing, but rather that Liberal policies are essentially based on conditions that no longer exist. If we are to secure true individual freedom and true security we shall have to recognize the conditions that are here now and that are apparently permanent.
I should like to call the attention of the house, and particularly those members who do not read the New Republic regularly, to a very illuminating article by Mr. Chase which appeared in its issue of December 18, 1935. Mr. Chase admits that business is more active; that profit levels have improved; that the dollar volume of retail sales is substan-

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tially a'boye what it was a year ago; that the annual income is increasing; that power output and machine-tool production are back to 1929 levels, indicating among other things an augmented flow of labour-saving devices with inanimate energy to power them; that new motor cars, most of them bought on the instalment plan, are filling the roads; that the stock market is becoming active.
Then he gives the other side of .the picture: Car loadings tend to remain on the same plateau; unemployment remains; construction industry is still a third less than normal; commercial loans are declining.
Then he puts his finger upon the real difficulty. He says:
Commercial loans are falling; government loans are rising.
It is curious .that in the bank statements which appear in our papers that particular fact has not received very much emphasis. Commercial loans are falling; government loans are rising. Mr. Chase goes on to say:
The whole balance rests not on a regained equilibrium in private enterprise, after a purging of capital claims, but on government credit. The private-capital market is not functioning, as it did in the upswing from all earlier depressions. Meanwhile, billions of capital claims have not been squeezed' out. Outgo is padded with huge "unnatural" capital charges. The principal, including common stocks, of capital claims is still in the neighbourhood' of three hundred billions, and a return is demanded as heretofore. Government debts are rapidly being added to the total. The amount of savings that must be promptly and frequently reallocated to preserve balance is enormous.
Then a little bit further on he makes this very significant statement which I confess I had not considered before reading his article. He says:
"Balance the budget," cries the sound money camp, but to balance the government budget to-day can only mean to unbalance the dollar system.
I think that is a very, very important consideration. On every side people are urging the government to balance the budget, but I would venture to say that if the government does balance its budget the very people who are now urging this would be the first to be seriously affected because to do so would unbalance the whole financial system, for today an important sphere of investment is government bonds.
I see it is almost six o'clock, Mr. Speaker, but I should like to emphasize that whatever party may be in power, it must face an economic situation that is unprecedented, and any prosperity that may come to us, if my an-

alysis is at all correct, is bound to be of the most temporary character. We must build for the future.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


James Shaver Woodsworth: When the house rose I was endeavouring to point out some of the prominent economic trends which prevail to-day and which we must recognize if we would solve the problems that confront us. I pointed out that while production was going up, wages were not going up correspondingly, and that employment also was lagging behind. There are important consequences which of necessity follow from that situation. In the very first place we face the lack of consuming power; unless wages are paid we cannot hope that the goods which are produced will be bought. That is one of our fundamental troubles today, and under the capitalist system if goods are not bought there is a slackening of the machinery of production. People will not produce unless profits can be obtained, and the slackening of production, following a vicious circle, leads to a still greater. measure of unemployment and still lower wages.
Further, there is one other economic result that is all important from the standpoint of the system itself; we reach a point where, if profits cannot be obtained, the system stalls. I think we are now very near that position. As I said once in the house Last year, when I read some socialist economists many years ago I used to wonder exactly what was meant by the contradictions of capitalism. To-day, I believe, we understand only too well because we live in an era in which these contradictions are 'becoming apparent to us all.
Another of these trends about which I should like to speak is this, that expanding markets are not readily available and certainly cannot 'be depended upon to solve our economic problems. Five years ago when we assembled in this house the Conservatives stressed the possibility of unemployment being solved by higher tariffs. The years since then have demonstrated that their solution did not work. The Liberals now come into office and they emphasize the possibility of wider markets. I am quite confident that the next five years, and perhaps a much shorter period than that, will demonstrate that their scheme will not work either. The trouble is deeper than the question of protection or of lower tariffs.

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I was very much interested in reading in the Manitoba Free Press of January 11, 1936, a letter from Miss E. Cora Hind, who, as everyone knows, is quite a specialist on agricultural affairs. Miss Hind writes:
Having now visited Norway, Sweden, Germany, Poland, Roumania, Jugoslavia, Hungary, Austria and Czechoslovakia, and looked into the possibility of these countries for the export of Canadian wheat, I must frankly confess that I am disappointed at the outlook. Before leaving Canada, I in common with many others felt that a change in government, and more liberal customs and trade arrangements, would be practically all that was needed to reestablish much of the former trade to Europe. I feel now that the task, while not an impossible one, will be a more difficult one and will take more time than was anticipated.
Commenting on this editorially, the Free Press said:
Miss Hind's judgment on this point, based as it is on personal investigation, will be accepted as authoritative.
The latter .part of the editorial is less ingenuous when it suggests that it is easier to throw markets away than to whistle them back. It is not going to be easy to find markets for our wheat, and I suggest that it is not going to be easy to-day to find markets for any large export from Canada. I do not want to go into an argument which I have used previously in .this house, but I would point out that in the earlier days of capitalism there was nearly always an expanding market. It was in those days that the trade of Great Britain flourished. Later on other nations came into the picture. They too began to export to countries that had once been consumer countries and had become themselves producer countries and thus competitors of Great Britain. Since the war that tendency has greatly increased. We witness perhaps the outstanding example in Japan, which a few years ago used to consume our goods but is now producing and exporting not merely consumable goods but capital goods as well.
I do not think the Liberal doctrine has sufficiently recognized the development which has taken place in the capitalist system. The Liberal party is still depending upon a constantly enlarged market to keep the system going and to bring back prosperity. I do not say that there cannot be developed or found certain markets; I hope there will be. But I do say that we cannot depend upon a constantly increasing market as an economic solution of our problems.
A change of government has taken place, but I submit that our pressing problems remain unchanged. Among these I would call special attention to the unemployment situation and the distress that prevails at the present time. According to a statement made ' about a month ago by the Canadian Welfare Association, while employment in Canada has reached its highest level since December, 1930 relief costs have not moved correspondingly downward, and there are still more than one million Canadians in receipt of direct unemployment relief. The Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) is not in his place, but undoubtedly he can give us the very latest figures. I fancy, however, that the figures I have just given are substantially correct. Take my own city. In Winnipeg nearly 24.000 heads of families have registered since 1924. In 1933, the peak was 9.734 families and in September, 1935, it was 7,309.
I need not speak of the demoralizing effect of this situation upon families that for some years have been on relief. In the first place these families are being crowded into very narrow and inadequate living quarters. The whole standard of living is 'being lowered; for whereas a few years ago it was considered necessary, for a moderately sized family, that there should be at least three or four rooms, to-day the ordinary family is being housed in two rooms. This surely is not sufficient to maintain what we have regarded as a Canadian standard of living. And that is not in a few individual cases; it is a wholesale matter. Food, perhaps, is more or less adequate. but there are a great many things besides meat and potatoes that people need in order to have a proper variety in their food; and as regards extras of any kind, the people are very greatly lacking. Household supplies have run down during these years, and we are faced with a serious state of affairs throughout the country.
In rural Manitoba the director of public health nurses recently asked for clothing for 600 children who otherwise would not continue a.t school during the winter. The Junior League, which is not at all a radical organization, in offering assistance stated' its belief that the responsibility for providing clothing for destitute children is a necessary government service and not one for private charity. I quite agree that it is a necessary government service to provide clothing for these 600 children. Think of it! In the small province of Manitoba there are 600 children who, unless they are provided for by charity, cannot go to public school. Surely that is a serious thing in this rich country of ours. I agree that this is a public responsibility, but behind that it is decidedly a public responsibility, a government responsibility, to

The Address-Mr. Woodsworth
see that such gifts of charity should noit be ' required; that the need for them should not continue.
I would like to commend the government for its dealing so far with the system of the single men's unemployed camps. I think the evidence which has been brought forward in connection with the reports and investigations that have been made justifies what we said in this corner last year. I am glad to learn that we are to have these camps transferred from the Department of National Defence to the Labour department. This is a good move. We stated here that the difficulty was not primarily that of food, although evidence before the British Columbia commission showed that at that time there was very much to be desired in the way of the food; the real difficulty has been that of segregating large numbers of young people, who ought to be at regular work, who ought to be filled with hope, in these camps where they have remained year after year without any hope of anything better in the future. We have urged, and I would urge again-


Walter Edward Foster: I might call the attention of the hon. gentleman that he has exhausted his time to speak.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Mr. Speaker, might I point out that a motion is before the house. The motion is technically one of non-confidence, and I have the right to speak beyond the forty-minute time.
As I have said, we have advocated again and again a program of work and wages. We should have real work, not a putting-in of time-


Walter Edward Foster: Order. I call to the hon. gentleman's attention that he is too late now to move the motion.


James Shaver Woodsworth: The motion has been proposed, Mr. Speaker. A copy was sent to the Speaker.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The hon.
member is quite right. It was read.


Walter Edward Foster: Well, I did not hear it.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I think Hansard will bear me out.
Mr. SPEAKER; No motion was given to me.


James Shaver Woodsworth: But it was made on the floor of the house, and the records of Hansard will prove it.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I point
out to my hon. friend that the motion should have been sent to the Speaker.
I Mr. Woodsworth.!


James Shaver Woodsworth: It was.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Was it read?


James Shaver Woodsworth: The motion was sent up to the Speaker. It was not my fault that it was not read.


Walter Edward Foster: I did not read it.


James Shaver Woodsworth: No; I say it was not my fault that the Speaker did not read it. It was sent to the Speaker as well as to the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think it had better be read and thereby regularized; my hon. friend might then take another forty minutes.


Richard Bedford Bennett: He reads the amendment himself, indicating that he proposes to move it when he concludes his speech. Then the Speaker reads it; that gives the hon. member the right to continue his remarks, and at the same time to speak longer than forty minutes. The Speaker will read it as an amendment to the original motion.


Mr. MacINNIS:: Mr. Speaker, I was going to call attention to the fact that that was the way in which the motion was moved yesterday for an address to His Excellency the Governor General. The mover read the motion when he rose to his feet, and after he had finished speaking the Speaker put the motion. What was good yesterday should be good to-day.


