1936-02-27

[Stage Direction]
Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING <Prime Minister) moved:
That the name of Mr. Barber be substituted for that of Mr. Baker on the joint committee of both houses on the parliamentary restaurant.
Mr. BAKER:: I think there is an error. The motion is to substitute the name Baker for Barber. They have sufficient bakers up in the restaurant now.


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: I am simply carrying out the instructions of the whip.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING <Prime Minister): Mr. Speaker, I beg to lay on the table a white paper in English and in French, containing the documents relating to the Italo-Ethiopian conflict.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. W. K. ESLING (Kootenay West) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 7, to amend the Copyright Amendment Act, 1931.
Some hon. MEMBERS:: Explain.


Mr. ESLING:: Mr. Speaker, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and the Performing Right Society of England, with which are affiliated similar societies in eighteen European countries, organized the Canadian Performing Right Society, and to it assigned their alleged control by ownership and copyright of two million pieces of music.
Under the amended Copyright Act of 1931 this society is authorized to issue licences and to collect fees for the performance of any one of these two million pieces of music in a public place. The purpose of this bill is to curb the activities of the society in so far as their fees are deemed to be excessive, and to require the society to furnish to licencees a list of the two million pieces of music of which this society claims ownership either by control or by copyright. One thing to be emphasized is the fact, in accordance with the report of the royal commissioner, that Canadian authors, composers and publishers do not participate in the benefits of the Canadian Performing Right Society.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



QUESTIONS

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

Mr. McKINNON (Kenora-Rainy River):: 1.	What is the total cost of the Lac Seul clearing project from the beginning of the project until the end of December, 1935?
2.	How many men day's work was provided?
3.	Of the total amount, what percentage was paid in wages: (a) what was the amount for camps and camp equipment; (b) what was the amount of the costs of administration and supervision?
4.	How many acres were cleared?
5.	How many cords of merchantable pulp-wood were salvaged?
6.	How many feet B.M. of timber? .


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver):: 1.	$863,237.60.
2.	549,736.
3.	Allowances to supervisory staffs and labourers, 23-8 per cent. Wages to skilled labour at prevailing rates, 8-08 per cent, (a) $110,17528. (b) $195,041.04.
4.	659-7.
5.	2254.
6.	576,950 feet b.m. in addition to lumber produced for the erection of camp buildings, docks, wharves, etc.


HOSPITAL APPOINTMENTS-NURSES
Mr. BEAUBIER:: 1.	Are nurses with overseas service during the Great war entitled to preference in making appointments to hospitals under the control o1 the federal government?
Questions

2.	Has a matron or nurse recently been appointed to the staff of the Deer Lodge hospital, Winnipeg?
3.	If so:	(a) was she a registered nurse;
(b) had she service overseas in the Great war?


Mr. POWER:: 1.	Yes, provided the candidate is qualified under the provisions of the Civil Service Act and is physically and otherwise suitable to carry out the duties of the position.
2.	Yes. (1) One matron (by promotion);
(2) One nurse.
3. (1) (a) Yes; (b) Yes.
(2) (a) Yes; (b) No.


DOMINION HOUSING ACT-LOANS TO PROVINCES
Mr. HEAPS:: 1.	What was the total amount of loans granted to each of the provinces under the Dominion Housing Act, 1919?
2.	What was the amount paid back by each province as at December 31, 1935?
3.	What was the amount in default by each province in principal and interest at above date?
4.	What was the amount due by each province as at December 31, 1935?


Mr. DUNNING:: 1.	Prince Edward Island..S 50,000	00Nova Scotia	
1,537,000	00New Brunswick	
1,525,000	00Ontario	
9,350,000	00Quebec	
7,369,689	62Manitoba	
1,975,000	00British Columbia	1,701,500	00

2.	Prince Edward Island..$	18,500	00Nova Scotia	
815,000	00_ New Brunswick	
864,300	001.	Year-1932	1933	1934	1935	Total	2.	Province-
Prince Edward Island
Nova Scotia	
New Brunswick.. ..
Quebec	
Ontario	
Manitoba	
Saskatchewan	
Alberta	
British Columbia.. ..
Total	
Ontario	
9,350,000	00Quebec	
4,185,001	90Manitoba	
880,000	00British Columbia	Nil

3.	Nil.
4.	Prince Edward Island. .S 31,500 00
Nova Scotia	
722,000	00New Brunswick	
660,700	00Quebec	
3,184,687	72Manitoba	
1,095,000	00British Columbia	1,701,500	00


$ 7,395,387 72 SUPERINTENDENT OF PENITENTIARIES
Miss MAOPHAIL:: What amount does General D. M. Ormond, superintendent of penitentiaries, receive by way of pension or pensions in addition to his salary?


Mr. POWER:: European War Pension	 $	204 00
Militia Long Service Pension 1,000 92


$ 1,204 92 ROYAL CANADIAN AIR FORCE
Mr. REID:: 1.	What was the total number of officers or men taken on the Royal Canadian Air Force during the calendar years 1932 to 1935?
2.	What was the number of men taken on from each province respectively?
3.	What was the number of men taken on from each of the principal cities in Canada?