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver):: That was a different kind of motion. The motion yesterday was in the possession of the Speaker before the forty minutes had elapsed. To-day it was not.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I saw the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maelnnis) send one copy to the Speaker, one to the leader of the opposition, and one to the Prime Minister. Whether the Speaker received it or not I cannot say, but I do not think it is stated anywhere in the rules of the house that the Speaker is bound to read the motion in order to allow the hon. member who is moving it to speak more than forty minutes.


Mr. CHEVRIER (Ottawa):: Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rule and Forms, citation 376, states:
No motion is regularly before the house until it has been read from the chair.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I would point out that the rules of the house are made, not to restrict the liberties of members, but rather to protect them; and in this case there

The Address-Mr. Woodsworth
certainly has been a misunderstanding on the part of some hon. members. The hon. member who has the floor unquestionably indicated at the beginning of his remarks that he had an amendment. He was kind enough to send one copy to myself. I have no doubt he sent one copy to His Honour the Speaker; but as an old member of the house he will recall that he should have waited until the Speaker had read the motion before proceeding with his discussion. It would then have been regular. But he did not do that, I am perfectly sure through an oversight. I think under the circumstances the matter would be regularized by the Speaker reading the motion now, and the discussion being then proceeded with.	[DOT]


Walter Edward Foster: Moved by Mr. Woodsworth, seconded by Mr. Coldwell:
That the following words be added to the motion:
"We respectfully regret, however, that Your Excellency's present advisers have not indicated that they have any policy or intend to take definite and immediate steps to end the prevailing poverty and insecurity of the masses by making available to the people of Canada the great actual and potential wealth of the country."


James Shaver Woodsworth: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the kindness of the Prime Minister in regularizing the action in this way. I would point out that since the Speaker had the motion in his own hand he might at least have read it before the forty minutes had elapsed. I was trying to point out that what was desirable in connection with the young men who are unemployed was real work and real wages. We shall have to wait until the legislation is before us to know just how far the government is prepared to act in this regard. I should like however to say now that, while there is so much work to be done in this country in the way of building and reforestation and so on, there is no reason whatever why the men cannot be given real work that will be of permanent value to this country. Further than that, since these young men are out of work through no fault of their own, there is no reason why the state should not pay them reasonable wages. I was rather sorry to find in the report that a good deal of stress was laid upon the danger of agitators in the camps. There may be agitators in the camps, but I think we all recognize that agitation does not get very far unless there is some ground for agitation. If conditions are not good, as long as men are not slaves they have a right to proclaim the evils that exist or to band themselves together in order to obtain redress from those evils. This was
extremely difficult to do under conditions that prevailed during the last two or three years.
I should like to impress upon the house the necessity of our looking at these unemployed in an altogether different way from what we have been accustomed to do in the past. We have been too much inclined to think that they were near criminals, or that they should be treated as paupers. To-day tens of thousands of people are out of work through no fault of their own. If there is any fault, it is that of the governments of this country that have not been able so to adjust conditions that these men and women could find the work that formerly they had. They should not be penalized more than any other section of the community. They should not be regarded as paupers. There were some men who ran in this election, formerly members of this house, who were defeated. What happened to them? They were provided with jobs of various kinds. Some were found positions in the Senate; some were put on important commissions, and so on. There were other men who belong to the smaller parties in this house who were also defeated. To-day some of them are in the bread line. There is no fundamental difference between the man who is provided with a job in the Senate or on a commission, simply in order that he may be cared for, and the man who is in a relief camp simply because the state has not afforded any way by which he can earn an honest living. We need to get away from the idea that these unemployed people are either paupers or criminals.
There is another matter to which I should like to direct attention, and that is the huge debt which is hanging over our people. I am afraid the hysterical people of this country are not to be found only among the unemployed. I was interested to note this language in a recent issue of the Montreal Daily Star of February 6, 1936:
-this country is on the verge of disaster, nearer to a smash than it has ever been, nearer than it was in 1929, when the economic world rocked about our ears and it seemed as if we were plunging directly into the maelstrom.
And again:
The simple truth in that we are face to face with a crash which, unless it is averted, will blast this country's future and lead us into an economic darkness of such density and duration as to stagger the imagination.
Those are not my words. Possibly some of us will be rather reminded of the "whispers of death" of some years ago. However the facts are serious enough, and I am glad to note that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning)

The Address-Mr. Woodsworth
nods his head in approval. We have sometimes urged that sooner or later debts will have to be scaled down or the interest will have to be reduced and sometimes we have been told that this means repudiation in whole or in part. I do not like the word "repudiation," but I do say very definitely that just as international debts in practice have been repudiated, so I think it is only a matter
of time until, whether under a Liberal or a Conservative government, these internal debts of ours will have to be materially scaled down. I do not see any other way out. The other day I came across a very interesting letter issued by Mead and Company of Montreal dated December 19, 1935. In making a plea for debt conversion the letter gave the burden of debt as follows:
Gross Funded Debt
Dominion government. Provincial government Municipal government.
Direct debt $3,100,000,000
1.500.000.	000
1.400.000.	000
$6,o6o,000,000
Contingent debt

Total

1.630.000.	000
1.400.000.	000

In other words the direct debt of these three amounts to $6,000,000,000 and the contingent debt to $1,230,000,000, or a total of $7,230,000,000. Mead and Company continue:
The direct internal funded debt of the dominion government is approximately $2,300,000,000. The total internal funded debt of the dominion, provinces and municipalities is estimated at not less than $4,500,000,000 and is probably nearer $5,000,000,000. School or other public debts are not included, nor are unfunded floating debts, etc., etc.
Later they urge:
Compulsory conversion is, in effect, a capital levy; it is a form of conscription. "Capital" is surely sufficiently alert to its own interests to be willing to surrender a little to save a great ' deal. We have never succeeded in distributing the sacrifice of war evenly among our people

I am delighted indeed to find a commercial organization taking that ground, which I may say we have taken again and again.
We have never succeeded in distributing the sacrifice of war evenly among our people-
Listen:
-there seems no good reason why people of means should be less willing, in emergency, to surrender a portion of their wealth than they would their own or their sons' bodies. Internal disruption is not less dangerous than foreign aggression whether we think in terms of liberty, social institutions or trade. If compulsory conversion is 'to be avoided, self interest may dictate what patriotism merely urges.
I commend that to business men in this country. I think it is rather important, and I delight to have it come from at least a few of the people who are recognized in the business world. Let me read it again:
If compulsory conversion is to be avoided, self interest may dictate what patriotism merely urges.
I take it that the time is coming when we shall have to consider very carefully the

burdens that rest upon the people of this country.
There are very serious conditions indeed among the farmers of the west. Last year for some weeks I was out among the farmers in southwestern Manitoba and southern Saskatchewan where I found the most deplorable conditions, due not to unemployment but very largely to climatic conditions coupled with the enormous debts which the farmers have to carry. I met families whom I had known thirty years ago, when they were in a fair way to success; to-day they are living on relief, and whole communities are desperate. I found some families who had moved to northern Saskatchewan-and there are members from that district who know these conditions as well as or better than I do-living in a destitute condition. What have we done for these people? We have handed them out a little bit of relief. It is quite true that some provision was made by this house some years ago for dealing with the drought situation. I believe a few ponds have been dug for the storage of water.; I believe here, there and yonder a little has been done in the way of strip farming, but nothing has been done on a very extensive scale and certainly no adequate provisions has been made that would allow these farmers to maintain their standards of living and their self respect. I ask why these conditions should be perpetuated at a time when other people are living in comparative luxury. There is no reason whatever for such a situation.
Since taking office the government has been active along several lines. To-day we heard about the United States agreement. Personally I think it is good as far as it goes, but I should like to ask: What about the method employed? We are told it is an agree-

The Address-Mr. Woodsworth
ment rather than a treaty, and as such most of its clauses do not need to be ratified by parliament. That is the information we have been given. I am inclined to think that if the Prime Minister, were sitting on this side of the house he would have a great deal to say about such an action taking away the rights of parliament. Some hon. members may recall what he said several years ago in connection with the Ottawa conference. In discussing the agreements there made he said, according to Hansard for 1932-1933, volume I, at page 41, in urging that the government should have made only a tentative agreement:
We are no longer free to settle in our own parliament what our fiscal policy is to be because that has been settled for us by a meeting of the executives of different parts of the empire, and that without consultation with their several parliaments in advance.... Will this House of Commons have the right to alter one line of those agreements? Will this house have any opportunity of lowering or raising any duties as fixed in those agreements? Will the British government have that right? On the contrary, will not all legislative bodies be told, "These agreements were arrived at in the conference at Ottawa and they are to be put through without any change whatever." What then becomes of the freedom of parliament? What is the significance of parliament in that event? Why have a parliament at all, if executives of different parts of the empire can meet together and lay down a new imperial policy and compel its adoption by the imputation of a want of patriotism or a desire to bring about the dismemberment of the empire, as against those who are not prepared to support such measures?
Well, I personally do not worry a great deal about the method, but I should like the Prime Minister at his leisure to explain why it is that he complains so bitterly of the methods used at the Imperial conference in regard to the Ottawa agreements and yet feels free to bring to this house an agreement which need not be ratified in its details by the house, but which, we are told, is to go through as arranged.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not like to interrupt, but the two are entirely different. May I say that all that has been effected up to the present has been the reduction of certain duties under a statute that this parliament passed, which gave to the government authority to reduce duties at any time provided a like concession was made to it by some other country. The agreement to which I took exception and to which my hon. friend has referred was an agreement which increased duties, put additional taxation on the people of this country without parliament having authorized anything of the kind by statute or otherwise.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It did not become operative until passed by this parliament.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Neither will this agreement.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It is operative now, since the first of January.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Well, we may leave that to be threshed out in future. Personally I cannot see wherein the difference lies. I am glad it is in the direction of lower tariffs, but at the same time I do not see that the method in the two cases is so fundamentally different.
Then there is the question of Japan. The other day I read an editorial in the Winnipeg Free Press, a paper which I try to read from time to time, in which the statement was made that the duty had been reduced from 176 per cent to 148 per cent. I am not sure whether that is true. The Free Press commented at that time that this was under a Liberal government; that the manufacturers of the east should not make a great fuss when they still have a protection of 148 per cent. There is, I believe, some question as to the rate, but I understand that in any event it is over 100 per cent. I should like to call this to the attention of my friend the hon. member for North Huron (Mr. Deachman) and ask whether he is altogether satisfied that under a Liberal government we should still have a duty of 100 per cent.
However I do rejoice to-night in the partial conversion of the Liberals. I congratulate them on calling the bluff of the textile people. I recall several years ago an excellent statement made by the hon. member for Beau-ha rnois-Laprairie (Mr. Raymond), as to the enormous profits made by the corporation concerned. I think the Free Press in its editorial had a note that during the five years 1930-1934 the Dominion Textiles Company had distributed dividends amounting to $7,091,000, at the same time paying low wages. Undoubtedly the government has done well in calling the bluff of that corporation. But there is one further point. The Liberals are actually recognizing the need for state intervention. They are not as hopeless as I thought. I hope that in the future the precedent which they have adopted in this case will be carried out.
There is one other proposal in the speech from the throne to which I wish to refer, and that is tihe national loan board. Perhaps something of this kind is inevitable. But it is indeed an irony that it should be a Liberal government which proposes that the provinces should surrender their autonomy in financial affairs. If such action is taken there
no