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver):: Officers	Airmen	Total10	1	1113	79	9229	164	19352	244	2961932	1933	1934	1935	Total8	8. .	, .	2	21	3	41	64	122	1872	7	9, #	1	3	43	2	5[DOT][DOT]	8	17	251	79	164	244

3.	City-
Ottawa	
Toronto	
Winnipeg	
New Westminster
Vancouver	
Quebec	
St. Thomas	
Victoria	
Lethbridge	
Prince Albert.. .
Halifax	
Montreal	
Edmonton	
Kingston	
Hamilton	
Port Arthur	
Calgary	
Windsor	
Hull	

Orders for Returns		
1934	1935	Total38	71	1095	3	92	6	81	15	12	171	11	12	2	41	11	12	22	21	12	21	11	11	12	21	1
1933


FARM MORTGAGE LOANS
Mr. PURDY:: 1.	Have steps been taken to implement the
second resolution appearing on page 35 of the report of the dominion-provincial conference, 1935, particularly with respect to:	(a) "that
the interest upon such loans as have been made, and may be made in the future, be reduced to a rate of 4 per cent per annum"; and (b) "that conditions be relaxed enough to make it possible for farmers to avail themselves of these loans when their security is sufficient"?
2.	If not, will such steps be taken?


Mr. DUNNING:: Where legislation is required, the intention of the government is made known by the introduction of the relevant bills. The matters referred to are under consideration.


CHAMPLAIN COUNTY AND SETTLEMENT RELIEF
Mr. BRUNELLE:: How many settlers of Champlain county took up land under the act that ensured them a grant of $600?


Mr. ROGERS:: Under relief legislation the dominion government has entered into an agreement with the province of Quebec, under the terms of which the dominion, province, and municipality contribute each a sum not exceeding $200 towards the settling on the land of any family which is on relief, or which would otherwise be in receipt of relief. Provision is made for an additional contribution of $33.33 for subsistence expenditures during the third year of settlement by each party to the agreement if the family is not selfsupporting at the end of the two-year period.
Selection of settlers is made by a committee which includes representatives of the federal government, the province, and the colonization departments of the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Canadian National Railways. This committee has selected for settlement 976 families with 5,029 dependents, of which number one settler with four dependents is from Champlain county.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. WERMENLINGER:: 1.	What members of the Huron tribe at Loretteville are in receipt of direct relief, and what was the amount which each person received from January 1 to December 31, 1935?
2.	Does the store designated' "Bon Marche," of Quebec, sell to the Department of Indian Affairs, goods supplied to the Hurons of Loretteville?
3.	Who are the owners of such store?


Mr. CRERAR:: Return tabled herewith,.


CANADIAN FARM LOAN BOARD
Mr. DOUGLAS:: 1.	What is the personnel of the Canadian Farm Loan Board?
2.	What salaries do they receive?
3.	When were they appointed?
4.	For what period do they hold office?
5.	How may this tenure of office be termii ated?
6.	How many applications have been made for loans: (a) by provinces; (b) total?
7.	How many applications have been granted: (a) by provinces; (b) total?
8.	What is the total amount of money
already loaned by the board:	(a) by provinces; (b) total?
9.	Are applicants required to forward a deposit?
10.	If so, how long is this deposit held?
Tractor Parts-Tariff

11.	How many inspectors are employed by the board: (a) by provinces; (b) total?
12.	What are their salaries?
13.	What travelling expenses are they allowed ?
14.	How long has the board been operating?
15.	What has been the total cost each month for administration since its formation?



MOTOR VEHICLE ACCIDENTS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. T. L. CHURCH (Broadview):: Mr. Speaker, last session this parliament devoted a day to discussing what action could be taken by parliament to prevent the great loss of life and injuries from motor car accidents at level crossings and other places. During 1935 there were 3,087 injured and 50 killed by motor cars in Toronto alone. In view of this great loss of life I ask the government to consider the appointment of a committee, either of this house or a joint committee of both houses, to inquire into this question as was done in England. This committee could make a study and survey and suggest legislation in an effort to abate what constitutes one of the greatest menaces to life in Canada. I do not expect an answer to-day, but I do ask the government to consider taking up this matter as I do not want to move it at another time by means of a substantive motion.


Hon. ERNEST LAPOINTE (Minister of Justice):: I shall be pleased to consider the
suggestion of my hon. friend. As he knows, highway traffic is under provincial control and the only part which this parliament might play in the prevention of this evil would be perhaps by an amendment to the criminal code. I do not know whether the criminal code is in need of any such amendment, but I shall consider the suggestion of my hon. friend.



TRACTOR PARTS-TARIFF

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to
make a brief statement to the house on the subject of the tariff status of tractor parts. I am informed that this is the season for importing tractor parts and that it is particularly important in western Canada at the moment for importers to know exactly what tariff treatment these parts will receive.
There is an item in the customs tariff, No. 409m, dealing with complete parts. If an article is classified as coming under that item it is entitled to entry duty free. The selection of articles that can be entered

under that item is therefore important. The department classifies as complete parts such articles as cylinder head gaskets, manifold gaskets, oil pan gaskets and other special gaskets which are obviously designed for use only as parts of a traction engine. The department also deals similarly with washers, so called, of special shape which are specially designed for use as parts of tractors and which do not lend themselves to other use. However, bolts, nuts, washers, rivets and screws and other articles of general hardware which are more or less of a standard type and are adapted for uses other than as parts of tractors cannot be classified under the provision in tariff item 409m for "complete parts," in view of a decision of the former board of customs in which the provisions in the tariff for "complete parts" are defined. In this regard I should like to place on Hansard a list of these articles that the department classifies as "complete parts." This list is as follows:
L 59 M	Washer
K SP 1182	Gasket
K 4 P 9	Gasket
1603 D	Gasket
K 5 P 1334	Gasket
K5P 4545	Gasket
61000	Gasket
PR 1-16	W asher
S 5 P 251	"U" bolt
AS 2 D 485	Bolt
S 5 P 152	Washer
1627	Nut
R 5 P 3087	Washer
F 179	Washer
1693	Screw
VIA 1317	Nut
K 5 P 5520	Gasket
K 5 P 685	Gasket
K 5 P 3363	Gasket
K 5 P 2564	Gasket
K 5 P 372	Gasket
K 5 P 2912	Gasket
B 1959	Gasket
IC 5 P 5477	Gasket
K 5 P 1306	Gasket
K4P 1753	Gasket
K4P 4376	Gasket
K 5 P 4439	Gasket
K 2033	Gasket
K 5 P 3734	Gasket
K 5 P 264	Gasket
K 5 P 420	Gasket
K 5 P 3713	Gasket
IC 5 P 679	Gasket
B 1960	Gasket
K5P 2596	Gasket
1724	Nut
1664	Set screw
1637	Screw
PR1-7	Nut
PR1-5	Gasket
1566	Screw
1662	Nut
1638	Screw
S 5 P 3564	Bolt
A 5 P 3531	Bolt

Performing Right Society
The department does not classify as "complete parts" the following articles:



S 156 MA 1005 1248 S 157 MA 972 1086 S 713 1777 1592 S 5 P 959

[Stage Direction]
Plain rivet Lockwasher Nut
Bolt and nut Packing material Cap screw Rivet (large) Wing nut Wing nut Cap screw
The letters and numbers quoted are those identifying the parts imported1 by a well-known company in western Canada.
In regard to ball and roller bearings, the ruling of the department in the past has been that in view of the provisions of another item in the tariff, ball and roller bearings are dutiable irrespective of whether or not they are adapted for non-tractor use. The department has reconsidered this ruling within the last few days and we have come to the conclusion that a ruling more in line wtih the true intent and meaning of the customs tariff would be the following:
Complete ball or roller bearings for use as , parts of traction engines, including farm tractors, may be dealt with under the tariff provision for "complete parts," when it is established to the satisfaction of the customs officer concerned that the imported bearings are specially designed for use as parts of traction engines, and are not adapted for other uses.
The department is prepared to make this ruling and collectors are being advised accordingly. I think the situation that has developed, particularly in western Canada, in regard to the importation of all these parts is now satisfactorily met by the rulings of the department.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon J. EARL LAWSON (York South):: Mr. Speaker, in view of the actions of the government as outlined yesterday by the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) in connection with the providing of employment for unemployed single men now in the relief camps, I should like to ask if the government contemplates taking any action other than the negotiation of trade treaties to provide work and wages for the married unemployed now on relief in the respective municipalities throughout Canada?
Hon. NORMAN MoL. ROGERS (Minister of Labour): Mr. Speaker, yesterday I sought to make it clear that the action taken in
respect of single, homeless men in relief camps was taken because the government had a special responsibility with regard to these men. I sought also to make it clear that we were not disregarding our responsibility in relation to other unemployed persons. Legislation will be brought down during this session and subsequently which will fully disclose our policies with regard to this whole question.



JAPANESE SITUATION

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. PAUL MARTIN (Essex East):: Mr. Speaker, before the orders of the day are called, I should like to ask the Prime Minister, as Minister of External Affairs, if, because of possible international consequences, he is prepared or inclined to make a statement to the house with reference to occurrences yesterday in Japan.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I might say to my hon. friend that yesterday the government received from the Canadian minister in Tokyo two dispatches giving a very brief account of the tragic occurrence reported in the press. Nothing has been received from Japan since which has not appeared in the press.



PERFORMING RIGHT SOCIETY

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
William Kemble Esling: I should like to ask the Secretary of State (Mr. Rinfret) if he could supply each member of this house with a copy of the report of His Honour Judge Parker, the royal commissioner who investigated the activities of the Canadian Performing Right Society?


Hon. FERNAND RINFRET (Secretary of State):: Mr. Speaker, the member for West Kootenay (Mr. Esling) was kind enough to notify me of the question he intended to ask. Therefore with the permission of the house I shall table one copy in English and one copy in French of the report of His Honour Judge Parker, appointed to investigate the activities of the Canadian Performing Right Society and other societies having to do with copyrights.


Mr. NEILL:: Could not the minister furnish each hon. member with a copy?


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: I understand that a copy will be given to each hon. member.

Pacific Coast Shipping-Mr. Euler
BANK OF CANADA On the orders of the day:
Mr. JEAN-FRANCOIS POULIOT (Temis-couata): Mr. Speaker, I should like to inquire of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) if each member of the house will be supplied with a copy of the speech made by the governor of the Bank of Canada at the last meeting of the shareholders of the bank?
Hon. CHARLES A. DUNNING (Minister of Finance): I know of no objection to furnishing copies of this speech, and I shall see what can be done to comply with my hon. friend's request.