The Address-Mr. Woodsworlh
should be an assumption by the dominion government of a corresponding responsibility for social services. It is curious how we are quite willing to centralize the mounted police force, but not willing to centralize the giving of relief, the lack of which so largely accounts for the necessity of the mounted police, if indeed there is such necessity. The matter of unemployment is still considered primarily one for the provinces; old age pensions are still considered primarily a provincial matter, as well as health, education, and all those things. Yet now, without taking over any responsibility for these important functions, we are to have centralization in the realm of finance. It seems to me that is very serious indeed. As I thought of this I was reminded of an old Hebrew law, and I turned up the book of Deuteronomy, the fifteenth chapter, and I should like to read, in the revised version, verses 1 and 2; 12 to 14; and 16 and 17:
At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. And this is the manner of the release: Every creditor shall release that which he hath lent unto his neighbour; he shall not exact it of his neighbour and his brother; because the Lord's release hath been proclaimed ___
If thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. And when thou lettest him go free from thee, thou shalt not let him go empty; thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy threshing-floor, and out of thy winepress; as the Lord thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him....
And it shall be, if he say unto thee, I will not go out from thee; because he loveth thee and thine house, because he is well with thee; then thou shalt take an awl, and thrust it through his ear unto the door, and he shall be thy servant forever. And also unto thy maidservant thou shalt do likewise.
Well, I suggest that the awl that makes people perpetual slaves may very well prove to be the national loan board. In all seriousness, there is a very great danger that we may stabilize our debts and by so doing place an impossible burden upon the great mass of our people.
In the resolution which I proposed I urged that there is nothing in the speech from the throne that would indicate that any definite or any immediate steps are being taken to relieve the poverty or insecurity of the masses by making available to the people of Canada the great actual and potential wealth of the country. Undoubtedly we have in this country great actual wealth, and we have still greater potential wealth. But the fact is that we have not done anything very definite in distributing this wealth. I do not think I can do better than follow the Prime Minister's example by reading a portion of a speech that I made on a previous occasion. About a year ago, on March 28, 1935, I spoke on the distribution of wealth as follows:
Recently I had occasion to make a study, with the help of some friends, of some of the statistical information supplied by the Year Book and from the census. If the income tax returns are combined with the figures of earnings it is possible to show the distribution of income among a very large section of the population. I may say that we were not able to secure any information as to the distribution of farm incomes. But leaving out farm income, we have some 2,713,000 wage earners and other income receivers for whom it is possible to estimate the distribution of income for the year 1930-31.
Those were the better years.
I have before me a table which gives the distribution of the number of income receivers, other than agricultural, and their income in Canada, for the year 1930-31. This is a short table, and with the permission of the house I will place it on Hansard in its present form.
Table 3.-Estimated Distribution of Number of Income Receivers (other than agricultural) and their Income, Canada 1930-1931
	Number of			
persons	Income	Per cent(male and]	Per cent	(millions	of totalSize of income	female)	of total	of dollars)	incomeUndeT-$ 1,000	56.2	790.0	25.4! 1,000- 1,500	23.7	805.0	25.91,500- 3,000	16.5	896.0	28.83,000- 10,000	3.2	401.0	12.910,000-and over	0.4	219.0	7.0Totals	100.0	3,111.0	100.0
From this table it will be seen that 56-2 per cent of the income receivers, both males and females, receive less than $1,000 per year. The total ernings of these workers constitute only one-quarter of the total income of all persons, [Mr. Woodsworth.)
although they form more than half of the aggregate number. Slightly less than one-quarter of the workers have incomes between $1,000 and $1,500, and' the aggregate incomes of these persons are a little more than one-


The Address-Mr. Blackmore
quarter of the total. The two groups receiving less than $1,500 per year thus form approximately 80 per cent of the total number, yet they received only a little more than half the total income. The other 20 per cent of the income receivers, those getting more than $1,500 per year, secured almost half of the total income. The group with the highest incomes, those getting more than $10,000, was composed of only 11,000 individuals, and yet this small group received an aggregate income equal to that of more than 400,000 of the poorest paid workers.
According to this statement, the great majority of the income receivers, that is,
1,526,000,	receive less than $1,000 per year. I would point out that the family budget as published by the Dominion Department of Labour provides for $800 for food and housing for a family. On that basis a family would need an annual income of from $i,200 to $1,500 to meet the requirements for a decent standard of living, but according to the statistics of the government the vast majority of the people of this country are forced to live on a standard below what would be considered as reasonable. There is no need for such things in a country like this possessing such great resources and spendlid equipment.
On that occasion I went on to refer to a committee appointed a year and a half ago, I believe by the federal government of the United States, to consider what it was possible to produce in that country, with their present equipment, if the equipment were properly organized. The figure established was $4,400 per family. That is. without any additions to their present industrial equipment, and using what they have to full capacity, it would be possible to produce in the United States an income of $4,400 per family. I fancy that the conditions in that country are not greatly dissimilar from those in Canada. We will put the figure at $4,000, if you like, or even at $3,000. In contrast, the vast majority of families in Canada are receiving less than $1,000, a great many in the vicinity of $600 or $700, and many more are out of work and hence are receiving no regular income, only that derived from state or charity.
That is a serious condition. Are we not stupid if we continue a system whereby most of the people are receiving less than $1,000, when it is possible for us to double, treble or quadruple that amount? I put that before the government. We go along year after year after year, following the same old lines. I do urge sincerely that the members of this house very definitely insist that we seriously consider what can be done towards providing for the needs of the masses of the people of Canada. Everyone admits that we have great wealth; everyone admits that we have still greater potential wealth. We cannot see how we can let the government pass this address without urging our point of view, and stating
that in failing to make some more definite provision for the needs of the masses the government is failing to perform its real task.


Mr. J. H. BLACKMORE (Lethbridge):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a few observations concerning the speech from the throne. Last night the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) indicated that he wlas in some doubt as to the stand which a number of hon. members in this section of the chamber were going to take with respect to the support of his government. I shall deal briefly with that point.
In a general way we feel that the speech from the throne is not quite full enough; that it does not go far enough and is not exact enough in the treatment which i,t prescribes for the grievous ills afflicting our country to-day. There is, however, one section of the speech from the throne which appeals to us strongly. Taken along with other pronouncements which have been made on the subject by the Prime Minister we feel that possibly this is sufficiently definite. We desire to be exceedingly definite about this particular part of the speech from the throne, namely, that part which appears as follows:
The control of credit, and the issue of currency, being public matters of direct concern to every citizen, it is intended, at the present session, to ask parliament to make such changes in the ownership and control of the Bank of Canada, as may be necessary to give to the government a predominant interest in the ownership as well as effective control of the bank.
As we see it, if the Prime Minister and his cabinet intend to do the things we believe they intend to do, they will be taking a step which will require a great deal of courage on their part, because they will be doing something which has long been necessary and something which will be almost revolutionary. In their steps forward to this momentous reform they will find the social credit people solidly behind them at every step.
First of all, however, may I refer to some of the things we assume they mean by this statement. We want to make sure that it is going far enough, and that it would constitute a real solution of the difficulties confronting us as a people. May I read one or two further passages which we place alongside the statement in the speech from the throne? First I shall refer to some observations of the Prime Minister delivered on the evening of October 14, a speech which has caused me greatly to admire the right hon. gentleman. I cannot remember a time when a man has made an election promise so quickly after his

The Address-Mr. Blackmore

I do not wish to occupy your attention longer, Mr. Speaker, on this point, though there are a great many other passages I might quote. With your permission, however, I would refer to some figures published by R. J. Scrutton in the April, 1935, number of the magazine Prosperity. He is using round numbers, quoting the American Bureau of Economic Research. He says that in the United States, in a given year, $60,000,000,000 worth of consumable goods, food, clothing, shelter and the like was produced by their industry, but that in that year, when they counted up all the money which was distributed in the United States in the form of wages, dividends, salaries, commissions, and in every other conceivable way in which men could get money with which to buy, there was only $45,000,000,000, and when you discounted $5,000,000,000, which was put into life insurance and thus taken away from the stream which could be used to buy goods, there was only $40,000,000,000. In other words, in the United States in that year there was $20,000,000,000 worth of goods which the American people did not have purchasing power to buy.
What would the United States do with that $20,000,000,000 worth of goods? The figures represent the condition, more or less extreme, which exists in every civilized and industrialized nation at the present time. If the United States undertakes to trade off this $20,000,000,000 worth of goods, receiving $20,000,000,000 worth of French goods, say, in exchange, how can the people of the United States buy that quantity of French goods when they were unable to buy their own? Here we see the secret of the difficulty in international trade.
Now the trouble is purely one of finance. As an indication of this may I quote an authority. Sir Basil Blackett, director of the Bank of England, has made this statement:
When I think of what we have done with money, and what money has done to us, I think we are all fit for a lunatic asylum.
Again let me quote Lord Melchett, the former Sir Alfred Mond, director of Barclay's Bank, of Imperial Chemical Industries, of the International Nickel Company of Canada, and so on:
The world' gets 3 per cent richer every year. This gradual increase of the world's wealth is due mainly to the discoveries of science and the development of industry. We must learn the economies of plenty and forget the economies of scarcity. In the near future our currency and our economics will have to be based on quite different ideas from the past.
Now what are the things upon which our currency is to be based? That is the question, and I leave that for us all to consider. I