GREAT LAKES SHIPPING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. S. WOODSWORTH (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I noticed a few days ago from an associated press report that under legislation adopted by the seventy-fourth con- ' gress of the United States all vessels plying on the great lakes of 150 gross tons and over must be marked with a loading line. I understand that this legislation is somewhat similar to the English legislation in connection with the Plimsoll line. Is the government of Canada prepared to grant the same protection to Canadian masters and seamen on the great lakes?


Hon. C. D. HOWE (Minister of Marine):: The Canada Shipping Act, which has not yet been proclaimed, contains provisions as to load line; but I may say to my hon. friend that so far as the great lakes are concerned these load lines have no particular significance at the moment inasmuch as the depth of water in the canals limits the load much more definitely than load lines could do for commercial traffic.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I should still like the minister to answer my question whether our legislation with regard to this matter cannot be at least as good as that of the United States.



PACIFIC COAST SHIPPING


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Wednesday, February 26, consideration of the proposed motion of Mr. Reid, to provide employment of greater numbers of white Canadian citizens on all

vessels of Canadian ownership and registry, the owners of which receive sums of money from the public treasury; and the proposed amendment thereto of Mr. Maclnnis.
Hon. W. D. EULER (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: The motion submitted by the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Reid), with the amendment thereto proposed by the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis), deserves perhaps a few words of comment, although, as the house knows, when the estimates of subsidies for the Atlantic and Pacific services were under consideration last week the question was discussed to some extent. For that reason I need not go into the matter very fully. I might, however, compliment the mover of the resolution and the hon. gentleman who proposed the amendment upon the zeal which they quite properly show with regard to the employment of Canadians on these vessels.
Perhaps I should refer to one or two misconceptions which I think crept into the debate. I think there was some thought in the minds of hon. members that, with regard to the Australian service, orientals were also employed on those ships. I am informed that only white men are employed on them; and in connection with this line, the Union Steamship line which we subsidize and of which the Canadian Pacific Railway is half owner, I am informed that recently twenty-four Japanese oilers and firemen were discharged and it was later discovered that these men were not only naturalized Canadians but were actually receiving union rates of pay.
After the debate the other evening and some of the objections raised in the house with respect to oriental labour, I got into communication with the manager of the steamship line and among other things received the following pertinent information- I will not go into it at any length to-day. He states that in order to replace oriental labour with white labour it would require the expenditure of nearly $800,000 additional; and as the proposed subsidy is only $600,000, it must be quite obvious that unless that subsidy were increased there would be no purpose whatsoever in the steamship company accepting any subsidy. The house would therefore have to decide whether, if it is the desire that all white labour should be employed, we should increase our subsidy to the extent of the added expenditure. To some that may not be very material; they may place above the necessities for economy the desirability of paying higher wages and employing white men.

Canadian Citizenship-Mr. Maclnnis
Further, I am informed that it would require about a quarter of a million dollars to make such alterations in these vessels as would be necessary for the accommodation of white people employed.	*
One other point made iby the management of the line was rather, I admit, a surprise to me. It is of very -considerable importance when the merits of the question are being discussed. It is that on the boats in the China and Japan services sixty per cent of the passengers are orientals. I was surprised to hear that the percentage was so large, and the significant fact that suggests itself is that if the personnel of the passenger list comprises orientals to the extent of sixty per cent-my hon. friends from British Columbia will admit this, I think-it would be somewhat difficult to get white men to serve these passengers.
I am not going further into the merits of the question, for this reason: in order that complete information may be obtained-and possibly some of these claims that have been made may be refuted-I move, in amendment to the amendment, the following, seconded by Mr. Elliott:
That all the words after "that" be struck out and that the following be substituted therefor:
"the question of the employment of Canadian citizens on ships and vessels the owners of which receive moneys from the public treasury of Canada be referred to the standing committee on industrial and international relations."


Alan Webster Neill: Would the minister be good enough to allow the insertion of the words "or charterers" after the word "owners"? A good many boats are chartered.


William Daum Euler: I have no objection.
Amendment to the amendment (Mr. Euler) agreed to.
Motion as amended agreed to.



CANADIAN CITIZENSHIP


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Thursday, February 20, consideration of the motion of Mr. Maclnnis to exclude from the country all persons belonging to those groups to whom we do not grant the full rights and privileges of citizenship.
Mr. ANGUS MacINNIS (Vancouver East):: In closing the discussion on the resolution standing in my name, which was debated on Thursday last, I have not very much more to
say, except to take up certain points raised by some or possibly all of those who spoke against the resolution.
I shall first deal with the member for Comox-Albemi (Mr. Neill). The hon. member was, I think, rather spiteful in his remarks on this resolution. He was not in his usual good humour. I do not think that his temper has been improved since he was taken over by the Liberal party. Very possibly his chagrin on this occasion was caused by the fact that, in the language of the street, he is on the spot, that the days of his whispering campaigns are over and that now he will have to face the issue squarely. He accused me of raising a dead issue, an issue which, he said, has been dead for thirty-three years. If that is so, why did he drag up the dead bones during the last election? Why did he rush from the city of Ottawa to his constituency of Comox-Al-bemi to advertise in an early address that the leader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation had stated that he was in favour of votes for orientals? Surely if the issue was dead he could have left it dead, without having to bring it up at that time and for his own special purposes.
He asks us, why not go to the source, that is to the provincial legislature? If the provincial legislature is the source, why was the issue raised in a federal election? I have here a copy of the Comox Argus of August 15,	1935. It gives a report
of a speech made by the hon. member for Comox-Albemi to a small audience on August 12. I find that on this occasion, he dragged in this dead issue, something that has been, to use his own words, "dead for thirty-three years." He is reported to have said:
Neither would he agree to advocate votes for orientals at the dictates of Woodsworth. When he first went to Ottawa he had worked hard to stem the stream of Chinese and Japs coming into British Columbia, and bad succeeded in stopping the Chinese entirely and reducing the Japs very greatly.
Unaided he did these things. This was the mighty Neill, speaking to his people in Comox-Albemi. Now notice this:
What would happen if they got the vote? They would vote solidly for the man or party who promised them more privileges and a larger quota of immigration.