have here another quotation which probably will be of interest. At the annual meeting of the Canadian Bank of Commerce of January, 1935, as reported in the Ottawa Citizen of January 15, 1935, Sir John Aird, president, stated:
No one now realizes more clearly than our legislators that the cost of public services is out of proportion to the population and its income. The situation cannot be relieved by increased borrowing, or by shifting part of the burden of the care of unemployed people from one legislative group to another. It is now quite generally agreed that continuous borrowing to cover deficits and to maintain social services on the present scale cannot go on indefinitely.
We must find, therefore, as a nation, some other way of getting money. The unemployment problem is increasing. The need of increasing power in order to enable our people to sell their goods both at home and abroad is growing more and more, and to solve the problem we need money. Our debt interest must be paid, and in order to do this we must have money. We cannot get money from the old sources, because even though we in Canada can produce tremendously we cannot sell and we are obliged to decrease production to keep up the price. How then shall we ever produce enough goods to get ourselves out of debt, to take care of our unemployed and to furnish purchasing power to buy our goods? The problem is staggering and beyond answer unless we find some other source of getting money.
Now what we assume the government means is that it is going to take control of the credit issue in this country in such a way as to do what the bankers have been doing for many years. The bankers have been manufacturing money without any cost to themselves, except perhaps clerical costs. Let me quote a few eminent authorities in this regard. The hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Cahan), the former Secretary of State, in an address before the Canadian Club of Toronto on November 13, 1933, is reported to have said:
The cheque system which has been developed enables the banks to create money without the issue of their printed notes-to create credit money at will for many hundreds of millions of dollars in excess of their note issue.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: That certainly does not bear out the statement of the hon. gentleman. Everybody knows that a bank may create credit money under certain conditions. That is admitted everywhere. But they do not create without cost or without undertaking liabilities to the same extent that credit money is created.

The Address-Mr. Pelletier


John Horne Blackmore: I submit that all that is perfectly true. At the same time, what banks can so generously do, and lend the proceeds to the government, and charge them good stiff interest for, I submit that governments ought to be able to find some way or another of doing for themselves. Here is another example. Mr. A. de V. Leigh, Secretary of the London Chamber of Commerce, in a statement reprinted in the Ottawa Citizen on June 8, 1934, makes the following statement:
The war was paid for as to 30 per cent by actual money belonging to the people-[DOT]
Is there any one who can see any reason why, then, the people of Great Britain should be taxed almost to death to pay for that war, when they already have paid for it?
-earned by the people; which was invested by the people in war loans; 

Then1 note particularly these words:
-and 70 per cent of the total cost of the war wTas paid for by the banks very kindly making these book entries, costing them nothing except the ink, paper and the time of the clerk, and lending the result to the nation at interest. The nation owes them money in exchange for their promises-to-pay money which they have not got. Further we have been paying them interest on these promises-to-pay ever since. Interest on war loans amounts to something like five million dollars a day.
Now if the government is going to assert complete freedom for the Dominion of Canada, it is going to take control of such issue. It must be safeguarded, we will grant. It must be managed by men who are responsible and who are trained, men who will honestly and successfully manage that aspect of the nation's life in the interests of the people and not in the interests of any private group.
There is one more thing which must be very carefully considered, and we assume that the Prime Minister has this in mind. Up to the present time the backing for money has been gold. Men have got to the point where they virtually worship the gold standard. It is like a golden calf which they worship to their ruin, but the time must come when we will all realize that the backing of money is not necessarily gold. May I read here a statement by an eminent authority which none will presume to question, the Midland Bank, England, the largest bank in the world? Here is an extract from its monthly review, June-July, 1935.
In the past four years the progress of ideas has been rapid-the gold value of sterling has dwindled by forty per cent-neither the government nor the bank does anything about it, and no one is in the slightest degree disturbed, since the pound buys just as much goods and services as in 1931.
In other words, the gold standard has been gradually displaced in England as a backing for goods and services. In our country, with new machinery and scientific knowledge, a high degree of technical skill, and good organization, we can produce an almost infinite amount of goods; and we have hundreds of thousands of men in the country ready to render services; so there ought to be virtually an unlimited backing for what money wish to produce; at least there should be enough backing to give us the money we need.
Stability of the value of the pound in terms of goods has replaced stability in terms of gold.-At the heart of the matter is a change in the official conception of stability-internal stability is bringing us far greater benefits, in solid economic welfare, than the pursuit of fixity of exchange could conceivably yield.-* Clearly this change is nothing short of a revolution,-it indicates an almost complete transformation of the monetary system.
The social credit group in this parliament believes that the Prime Minister favours the introduction of such a revolutionary change: First, that the dominion government will take control of the issue so as to manage it for the people's welfare; and, second, that little by little in so far as it is necessary they will gradually depart from the gold standard and substitute a goods and services backing; and that such other measures will be taken as will tend to the well-being and increase of the wealth of this country. I beg to assure the Prime Minister that if they step forward toward that goal they will find, as I declared a few minutes ago, the social credit group one hundred per cent solidly behind them in all their battles for this end.
Mr. RENE-ANTOINE PELLETIER (Peace River) (Translation): Mr. Speaker, I deem it my duty to begin the few remarks which I desire to express this evening in my mother tongue, in order to assert the rights of the race from which I have sprung and in which I take much pride. It, moreover, affords me pleasure to note that the youngest member on the government side-who so eloquently seconded the address in reply to the speech from the throne-also belongs to this same race. As numerous French Canadians reside in the constituency which I represent, I equally thought it proper, out of courtesy to them, that my first words in this house should be expressed in the French language.
Being the youngest member of this house, I have been all ears since I have come here, and you may be sure I have taken in everything that has been going on.


An hon. MEMBER:: Good.
The Address-Mr. Pelletier


Mr. PELLETIER:: One hon. gentleman
says, "Good." Possibly I did not find as much good as I expected I would find. One thing I have noticed particularly is this: The two leaders of the great political parties in Canada have spent several days now throwing at each other flowers which were not always very fresh. I am not the only new member here; there are quite a number of us; and I hope that conditions will be rectified and that in the interests of the people of Canada as a whole we will get down to business and do something that is really serious.
There is something more that I remarked which I cannot let go by without bringing it to the attention of this house. I am not going to take the chance of making statements without referring to Hansard, because I notice that if you do that here, people get quite angry about it. So, Mr. Speaker, I would like to repeat here-from Hansard, be it understood-a few words which our leader said the other day when he was expressing sympathy at the death of our king. These are the words:
Mr. Speaker, it has been a great delight to me to hear the expressions of loyal devotion to our king and queen. I should like to add to those expressions just a few words on behalf of the people whom I represent, the loyal social credit people throughout the Dominion of Canada.
It grieved me very deeply to hear some people sniggering and laughing when the words "social credit" were mentioned at that particular time. Our leader had it in mind to express sympathy with our great king who is now gone, and I do not believe that laughter was in the proper place.
There is not very much I can say this evening in regard to the speech from the throne, first of all because my leader has very ably set forth the things we hope to do in this house. The legislative program has yet to come before us, and it is diflicult intelligently to criticize anything before it is brought down in the house. We know, for example, that the government intend to bring in certain measures, but until those measures are brought in it is difficult to say very much about them.
There is one thing, however, to which I should like to refer. That is the paragraph in the speech from the throne dealing with unemployment, in which it is stated that the Liberal party recognize the fact that unemployment is one of the gravest problems in Canada to-day and, that being so, it is their intention to set up a commission in order to find a satisfactory means of dealing with what they call an emergent condition. I hope this

commission will do its work in a very short time; that it will not be one of those commissions that drag on endlessly, digging out a fact here and a fact there. I hope the results will be made known as soon as possible so that we may be able in some measure to better the condition of the people of Canada with the least delay.
We have heard a great deal about the trade agreement between the United States and Canada. We find some people not in accord with lower tariffs; on the other hand we find other people who are not in accord with higher tariffs, but I cannot see the use of either blasting or bargaining our way into the markets of the world if we are to starve at home. It seems to me that the very first thing to do is to seek out the markets that we have, and the most immediate and most convenient one is the home market. I should like to take some hon. members with me to some parts of my constituency; I am sure they would agree that there is a market for clothing and other necessities there; I see it myself, and other people have remarked upon that fact. We have a market in Canada. It is not necessary to seek for a market; all we need do is look after our own Canadian people.
I should like to say a word with regard to Doctor Riddell and the possibility of a war. We find the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) making an address not very long ago, last Saturday evening to be exact, and saying:
"In this connection," said the defence minister, "I want to leave with you the profound thought that you will never have in the Dominion of Canada an adequate system of defence until you create a national sentiment in favour of such a system."
Does this mean that we in Canada are to be taught to uphold the sentiment of warfare and that we must be forever ready to take up arms, or is there some other meaning attached to that statement? This is significant at this time, when the question of Doctor Riddell's action is under consideration. According to the orders of the day it is the intention of the hon. member for North Winnipeg (Mr. Heaps) to ask the government to supply him with the correspondence exchanged between the government of Canada and Doctor Riddell. Now we find the Minister of Justice making a statement to the effect that we must always have an adequate system of defence and a national sentiment in favour of such a system.


Ernest Lapointe: I never said anything like that.

The Address

Mr. Lawson


René-Antoine Pelletier: I beg pardon; I mean the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Mackenzie). The point I should like to make is this: At about the same time an editorial appeared in the Montreal Star suggesting that it might be in the best interests of all concerned if the government should withhold this information. Of course I do not know what action the government will take; but let me say this: I know that every war in the past has been called a war of defence. I know also when it is supposed to be in the interests of the people generally that certain information should be withheld, that has been done. Let me say, Mr. Speaker, that I for one will not permit one drop of Canadian blood to be shed until the. people of this country have been fully advised as to all the circumstances, and until they fully understand why they may be called upon to give up their lives.
That is about all I wish to say this evening. When the time comes, certain measures will have to be discussed, and I feel sure that then the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) will certainly know we are an independent group. I am very glad the Prime Minister made that statement with regard to the independent groups. The first thing I was told when I came to the House of Commons was that I had to swear allegiance to a king. At first I did not know whether it was Mackenzie King or His Majesty the King, but I am glad the Prime Minister has cleared up that point for us. So I will now take my seat, assuring the right hon. gentleman of independent and fair co-operation and criticism when the time arrives.