Alan Webster Neill: Hear, hear.


Angus MacInnis: So that the hon. gentleman was not only saying that we were in favour of votes for orientals; he also insisted we were in favour of more oriental immigration. Now he has the chance to vote for exclusion, and we will see if he will do it;
574	COMMONS
Canadian Citizenship-Mr. Maclnnis
we will find out if he is as good as his word, if he will support what he said when he was on the hustings in Comox-Alberni.


Mr. REID:: I rise to a point of order.
The hon. member for Vancouver East is giving the impression that any one who votes against this resolution is voting for the entry of orientals. I make the statement that he is not putting the matter fairly and squarely before the house, because this resolution-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Angus MacInnis: The resolution speaks for itself. It is phrased very well indeed, and if my hon. friends do not like it, as far as I know there is nothing to do but to lump it. They brought this upon themselves. I did not want to do it. We did not go out of our way to bring this up. They used the issue to serve their purpose, and now that it has served their purpose they want to bury it. Well, we are not going to allow them to bury it; we are going to give it decent burial if it gets one at all.
The hon. member also drew to the attention of the house a statement I made on February 12 when I was speaking in another debate. He read this:
Note that, sir,-the Liberal party is opposed to giving the orientals the vote. What a wonderful help such a statement will be in their negotiations with Japan to improve trade relations between the two countries.
I stated that in order to show the inconsistency of Liberal propaganda during the last election. I regret that the hon. Minister of National Defence (Mr. Mackenzie) is not in his seat at the moment. One of the principal planks in his election campaign was that of better trade relations with the orient; and yet while he was using that as a plank in his platform, he was going through the country vilifying those orientals who are already in the Dominion of Canada. I was trying to show the inconsistency of it. However I am not going to take up any more time with the member for Comox-Alberni.
As to the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Reid), I wish to thank him for the way he approached this resolution when it was last before the house; and when he says that he was in no way connected with the advertising and the literature that I read in the house except that his photograph appeared along with the others, I accept what he said in the terms in which it was said. He states that he does not agree with the preamble. The preamble of the resolution is as follows:

Whereas it is detrimental to the best interests of Canada that there should be in the country groups to whom, because of race or religious beliefs, we do not extend all the right of citizenship;
That is quite clear, I think. It says it is detrimental, it is not in the best interests of this country, that we should have in the country groups of people whom, because of race or religion-and I would say, any other reason-we cannot admit into the full privileges of citizenship. H we are to have people come to this country, for what purpose are we going to have them here? Are we going to have them	come so that they	may	bemade citizens of this country, and to bring their children	up	as	citizens, or	are	weallowing them	in	for	some other	purpose?Are we going to try to bring in here a sort of inferior or slave class? I do not know. My friend from New Westminster says he is not in favour	of	the	preamble, but I	am
in favour of it: I am opposed to bringing people in here who will be in an inferior position to the rest of the community, because that inferior position makes them a constant menace to the people whom I represent. That is the reason I take that position.
The hon. gentleman stated that the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation seemed to be losing a lot of sleep over the oriental franchise. Let me tell him that those who have lost the sleep must be those who spent their good money on campaign advertising in connection with this matter. We did not spend any money to advertise our position; we did not need to do it, the Liberal party did it for us. Let me say again that we have not raised this question in any shape or form, neither in the house nor outside the house. As a general principle we believe that every individual is entitled to certain rights and privileges in this country and from that position we cannot back down whether it brings us votes or whether it drives votes away. I am not so sure that my Liberal friends will be so keen on bringing up this question again at the next election, because during the past four years the people of British Columbia have been educated and the force of this movement has been largely spent.
My right hon. friend the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) stated that he found it very difficult to understand my real objective. In order that he may have no doubt whatever as to what my real objective is I am going to read the resolution again in its entirety, and I may tell him that my real

Canadian Citizenship-Mr. Maclnnis
objective is exactly what is stated by the resolution:
Whereas it is detrimental to the best interests of Canada that there should be in the country groups to whom, because of race or religious beliefs, we do not extend all the right of citizenship;
Therefore be it resolved, that, in the opinion of this house, the government should take the necessary measures to exclude from the country all persons belonging to those groups to whom we do not grant the full rights and privileges of citizenship.
I brought forward this resolution because I considered this matter extremely dangerous to the peace of the province of British Columbia, perhaps not so much now as later on, when we may have a larger population of those concerned in this matter, when they will be more vocal than they are at present and more ready to defend themselves. For that reason I do not wish to add to a problem that is already sufficiently serious by bringing into this country further immigrants from the countries concerned. Even if this resolution passes the house I do not expect that the government will immediately exclude any or all of those mentioned in the resolution by way of legislation. I assume that the Prime Minister, with his usual care in these matters, will take up the matter in the proper way and point out to the countries concerned the danger involved in allowing more of their nationals to come into this country before we have properly dealt with those already here. If it is done in that way I do not think we should have any great difficulty in dealing with the situation as far as it can be dealt with in that manner. I rather regretted the attitude taken by the Prime Minister the other evening in his statement as to the probable consequences of this resolution in the countries concerned. He said;
Like my hon. friend I deplore very much anything that is calculated to stir up racial feeling, but fortunately so far as political propaganda is concerned it is more or less localized. What my hon. friend forgets at the moment is that people in the orient who have never heard of our political discussions will read his resolution in the morning as a resolution that is being discussed in the House of Commons of Canada, and that makes it a very serious question indeed.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Hear, hear.
Mr. MaeINNIS:	The Prime Minister is
not so much concerned about the racial feelings raised within the Dominion of Canada; that is of no great concern to him. But this might raise feelings outside Canada, and that is of very great concern in his mind because, forsooth, it might interfere with trade. I am not unmindful of these dangers, either; I
know we should try to minimize them as much as possible, and I stated on the public platform that the Liberal members in and around Vancouver who were so loud in their discussion of this question would not raise their voice about it when they came down to Ottawa, because it would interfere with trade. During the last session of the legislature at Victoria a resolution was placed on the order paper by a friend of the government, not a member of the party in power but a friend of the government, with the idea that it might embarrass the opposition. The resolution was to the effect that it was not in the best interests of the province of British Columbia that the franchise should be extended to orientals. That resolution was not allowed to be debated in the legislature; it was withdrawn, for the reason that they were afraid it might interfere with trade. But the things that were not allowed to be discussed in the legislature and which they would not like discussed in the House of Commons, they are quite willing to discuss on the hustings because they feel that such discussion will not reach the ears of the statesmen in those other countries concerned. Surely that is not statesmanship of a very high order.
Referring to the possible consequences of this resolution the Prime Minister also suggested that the happenings in this country were not of any very great import. Let me read what the right hon. gentleman said in 1924 when this question, in another form, was before this house. I quote from Hansard for 1924, volume 5 at page 4355:
I do not think one need argue the point as to the importance of encouraging Japanese students to come to our universities in order to become acquainted with our standards in matters of civic life; methods of government, and the like, and to return to the orient with those ideas. That, really, is the most effective kind of missionary effort-to let the oriental see the civilization we have, and if, in any particular, we are ahead, to let him carry those ideas back to his people.
Now I should like to ask the right hon. gentleman if those Japanese students and others who were living in British Columbia during the last election campaign would be likely to take back to Japan a high opinion of our standards in matters of civic life. How would the standards appear? Would they be anything after which the Japanese should pattern their civic affairs? I doubt it very much.
I hope that I have impressed the house with the seriousness of this question. I have indicated that it is a question that should be settled, as far as it can be settled, and that it cannot be settled on the hustings; this is the
576	COMMONS
Canadian Citizenship-Mr. Mackenzie King
proper place to debate and settle it. My right hon. friend I think asked at the close of the debate last Thursday if I was going to withdraw the resolution. I am not going to withdraw it, because I have no guarantee that those who raised this issue in 1935 will not raise it again when the next election campaign comes along, and that is not in the best interests of the people of this country. Let me say again that the resolution means exactly what it says. Anyone voting against it votes for the principle that we should let people come into this country to stay permanently to whom we cannot grant the rights and privileges of citizenship. He will also vote for the continued coming of these people into the country. The issue is quite clear; I do not think anyone voting on the resolution need be at all in the dark as to what it means.
Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING
(Prime Minister): I know I should not be in order in pursuing the debate any further, and such is not my intention. Perhaps the house, however, will allow me to renew the appeal, if I may so call it, which I made to my hon. friend the other evening, not to divide the house at this time on a question which is one of oriental exclusion. When I made the appeal I did to my hon. friend a week ago, I stressed how important it is that, as far as the orient is concerned, there should1 not be added to the difficulties of the present any further problem which might serve to embarrass British peoples and peoples the world over. I believe what has happened in Japan since I last spoke is evidence of the seriousness of conditions in the orient at the present time, and of how sensitive shall I say, some of the citizens of the orient are with respect to what they regard as their rights. It would, I believe, be most unfortunate for Canada and for the present world situation should this parliament be forced to vote on a question of oriental exclusion.


Angus MacInnis: I am at a loss as to what the right hon. gentleman would have me do. All he has stated so far is that I should withdraw the resolution because of the serious situation that prevails-possibly not that altogether; I do not wish to put any wrong construction on what he has said. I assure him and this house that I take just as serious a view of the situation as any hon. member does. But what has he to say for the future as far as this country is concerned? What is he going to do; can he give me any assurance of that? If he can I assure him without any hesitation whatever that I will withdraw the resolution.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Question.