Hon. J. EARL LAWSON (York South):: Mr. Speaker, in view of some of the accusations levelled at my right hon. leader (Mr. Bennett) by the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) during the course of his remarks this afternoon, I feel it incumbent upon me to make some observations before this debate is concluded.
Before doing so, however, I would crave your indulgence to digress for a moment in order to congratulate the mover (Mr. Slaght) and the seconder (Mr. Fournier, Maisonneuve) of the address in reply to the speech from the throne, and I trust that I shall not be considered invidious if I particularly congratulate one of my fellow practitioners of law from the city of Toronto on the eloquence, moderation and good taste of the speech he made in this house as his initial effort.
I had rather anticipated that the Prime Minister, banked about as he is at the present time by a vast majority which overflows from
your right, sir, to your left in this house, would have proceeded with all dispatch to bring into being those measures of legislation which during the campaign we were led to believe would bring a great era of unparalleled prosperity to Canada.


An hon. MEMBER:: They are already
started.


James Earl Lawson: I am glad to know that. I sincerely hope, in the interests of this country, that if an era of prosperity has started since my hon. friends came into power, it will continue. I for one, despite what was indicated by the Prime Minister in some of his utterances this afternoon, will be delighted to find this country enjoying prosperity, and I shall not try to decry any prosperity that we may attain simply because the Liberal party happens to be in power when it comes.
I said, sir, that I had anticipated that instead of the right hon. gentleman taking up the time of the house in criticism of the fact that some of the ministers of the former government had retired from public life and accepted office, something which has been done under governments with which .the right hon. gentleman has been associated in the past, he would have gone on with the business of bringing in this era of prosperity. It seems to me, sir, that it is rather small business to criticize the retirement and appointment of one whose name, I believe, was mentioned, Mr. Guthrie, who was almost the dean of this house, who had rendered at least thirty years of public service to this country, because he saw fit at a ripe age to retire and to accept an appointment. I oould say the same thing with reference to several of the other gentlemen who were named this afternoon or indicated by the right hon. Prime Minister. Though I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, yet mark my words that before the next general election in this country some of the hon. gentlemen who now sit in the government led by the right hon. gentleman will be retiring and accepting some appointments which are in the gift of this country.


Mr. ROWE (Dufferin):: Some are already waiting.


James Earl Lawson: Then the right hon. gentleman had some slighting references to make to the smallness of the number of Conservatives returned to this house in the last election. I confess, sir, that we are small in number. But I suggest to the right hon. gentleman that if he brings down legislation which in the opinion of this small number is not beneficial to Canada, if he brings down
The Address-Mr. Lawson

legislation which contravenes the principles of that great ipanty which I have the honour to support, he will soon find that the strength of our opposition is not limited by our numbers.
The right hon. gentleman attributed1-I was not quite sure whether it was his great success in the last election or cnur defeaL-in the main to three causes: one man government, all expenditures or commitments not approved by parliament before being made, and the organization of the Liberal party, which, he boasted, commenced on the first day after the defeat of that party in the 1930 election. Well, sir, with reference to one man government let me say this: I was not a member of the recent administration for a great length of time, but I want to make it clear that while I was, every matter of policy enunciated by the leader of this party was given every consideration, or opportunity for consideration, by the members who supported him in that government.
With respect to the expenditures under the blank cheque policy of which we have heard so much, it seems to me this is but reiteration and repetition time after time of something that in principle is very simple. This parliament has power to vote money and to make expenditures. Likewise this parliament has power to delegate that authority, under certain conditions and within the limits prescribed by parliament, to what I might term the executive of parliament, or what is known as the government. Now in our everyday lives we spend millions of dollars to provide hospitals for the care of our physical needs in case of emergency. During the past five years there were not many days when the government of this country did not have to face an emergency in connection with our economic life. And all this parliament did in granting power within the limits of the statute to the executive to expend money to meet economic situations which might arise to provide those emergency hospitals so necessary to meet such needs. Let us assume, for example, that it had been necessary for Canada to convene parliament when the United Kingdom went off the gold standard, before any action could be taken by the government of this country. Does my right hon. friend suggest that during the term the Conservative government were in power there were not emergencies, emergencies which had to be met not in six weeks or a month or two weeks but on the spur of the moment? Now, sir, this parliament, in anticipation of those emergencies which might arise in connection with our economic and financial and political system, delegated its power to

the executive, and that executive was just as responsible to parliament to give an accounting of its actions and its expenditures on the first occasion on which parliament convened as though the whole subject matter of the expenditure had been discussed in parliament before the expenditure was made.
The third reason that the right hon. gentleman gave was that the organization of the Liberal party commenced the day after the election in which they were defeated. With that I will entirely agree. It must have been obvious in the light of events during 1933 and 1934 that the Liberal party set up an organization after that election, and I give them credit for their sagacity in realizing as they did that the then Prime Minister of this country, the present right hon. leader of the oposition, was the outstanding figure in the government. So they determined that by their publicity they would "destroy Bennett," and by destroying Bennett they hoped to destroy the Conservative party. And I am quite willing to confess that, immersed in the affairs of state and the affairs of Canada, our great leader at times may have paid too little attention to the political fortunes of his party. Well, if it gives my hon. friends opposite any satisfaction I admit that the organization which they set up on the day subsequent to their defeat in 1930, and particularly their publicity, certainly did a good job for them.
Then the right hon. gentleman attributed to the leader of the opposition knowledge or responsibility for a poster appearing in western Canada. I say to you here and now, sir, that the leader of the official opposition never saw the poster-


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Did you see it?


James Earl Lawson: Yes, I saw it and I take the responsibility for it. What is more, the poster was true.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Why did you change it?


James Earl Lawson: I did not change it. I was about to say that by the action taken by the Conservative government to protect and maintain the market for wheat for the wheat growers of western Canada, that government was responsible for putting into the pockets of the western grain growers at least $150,000,000. And when my hon. friends opposite see fit to bring down any legislation they may have with respect to the marketing of wheat or affecting the wheat board, I shall be glad, if necessary, to discuss the matter in further detail.

The Address-Mr. Lawson
The Prime Minister alleged that the leader of the opposition was responsible for the campaign literature of the Conservative party. If that be so, surely the same thing is equally true of the right hon. gentleman opposite; he too must be responsible for all the literature appearing on behalf of the Liberal party. Had I known that I was to participate in this debate, or could I have anticipated that the Prime Minister would have taken the line he did take, I should have been delighted to have before me, for the inspection of any hon. members who did not see them, some of the pamphlets turned out by the Liberal party during the last campaign.
May I mention one, which was a gem-from their standpoint. How many hon. members remember the consumer pamphlet?


Percy John Rowe: The consumers' league?


James Earl Lawson: No, not the consumers' league-and it was not the forgotten league, either. This was turned out under the auspices of the National Liberal Federation of Canada, and was directed particularly to Canadian housewives. On it appeared several pictures, one of which showed a can of baking powder. The text indicated how much a can of baking powder cost in Canada, and the cost in the United States. I think, too, there was a picture of a can of beans, and pictures of other household articles. The only thing that was prominently missing was a piece of buffalo bologna.


Mr. DUFF:: Was there a can opener?


James Earl Lawson: No; my hon. friends
opposite felt that if they had supplied a can opener to Canadian housewives, the cans would have been opened and the emptiness, belied by the pictures, would have been discovered.


William Duff: Like some people's heads.


James Earl Lawson: Well, we will leave that to the judgment of posterity.


William Duff: Thank 3'ou.


James Earl Lawson: Down below the pictures there was the text to indicate that the higher prices for the commodities in Canada had been brought about by the Conservative government while in office between 1930 and 1935.
I say to you, sir, that I analyzed the tariffs indicated in the pamphlet, and if I had my papers with me this evening I could give you specific details. I am confident, however, that I am not overstating the misrepresentation contained in that pamphlet when I say to you that the tariffs in respect of over one-half the
articles pictured had been placed at their then rate by the government of the right hon. gentleman opposite when it held office previously, or by governments which preceded his accession to power.
If we want to get into the field of misrepresentation and responsibility for campaign literature, I could give my hon. friends one or two further examples. I have in mind another gem, and although I have forgotten the exact wording of it, the effect of it was this: "King will restore the markets Bennett and Stevens lost."


William Duff: Bennett and Stevens what?


James Earl Lawson: Bennett and Stevens lost."


William Duff: So they did.


James Earl Lawson: I will come to that in a
minute. If the right hon. gentleman is to take responsibility for the literature of his party, what do hon. members think of the fairness-and I use that word, for want of a better-of a gentleman who, for the purpose of a campaign couples with the present leader of the opposition the hon. member for East Kootenay (Mr. Stevens), and then after he has won the election endeavours in this House of Commons to twit the leader of the opposition by saying that this very member had turned his guns upon him, the leader of the opposition, during the campaign? Then, sir, I would ask this further question:	What market was lost to Canada
during the regime of the late Conservative government? Will some one tell me which one? Possibly someone will say Japan.


Mr. REID:: The market for salmon in
France.


James Earl Lawson: Tell me one country.


Thomas Reid: The market for salmon in
France was lost.


James Earl Lawson: Every tariff that was
raised against Canada had been raised before this party took office.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


James Earl Lawson: Let me refer to another
gem, "It is King or chaos."


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The old slogan.


An hon. MEMBER:: The people decided
it.


James Earl Lawson: I am not complaining
about the people's decision. Hon. members will never find me doing that. They may have observed that I happen to be one hon
The Address-Mr. Lawson

member in this chamber who sits in his seat and keeps his mouth shut, even when he has to take some punishment. I am not one who sits and cackles out once in a while, when someone else is speaking.


William Duff: In other words the hon. member is not a rooster.


James Earl Lawson: I really thought my good
friend, the hon. member for Antigonish-Guysborough (Mr. Duff), with his breadth of experience and wisdom of age would know that a rooster never cackles.


William Duff: Crows, then. I would not
like to call the hon. member an old hen.


James Earl Lawson: This afternoon some
reference was made by the Prime Minister to a broadcast which he styled the Sage broadcast, and endeavoured again to place upon the leader of the opposition responsibility for it. I take this first opportunity to say to him and to this House of Commons that again I take the responsibility. We will see-


An hon. MEMBER:: We saw.


James Earl Lawson: I want to say this, that
in the rush and hurry and grind of a campaign some of the manuscripts were never submitted to me. So far as my recollection goes, there were put into the mouth of one of the speakers in those broadcasts two statements which, had I seen them, I would have deleted. I say unhesitatingly to the Prime Minister that I personally regret exceedingly that they were made, and for this reason:
I have always been, and I hope always shall be, one who in public life may criticize and assail my opponents with respect to their public actions and public affairs, but I do not believe I can be accused of ever having made a reference to their personal affairs or what they may have done in a personal capacity. Therefore I say that I regret two statements which were made.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The references would have been all right if they had been true.


James Earl Lawson: In justification for those who did use them, I just want to say this, that though you may not like the phrases, every statement made in the Sage broadcasts was true.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: You will have a chance to prove that before a parliamentary committee.


James Earl Lawson: I hope so. The right hon. gentleman said at the time that he would
[Mr. Lawson.}
appoint a parliamentary committee. I tell him that when that committee is appointed we shall1 be very glad-and when I say "we," I mean myse'lf and those who may have had any part in the Sage broadcasts-to go before that committee, and then it will be determined whether or not the statements made were true.


William Duff: Why do you regret them if they were true? You regretted them a moment ago.


James Earl Lawson: Apparently my hon. friend from Antagonish-


William Duff: Not Antagonish. I am not trying to antagonize anybody.


James Earl Lawson: My hon. friend did not follow my statement.


William Duff: Oh, yes, I did. I listened very carefully. You apologized first, and then you swallowed yourself.


James Earl Lawson: I apologized for what I said was my recollection of two of the statements made because they referred to some action taken by the Prime Minister in his personal capacity, and not in his public capacity, and that is why I said I regretted exceedingly that they had been made.


William Duff: I do not see the point.


James Earl Lawson: Well, possibly not. Maybe my good friend is Scotch-I say this without intending any offence to that great race from which I come-and if he will go home and think the matter over the point may come to him by morning.


William Duff: The trouble is that my hon. friend is not making any point. He starts apologizing, and then rubs it in and makes it worse.


James Earl Lawson: The Prime Minister in speaking this afternoon expressed great concern for the well being of the employees of industry and of the workers and consumers in the community. When he gets on that theme he strikes a responsive chord because I happen to represent a lot of them in this house. I know it has been a favorite theme for the right hon. gentleman in both his writings and speeches since the days of his book, Industry and Humanity, if not prior to that, to exhibit in speech great concern for the workers in industry. But, sir, may I make the suggestion that at a recent date he had a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate in a very practical way his interest in the workers in industry in this country. It will be remembered by all that during the campaign the right hon. gentleman

The Address-Mr. Lapointe (Quebec East)
went up and down this country telling us what a great day it would be if the Liberal party were returned to power in the Dominion of Canada because then, having Liberal governments in practically all the provinces of Canada, we would have one great happy family who would have no difficulty at all in agreeing. He repeated that sentiment to-day, if I recollect correctly, as to the happy associations of his government with those of the different provinces. It does seem to me that even though those of the Liberal party who were in the last house talked at great length against the constitutionality of the Unemployment and Social Insurance bill, and against the legislation respecting maximum hours of labour and minimum wages, I think ultimately, if they did not actually vote for those measures-and my recollection is that they did-at least they did not vote against them. Why? Because an election was coming, and they wanted to get the votes of the workers in this country. Well, when this happy family met, what a grand and glorious opportunity it would have been for the right hon. gentleman to say to the provincial premiers: Now, gentlemen, we are all Liberal friends; we are all members of the Liberal family; we have all a great desire to do something for the workers of this country; so just let us all agree that instead of referring these acts to the Supreme Court of Canada to determine the respective jurisdiction of dominion and province, we will all get together and have just one amendment to the British North America Act which will confer on the Dominion of Canada jurisdiction to pass these measures which are so very beneficial to the workers of this country.
In conclusion, sir, I say to you that when the right hon. gentleman demonstrates by some such action a practical interest in the workers of this country, I shall be much more prone to accept his policies and his preachings.


Ernest Lapointe: Mr. Speaker, like my hon. friend
who has just sat down (Mr. Lawson), I was quite willing to let the address be voted, but as he said that he intended to give the house some gems of the last election campaign, I cannot resist the temptation to imitate his example and not merely mention some of the gems but actually show them to the house.
Before doing so, Mr. Speaker, I wish to offer my congratulations to my good friend the hon. member for Parry Sound (Mr. Slaght) and to the hon. member for Maison-neuve-Rosemount (Mr. Fournier) for the excellent speeches which they delivered yesterday in moving and seconding the address
in reply to the speech from the throne. Both are valuable additions to the house and we are pleased to welcome them here.
My right hon. friend the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett) yesterday made some remarks which I might have left unanswered if they had come from a less important leader, but coming from him they cannot be considered as being what Disraeli described as the harebrained chatter of frivolous irresponsibility. I have to take account of my right hon. friend's statements, and so perhaps I may be permitted to mention two or three of them. I do not see why my right hon. friend was especially interested in making me the target of his attacks yesterday. But perhaps this is an honour. My right hon. friend has his likes and his dislikes, and it would appear now that I am rather classed with the latter.


Richard Bedford Bennett: No, no.


Ernest Lapointe: No? I
am glad to hear that. I thank my right hon. friend. However I can assure him that if he ascribes to me any large responsibility for the reverses which he may have had politically, he is wrong because I had very little share in the responsibility, and I want to assure him that whatever differences we . may have in politics I have nothing but the best of personal feelings towards him, feelings of respect and even admiration.


Richard Bedford Bennett: They are quite mutual.


Ernest Lapointe: The
right hon. gentleman spoke first of the election campaign in my province, and he mentioned certain words of mine. I am quite willing to admit that I have said that my province before 1930 had sent a very considerable, almost a solid Liberal following to the House of Commons, and that they had given a good account of themselves, and I certainly made an appeal to the electors of my province to do the same in 1935, because they realized that they had made a mistake in 1930. They agreed with me when polling day came. There was nothing very wrong in that.
My right hon. friend is quite wrong about the war cry, and I think he knows this. He will admit that he even used my words at two or three meetings in Quebec, in Montreal, in Sherbrooke, words which I had taken the trouble to write in order not to be misrepresented in the other provinces, as was the case in former elections. I took the trouble to say that I was sure that the leader of the opposition shared my views as to trying to keep
122	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. Ixipointe (Quebec East)
Canada out of any conflict if it were at all possible, so that even my words were repeated by the right hon. gentleman in that respect.
The little paper which he quoted yesterday, and which seemed to be published in English, could not have had a very great effect upon the people of the province of Quebec. What was said in that paper? There was a dispatch from Ottawa to the effect that Canada could mobilize a powerful and fully experienced army within twenty-four hours, and the statement is made:
Canada will probably be drawn into the European war if Great Britain is forced in, and irrespective of what politicians, statesmen and economists say, the dominion will not be able to help herself.
I do not see anything there against the Conservative party or in favour of the Liberal party, but I have something which is quite different. Here is a paper which was circulated from door to door in my own city of Quebec in the last days of the election. It is entitled:
Ouvriers et Cultivateurs pensez-y bien! Protegez-vous. Workingmen and farmers, think well about it! Protect yourselves.
I will not mention all' the things that are said about Mr. Taschereaiu and the trusts and matters of that sort, but the last part of it reads:
Do not take a chance, and vote for Bennett. In case of war, who will protect your interests better? Do you know that Bennett has stated, "In case of a foreign war, not one cent, not one man, not one gun," while King contented himself with saying, "We will summon parliament and will decide afterwards." Do you know that Mr. Bennett was the irreconcilable opponent of conscription and that he has challenged the legality of it, as far as before the Supreme Court of Canada, while not a single Liberal member voted against the principle of that bill? In case of war who will protect your interests better? Do not take a chance, and vote for Bennett.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Apparently they did not.


Ernest Lapointe: I wonder whether my good friend who has just spoken takes the responsibility for this.


James Earl Lawson: I may advise my hon.
friend that anything for which I take the responsibility was turned out-and it will be marked plainly and distinctly upon it-either by the Confederation Publishing Company Limited or by the dominion Conservative headquarters.


Ernest Lapointe: Perhaps my hon. friend will take the responsibility for some others.


James Earl Lawson: I may, when I hear them.


Ernest Lapointe: The war issue was only a very small one in the campaign. In my own province my leader (Mr. Mackenzie King) and I were described as the friends of the men who want to pull down the steeples, the men who protect those who walk on crucifixes, and so on. These things were published not only in leaflets distributed ; they appeared in paid advertisements in the newspapers of the province, bearing the inscription at the foot, "Published by the central Conservative committee."


James Earl Lawson: That was not published
by the Conservative dominion headquarters, nor have we any knowledge of it.


Ernest Lapointe: Well, the Conservative branch in Quebec apparently enjoys its autonomy.


James Earl Lawson: In that respect it is characteristic of all Quebec.


Ernest Lapointe: They have their autonomy and they seem to have their money too. Apart from this terrible thing there were many others. Let me show this picture of a terrible looking man.


William Duff: Enemy No. 1.