Angus MacInnis: If the right hon. gentleman wants to have the resolution remain as it is on the order paper without any further discussion for a day or two. I shall be glad-


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The question has to be disposed of.
The house divided on the motion (Mr. Maclnnis) which was negatived on the following
division:
++YEAS
Messrs:
Coldwell	Maclnnis
Douglas	MacNeil
Elliott (Kindersley)	Marshall
Fair	Pelletier
Heaps	Quelch
Johnston (Bow River)	Taylor (Nanaimo)
Kuhl	Woodsworth-15.
Landeryou	
NAYS	
Messrs:	
Anderson	Elliott
Baker	(Middlesex Wes
Barry	Emmerson
Beaubien	Esling
Beaubier	Euler
Bennett	Evans
Bertrand (Prescott)	Fafard
Bertrand (Laurier)	Ferguson
Betts	Ferland
Black (Chateauguay-	Ferron
Huntingdon)	Finn
Black (Yukon)	Fiset, Sir Eugene
Blaokmore	Fleming
Blair	Fontaine
Blais	Fournier
Blanchette	(Maisonneuve-
Botbwell	Rosemount)
Bouchard	Fraser
Boulanger	Furniss
Bradette	Gariepy
Brasset	Gauthier
Brown	Girouard
Brunelle	Gladstone
Cahan	Glen
Cameron	Golding
(Hastings South)	Goulet
Cameron (Cape Breton	Grant
North-Victoria)	Gray
Campbell	Graydon
Casselman	Green
Chevrier	Hamilton
(Ottawa East)	Hansell
Clark	Harris
(Essex South)	Hartigan
Clark	Hill
(York-Sunbury)	Howard
Clarke (Rosedale)	Howden
Cochrane	Howe
Crerar	Hushion
Cr5te	Hyndman
Damude	Ilsley
Davidson	Tsnor
Deaehman	Jaques
Deslauriers	Jean
Donnelly	Johnston
Dubois	(Lake Centre)
Duff	King. Mackenzie
Duffus	Kinley
Dunning	Lacombe
Dupuis	Lacroix (Beauce)
Edwards	Lalonde

Economic Council-Mr. Pouliot
Lapointe
(Matapedia-Matane) Lapointe (Quebec East) Lawson Leader Leclerc Lennard Little Macdonald
(Brantford City) MaeKenzie (Neepawa) Mackenzie
(Vancouver Centre) MacKinnon
(Edmonton West) MacLean (Prince) MacLennan MacMillan MacNicol MacRae McCann
McDonald (Souris)
McDonald (Pontiac)
McGregor
McIntosh
Mclvor
McKay
McKenzie
(Lambton-Kent) McKinnon (Kenora-Rainy River) McLarty
McLean (SimcoeEast) McLean (Melfort) McNevin
(Victoria, Ont.) MeNiven
(Regina City)
McPhee
Mallette
Marcil
Martin
Maybank
Michaud
Mitchell
Moore
Motherwell
Mullins
Mutch
Needham
Neill
O'Neill
Parent (Quebec
West and South) Parent (Terrebonne) Patterson
Perley (Qu'Appelle)
Perley, Sir George
Perras
Plunkett
Poole
Pottier
Pouliot
Power
Purdy
Reid
Rennie
Rickard
Rinfret
Robiehaud
Rogers
Ross (St. Paul's) Ross
(Middlesex East) Ross (Moose Jaw) Rowe (Athabaska) Rowe
(Dufferin-Simeoe) Ryan St-Pere Sanderson Senn Sinclair Siaght Spence Stewart Stirling Streight Sylvestre Taylor (Norfolk) Telford Thompson Thorson Tomlinson Tremblay Tucker Turgeon Turner Tustin Veniot Vien Weir White Winkler Wood-186.



ECONOMIC COUNCIL OF CANADA

[Stage Direction]
Mr. JEAN-FRANCOIS POULIOT (Temis-couata) moved the second reading of Bill No. 6, to repeal the Economic Council of Canada Act, 1935.
He said: Mr. Speaker, my remarks on this bill will be very short. May I suggest to hon. members that they glance at the explanatory notes on the bill? There are two main reasons for this bill. First, neither this government nor the previous government have attempted to form an economic council. Secondly, there was an item of $20,000 in the estimates last year to cover the expenses under this act, but in the estimates for the coming fiscal year there is not a cent provided for that purpose. I therefore conclude that the government has thought it very 12739-37
wise not to take advantage of this legislation. The people of this country are strongly against it. Either the government or the cabinet is strong and good, or it is not. If the government is not so good, there must be a change. Well, Mr. Speaker, the change occurred on October 14 last, and now this legislation is completely useless. It is like a fifth wheel on a coach, turning idly, and it is just as well to dispense with it. I shall not deal with the matter further; I shall let the bill speak for itself. It is not a money bill; it is simply a lesson in economy. I hope the bill will meet with the approval of hon. members.
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Sanderson in the chair.
On section 1-Repeal.
James Shaver Woodsworth: It seems strange that the introduction of a bill to repeal a measure concerning an important policy which was adopted only recently should be left to a private member on the government side. I think we should have some statement from the government in this connection. Last year I was in favour of the establishment of this economic council; I believed it was a move in the right direction. I do not know how the opposition feels towards this bill, but I want to register my protest against what to me seems to be a retrograde step.


Mr. POULIOT:: Apparently the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woods-worth) has never read the rules of the house. He is always fighting for freedom; he is always claiming he is persecuted by someone, but when a member submits a bill to the house on his own initiative he protests against it. Where is the logic in that action? It is the most absurd performance ever given by the hon. member. He is always fighting for his privileges. Last year when the then Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) objected to one of his bills he protested with tears in his eyes and thunder in his voice; he claimed he was being persecuted. I know the word "shameful" is not parliamentary, but if it were I would surely use it. I do not use it. I regret that the hon. member has outlived his usefulness in this house as a defender of the people's rights.