Ernest Lapointe: I am mentioned as having stated my belief that when truth and error are being given a fair show to justify themselves, truth always prevails. That was described as a heresy, and the last words of course were, "Let us vote for Bennett," and "Published by the central Conservative committee," but that was a lie. Here is another one with a fine portrait of my right hon. friend:
Right Hon. R. B. Bennett, Prime Minister of Canada. Protect our Canadian country against communism.
Then there is some terrible picture, and it concludes with these words:
Vote for Bennett, the only political leader who upholds the maintenance of section 98, the only leader of a state who understands the horrible threat which is on our country, the only leader able to protect the nation. A vote for Bennett is a vote for your home. A vote for Bennett is a vote for the respect of right, of religion, of tradition. Published by the central Conservative committee.
Well, that is the sort of campaign we had, and the radio was also used to spread this propaganda. On the Sunday, the eve of polling day, the radio was used in my own constituency to describe me as a terrible man, an enemy of all religion and virtue and everything, and it was stated that if the Prime Minister and I were returned to power the poor children would be forced to go to church

The Address-Mr. Lapointe (Quebec East)
and commit deeds of sacrilege, and that sort of stuff. Of course, the effect was that on the following day, instead of having a majority of 2,000, which was the usual one, I was elected by a majority of 6,000.
1 wish to go very quickly over two or three matters relating to the proposed sanctions on oil. a subject which was very well explained by my right hon. leader this afternoon. I have been very much abused for having stated what was, after all, the truth with regard to the position of Canada. It was not properly a repudiation of any man; it was the repudiation of what was being stated everywhere in the world, that it was Canada that was proposing this oil sanction, when so many countries were disquieted and did not know what to do about it. We merely said that we had not given any instructions to that effect; that this was not a Canadian proposal; that Canada was quite willing to have the same responsibility as the other countries, to join in any collective action to try to secure the maintenance of peace, but that we had not gone out of our way to attempt to force the other nations of the world to apply this oil sanction against Italy. This has been misrepresented in many places, and, I must say, more particularly in the very good city of Toronto.
I hesitate to do this, but I desire to show another gem, a cartoon against which I wish to register a strong protest. The Evening Telegram, which is a newspaper very distinguished along certain lines, attacked me very bitterly about this question, as regards which I had done merely what I thought to be my duty, what I thought to be right. I did not mind the blame in the editorials; but when it came to this cartoon which I hold in my hand, entitled " His Master's Voice," where I am seen pulling the coat of Doctor Riddell at the League of Nations, and there is a priest in clerical garb, with a biretta, whispering in my ears, with the inscription " His Master's Voice," well, I think, after being thirty-two years in the public service of my country, if I had no right to take a stand on a public matter and to say to the people of Canada what I think is right, because I am French and Roman Catholic, we have not achieved in Canada the progress which we thought we had achieved, .and there is certainly room for reform. However, things like that do not affect a man in such a way as to induce him to quit the service of his country. I am not a quitter; I always face those who attack me. But I did not mind so much even the campaign of the Toronto Telegram as the words I read in an article well written, broadly conceived, written by a gentleman for whom
I have great respect, a fine Canadian, Professor Norman Mackenzie of the university of Toronto, an editorial in Saturday Night of December 21, entitled "Confusion in Canadian Foreign Policy." The article is impartially written, praising and blaming; but here are the words which show the necessity of the remarks I 'have just offered with regard to the Toronto Telegram. Professor Mackenzie says:
While this statement may have been necessary, it has had most unfortunate results, both in Canada and internationally. Obviously, as a French Roman Catholic, Mr. Lapointe was the last one who should have made it, for it was immediately seized upon by the opposition as a repudiation of Great Britain ...
And so forth. Of course this does not represent, I know, the views of Professor Mackenzie ; but as he told me afterwards, it represents the views of many people whom he meets almost daily in his own city. I have said enough on this subject. I hope that this question as well as any other public question in Canada can be treated on its merits, without anybody going down to the level of dealing with it on religious and racial grounds, as is done in this cartoon.
As to the references to the supreme court, I do not apologize for having made a recommendation to the government to that effect. My right hon. friend says that even if some of these acts were doubtful, or may be unlawful, the government should have waited until somebody took action before the courts to have them declared invalid. I do not agree with this method of proceeding. Possibly some of them would not involve very great financial commitments, but on some of these measures the people of Canada, employers and employees and governments, would have incurred heavy expenses even from the beginning. It is better to have the validity and the legality of these measures passed upon before incurring expenses than after they have been incurred.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Will it disturb the hon. gentleman if I point out to him that he has not grasped the point I was endeavouring to make? I stated the privy council had said that an opinion expressed by the supreme court would be no better than that of the law officers of the crown, and therefore there was no finality to the matter.


Ernest Lapointe: Except that an opinion of the supreme court, and possibly of the privy council, because there is an appeal to the privy council in these matters, certainly would carry great moral weight with the people of Canada and with the interested parties. May I refresh the
124	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. Lapointe (Quebec East)
memory of my right hon. friend by reminding him that even his government resorted to this procedure of making references to the supreme court? The year preceding the enactment of this legislation the government referred to the Supreme Court of Canada the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act. There was a second reference under section 110 of the Dominion Companies Act, and there was a reference on the tariff board. Apparently my right hon. friend and his colleagues thought a legal opinion given by the Supreme Court of Canada was of some value, and they obtained that opinion before enforcing the measures upon the validity of which they desired the opinion of that body. As my right hon. friend has said, we appointed th'e best available counsel to present the views of the dominion in the matter. I admit that I expressed contrary views on the floor of the house last year, but if my right hon. friend will remember, I told him at the time that I was not as sure of my views as he was of his; that I would be very happy if I could be. At that time both my right hon. leader and I suggested that these acts should be referred to the Supreme Court of Canada; we asked that they should be, and we stated definitely that we would have them referred if we were members of the future government of the country.
Then my right hon. friend mentioned the commission which is investigating the unfortunate troubles which took place in Regina last spring. I must remind him that that is a provincial commission which was appointed by the government of Saskatchewan before the last general election.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It did not begin to
function until after the election.


Ernest Lapointe: That is true. The then Minister of Justice took the view that the province had no right to appoint these judges as commissioners; that the dominion should appoint them from Ottawa, and the commission was notified accordingly. Chief Justice Brown of Saskatchewan, Mr. Justice Martin of the appeal court and Judge Doak, the three commissioners, said that they would be only too pleased not to be compelled to serve on that commission, but that they could not see their duties as they were seen by the then Minister of Justice; they thought they were compelled to act. They offered their resignations to the provincial government and asked to be relieved from serving on the commission, but the provincial government refused to accept their resignations and stated 
that it had the right to appoint it. That was the situation when I took charge of the Department of Justice.


Richard Bedford Bennett: But no judge has a duty to act. He is not bound to act.


Ernest Lapointe: That was the position taken by Chief Justice Brown in the letters he wrote, which form part of the record. However I must say that my views in that respect differ from those of my predecessor. I had occasion to consider this matter in some instances prior to 1930. I had the legal opinion of the late Mr. Justice Newcombe, then deputy minister of Justice, who advised me at the time that judges could act on those provincial commissions. I merely followed the precedent which was created at that time and which was followed even by my predecessor in the department until this incident occurred in Regina.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Oh, no. The province of Ontario, for a long time, requested that the dominion should agree to the appointment of judges for these purposes; then it ceased to do so. Whatever it may mean, the statute says that the consent of the dominion should be sought and given. Mr. Justice Neweombe's view was that this did not have reference to a provincial commission. I recall the circumstances, but the difficulty is tJhat judges cease to be judges the moment they accept a commission.


Ernest Lapointe: But they are commissioners acting at the request of the province and performing a public service. Of course the only knowledge I have of the matter is from the records, but I must tell my right hon. friend that in connection with the hydro commission inquiry in Ontario the _ minister admitted that this action was taken by the province alone without authorization from Ottawa, though he stated that this did not alter the fact that the authorization should come from Ottawa.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is right.


Ernest Lapointe: However, that is a matter as to which we must be permitted to differ. This commission is going on; its work is proceeding, I think, in a most effective way. I do not think there were any politics in its appointment. This is merely a means of getting at the truth of a matter which was debated between the provincial and the federal governments. What made it perhaps still more imperative that this should be done was the fact that Saskatchewan is policed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who receive their orders in provincial matters

The Address-Mr. Lapointe (Quebec East)
from t.he attorney general of the province and in federal matters, of course, from Ottawa. There was a conflict between the two authorities, and I sincerely believe that the work of the commission and its report, instead of intensifying this friction and conflict, may make it easier to reconcile the two views. My right hon. friend stated that the morale of the police has declined because of the appointment of this commission. Far from it. I believe the evidence that is being given before the commission will rather be a justification of what the police did, and will rather clarify certain issues which were perhaps dangerous, as to which the people did not have the best information, the information they should have had.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I was dealing with the effect upon the trial of the accused.


Ernest Lapointe: I do not think so. My right hon. friend referred to the fact that the chief justice permitted one of the strikers to say that the victim of the battle had been killed by one of the mounted police officers.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That he saw the officer battering the man to death.


Ernest Lapointe: Yes. How could the chief justice refuse to hear that man? That is what that witness said, but there were scores of witnesses, both police and neutral citizens, who said otherwise. After all, the only way to get at the truth is to secure the evidence of all those who claim to have been witnesses to what took place at that time.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I agree, only the matter should be in a court.


Ernest Lapointe: It should be in a court, but it is difficult to get a matter like that into a court.


Richard Bedford Bennett: But it is in a court now.


Ernest Lapointe: It could be in court only in connection with one special incident having to do with the accused on trial in that court. Now my right hon. friend said it is even stated that evidence would be taken in British Columbia. Possibly one of the commissioners is going there. But it is to serve the ends of justice and it may happen that the evidence given there might be far from injurious to the case of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I was not concerned about that.


Ernest Lapointe: It is exactly as I said already, to get the facts. Surely it is not a bad thing to get the facts and to find where the truth is, no more in this matter than in the reference to the supreme court, and even in the Riddell incident. Those strikers, or a committee representing them, came to see me since the commencement of this investigation. They asked three things: first, that we should appoint a dominion commission instead of that provincial commission which apparently they do not like; second, that we should change the personnel of the commission, increase it and put a representative of the strikers on it. Of course we could not very well agree to that. Their third request was that we should pay counsel for the strikers. Those three demands were submitted to me and to some of my colleagues, and after consideration we rejected them. We thought the present commission has all the necessary powers to secure what we want to have shown, and the facts. We did not give them what they desired, but they paid us the compliment of saying it was the first time for years that they had been received courteously when they came to Ottawa.
Now there is another matter which also relates to the administration of justice. I am prevented from referring to it except, without giving any names, to say that far from being actuated by politics in this matter, certain people had made the same demand before 1930. There had been a subsequent trial of another man, who had been acquitted in connection with the same matter, and the man who had been convicted claimed that this made a change and that there had been a mistrial. The attorney general of Ontario advised strongly against a new trial. I refused to recommend a new trial before 1930. Surely this was not because of politics, for the attorney general of Ontario then was a Conservative. But when I came back to the department this year there had been an investigation held by the present attorney general of Ontario, who had made a new report strongly recommending the granting of a new trial. This report had been submitted to my immediate predecessor in office, who was there only a short time, but he did not deal with it; he had no time, and I found it on the doorstep. Conditions were altogether changed. But, Mr. Speaker, even then I did not feel like granting a new trial. I thought the ends of justice would be better served by using the discretionary power which I have under the criminal code to refer the whole matter to the court of appeal of Ontario, and to let them decide what should be done. I thought, in
The Address-Mr. Douglas

face of the conflict between the two attorney's general of Ontario, the one prior to 1930 and the one of to-day, the best thing for the Department of Justice here to do was to refer the question for judicial determination in the province, and I do not think I deserve to be told by my right hon. friend that some people are afraid there are politics in the Department of Justice.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I did not say politics. Look and see what I said.


Ernest Lapointe: Well, I hope it is not that, because if my right hon. friend said it he knows the gravity and the seriousness of such a remark.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I fully realize it.


Ernest Lapointe: However, I think I may close these remarks by telling my right hon. friend that I hope he will think well of me in the future as he did in the past. As far as I am concerned I wish him happiness and peace. My best and most earnest wish is that he may be brought to feel kindly about his political opponents.


Mr. T. C. DOUGLAS (Weybum):: Mr. Speaker, first I wish to take this opportunity of congratulating you upon your accession to the position which you now hold. I wish also to congratulate the mover (Mr. Slaght) and the seconder (Mr. Fournier) of the address.
In rising to speak to this motion I feel that not only do I represent the constituency of Weyburn; that not only do I represent a group in this house which holds a particular social viewpoint, but that as one of the youngest members in this house I represent a class of people in Canada who hitherto have been unrepresented. Might I point out that there are perhaps more young men in this House of Commons than there have been for many years past. I feel we can say, because of the contacts which some of us have with youth organizations across the dominion, that through us to some extent a certain section of young Canada speaks.
I wish to draw the attention of the house to one remarkable phrase in the speech from the throne, a phrase which seems to me to be pregnant with irony. It is this:
-in adhering to the aims and ideals of the League of Nations, and in seeking, in unison with members of the league as well as with other nations, to support by all appropriate and practical means the maintenance of peace, and the establishment of a world order based on justice and equity.
I should like this house to think for a moment of what that means and what steps the government has taken to maintain peace.
[Mr. E. Lapomte.i
I need hardly remind hon. members that in 1919 at the close of the great war the League of Nations was formed, and that in signing the covenant of the league, for the first time in the history of the human race over fifty nations gave up their sovereign right to wage war. But in return for giving up that right these fifty-seven nations required that they in turn would be guaranteed collective security. That after all is the only way that you and I can ever hope to live in a law-abiding and peaceful world. Just as you and I within the state, by giving up certain privileges of attacking the person of another individual, receive certain protection and certain privileges, so the nations of the world began this noble experiment of giving up the sovereign right to wage war and in return were guaranteed collective security.
Following that, Italy is declared by the nations of the league to be an aggressor against Ethiopia. I want here and now to commend the present administration upon two things which they have done. They interpreted correctly the mind of the Canadian people, first when they decided that the people wanted economic sanctions, and, second, when they correctly decided that the Canadian people did not want to indulge in a world war. That is, they understand what I suggest is the basic psychology of the Canadian people to-day, namely, that we will not trade with a murderer while he is engaged in the act of murdering, and that we will not have any trade or traffic with any brigand while he is engaged in international piracy. That I believe to be the attitude of the Canadian people, and the government correctly interpreted it.
What happened? We went through the motions of passing economic sanctions-and I say "through the motions," because it is very evident that sanctions have only one aim and one purpose, namely, to prevent war. Sanctions are valuable only if they are made effective. For instance we know today that it is absolute nonsense to talk about passing sanctions against Italy or any other country if the sanctions which are passed have the effect of boycotting commodities which are not needed by that country for purposes of war. Italy can get along without Christmas trees, Christmas candles and teddy bears, but there are certain basic commodities without which she cannot wage a war.
I believe Doctor Riddell took the logical position that if sanctions are to be valuable they must be effective, and that the most effective sanction in this day and age would be oil. Napoleon said that an army marches on its stomach; the modem army marches

The Address-Mr. Douglas
on oil. Without oil Italy could not continue to fight. What happened? The Canadian government gave the impression throughout the civilized world that Canada was not prepared to stand behind the statement that had been made by her representative. This afternoon the Prime Minister explained that what was meant was something similar to the statement made by Sir Samuel Hoare. That however was not the interpretation placed upon it, and I believe the statement was open to the interpretation that Canada was not in favour of oil sanctions.
There are two sources from which Italy has been drawing her oil, namely, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company of Great Britain and the Standard Oil Company of the United States. When Mr. Lloyd George made the statement during the last general election campaign in Great Britain that aeroplanes flying over Ethiopia had Anglo-Persian oil in their petrol tanks, the reply of the president of that company was significant. He said, "We are keeping the sanction; we are making Italy pay cash." In other words the only crime that, in the minds of certain financial interests could be perpetrated would be that of giving credit to Mussolini. Because of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in Great Britain and the influence that had been brought to bear in this country, we find today that oil sanctions are much further away than when they were first suggested. Why is that so? Is it because the oil interests have too much influence on the powers of government? Is it because those people who make their profits out of oil have a great deal more weight in the councils of the governments of the world than have the dictates of humanity?
The speech from the throne speaks about maintaining peace-peace to-day, when Canadian nickel is indirectly being shipped to Ethiopia. Peace to-day, when Italian aeroplanes are being flown with British oil! Peace! Mr. Speaker, if this be peace it must be like the peace of the Lord-it passeth all understanding. Hon. members in this comer of the chamber voice a logical protest. If the government is going to talk about sanctions, we urge that they be effective sanctions. The people of Canada are asking that we take a definite stand in the matter, a stand with the forces of peace rather than with those of financial interests desiring a greater sale of oil.
I would point out that the speech from the throne is notable not so much for what it says as for what it fails to say.


An hon. MEMBER:: That is a good one.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: If it ever becomes famous it will do so because it is the speech that forgot the forgotten man. I come from a part of Canada that knows something of destitution and poverty. Last winter the church of which I was minister distributed large quantities of clothing contributed by people in Ontario, part of which came from this city of Ottawa. Tons of clothing were distributed throughout the southern area. I am sure hon. members will realize that I am not drawing on my imagination when I state that last fall there were children going to school in Saskatchewan with only gunny sacking wrapped around their feet. We have gone into homes and found mothers and children lying on piles of bedding in the corner; they did not have the proper bedding equipment or the proper clothing to meet the rigours of a very cold winter. In those sections where necessity for food, clothing and shelter is dire and where people are faced with want and insecurity, what do we find? We find that in this entire speech there is hardly a reference to what is to be done for them. What has the government of the day to offer to these people harassed with debt, needing food and needing clothing?
I hold in my hand a letter from my constituency, one of hundreds which are received by members. This is one from Trossachs, Saskatchewan. I shall not weary hon. members by reading it all, but I would direct their attention to some words from this man whom I have known, a man who has worked for years to help build the province of Saskatchewan and the Dominion of Canada. Men like these are the assets of our country. He states:
I have been trying to get relief. They allowed me $1.35 a month to live on, and would not allow me anything for clothes, and that is something that I really need. But I do not want to get anything I do not need, but I sure need clothes.
He wants only enough clothing to keep warm. I now hold in my hand a letter from one of my committee men. It is addressed from Montmartre, Saskatchewan, at which point he investigated a case, one which is by no means isolated. It could be duplicated again and again. The letter is as follows:
There is a family of eleven persons here living on relief. They are getting eight dollars per month, and range in age from thirteen to twenty-six. This family is starving. Two of them are under the doctor's care through not having enough to eat. Will you please see what you can do for this family? I am helping them all I can at present, hut that is not very much. I know families in this district that are getting more than eight dollars a month, with only three in the family. So
The Address-Mr. Douglas

would you please let me know what can be done for this family? I have just come from a visit there, and they had dry bread and
potatoes for supper.
This may seem a very trivial matter to an august assembly such as this, but I want to tell you, sir, that watching the house this night are families all over the dominion who are facing conditions like that, men, women and children who are looking to this new administration, with its preponderant majority, to bring them some measure of relief from their present hardships. As the hour is getting late I shall defer what further remarks I have to make until to-morrow.
On motion of Mr. Douglas the debate was adjourned.



CANADA-UNITED STATES TRADE AGREEMENT

[Stage Direction]
Mr. LAPOINTE (Quebec East) moved the adjournment of the house.
Richard Bedford Bennett: Before the motion is put, I would point out that the government notice of motion standing in the name of the Prime Minister with respect to the trade agreement does not set out the agreement itself. It will be recalled that last year when we were dealing with matters of that kind we thought it desirable to put the agreement or convention or whatever it might be on the orders of the day, so that members of the house would have it before them when they came to approve the agreement. We printed for the convenience of the members the various conventions that had been signed at Geneva in order that they might have it before them when ratification or approval was moved. I suggest therefore that the trade agreement should be set out on the orders of the day so that it will be available to the members for we must insist on having before us the agreement before we approve it in some form or another.


Ernest Lapointe: Of course, my right hon. friend knows that the agreement, and especially the schedules, is a very voluminous document, and if it were put on the orders of the day and stood there for days, because it is not going to be taken up immediately, it would increase the size of the order paper. Perhaps it might be printed in a separate document, or in the votes and proceedings for one day.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Quite so.


Ernest Lapointe: I will consult the Prime Minister about the matter.
Motion agreed to and the house adjourned at 10.55 p.m.
[Mr Douglas.]
Wednesday, February 12, 1936