James Shaver Woodsworth: In response to the outburst to which we have just listened, may I say that I urged the other day that the hon. member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot) should have the opportunity of bringing this bill before the house. I think he will recall that. I feel strongly as to the rights of any hon.

578	COMMONS
Economic Council-Mr. Mackenzie King
member to bring a bill before the house. He has that right and I for one urged that he be allowed the full exercise of it. My remarks were not directed in any sense against the hon. member for Temiscouata; I was addressing them to the government. I stated that it seemed strange to me that a bill of this kind should pass its second reading without a statement being made by the government as to their attitude on this important matter of public policy.


William Daum Euler: Silence gives consent.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I assume that silence gives consent. That only emphasizes the point I was trying to make, that it was not to be expected that the government would pass over a matter of important public policy presented by a private member, who is quite within his rights, without making a statement as to the policy underlying the whole matter. I think the hon. member for Temiscouata quite misunderstood my position, as I am afraid he does pretty often.


Jean-François Pouliot: I should like to say one thing to the hon. member. We are just sweeping out the statute books, and this is a piece of dust we are getting rid of.


Mr. HEAPS:: If my memory serves me correctly, this piece of legislation had the support of the opposition of last year.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Abraham Albert Heaps: My impression is that it passed without division; there was no opposition recorded to the bill. Those who should be defending the bill are the present opposition who really were responsible for it in the first place. I was in favour of this legislation, because I believed that the setting up in Canada of an economic council would serve a very useful purpose provided the right men and women were chosen as members of the council. I think we should have some statement from the minister under whose jurisdiction this would come as to whether he is in favour of repealing a statute of this kind.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The measure comes under the Prime Minister. The act provides for the appointment of an economic council to advise the Prime Minister. I am quite satisfied with my own council; I do not think I need an economic council to tell the present government what is necessary in the way of legislation. The government at all times is in a position to command the services of any members of the public service. It seems to me wholly superfluous to have on the statute book a law which obligates the government to bring together a number of

the members	of	the	public	service andconstitute them into an advisory council, when members	of	the	public	service haveenough to do	in their	own departments ifthey are doing their work properly. It is prodigal to add	to	public	expenditures
to the extent necessitated by this act. I think the government made its attitude toward the legislation clear when we did not place in the estimates an appropriation for the legislation, and I do not think it is necessary for us to say anything more about it. It is superfluous legislation, and our attitude towards it when the late government introduced the measure was that it was superfluous. However, being a part of the new deal which was being tried out it was allowed to pass. The public has since expressed its view with respect to much of the late government's legislation and made clear its attitude towards some of these measures. The present government does not feel it in the public interest to continue the legislation.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Bill reported.
Mr. POULIOT moved the third reading of the bill.
Motion agreed to and bill read the third time and passed.


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Monday, February 24, consideration of the proposed motion of Mr. Woodsworth:
Whereas, the concentration of economic power in the hands of a comparatively small and irresponsible group has failed to provide security and a decent standard of living for large numbers of our people;
Therefore be it resolved, that, in the opinion of this house, industrial, commercial and financial organizations and undertakings that are failing to function in the general interest should be taken over by the appropriate public authorities and operated as public services or cooperative enterprises.
James Shaver Woodsworth: When the house adjourned on Monday evening I was about to reply to some of the observations which had been made by various members with reference to my motion. I was rather deploring the fact that a motion

Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Woodsworth
dealing with a new economic set-up could not be introduced without a great deal of irrelevant talk. Again this year, as in some previous years, we have had the question of Russia dragged in. I fail to understand why a member in any section of the house cannot introduce a definite matter that seems to us to be of public concern without having someone rise and talk about Russia, as if this resolution in itself has anything to do with Russia. I am quite prepared to discuss Russia or Scandinavia or Japan on the proper occasion, but I do not think it is necessary to drag such questions into this discussion. I am glad to say that on this particular occasion none of us have been accused of atheism or free love or anything of that kind. I think we ought to learn in this house to discuss matters on their merits.
Again let me point out that a great many members have a very decided prejudice against the economic doctrine generally known as socialism. They have a right to their opinions, but the word socialism is not introduced in this resolution. Personally I have no quarrel with that word; it is a very convenient term that can often be set over against the individualism that now prevails. But the trouble is that there have been so many kinds of socialism in the past that the word lends itself to a great deal of confusion. We have had the socialism of Marx; there has been the socialism of some of the other European countries; we have had the socialism of Hitler, nazi socialism as it is called, the socialism of the bolsheviks and the socialism of the Scandinavian countries; and in England for many years we have seen the socialism of the British Labour party and other varieties such as fabianism and Christian socialism. So that when one uses a general term of that sort he is apt to lend himself to a certain measure of confusion. I have tried to avoid that and have not even mentioned the word.
We in the organization I represent have called ourselves the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation. A cooperative commonwealth is our objective and we seek to attain it by orderly methods, and in this we distinguish ourselves very sharply from a great many of the types of socialism that have frequently been proclaimed. It seems to me therefore hardly fair for anyone to use the word, in relation to us, in a derogatory sense.
I have been long enough in this house to know that at least some hon. members do not wish to be unfair. I think it is hardly fair to attempt to rouse prejudices when we have not put up the proposition which hon. gentlemen are trying to knock down.
12739-37}
For example, it has been asserted that we desire to have government ownership of all farms. The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation has never advocated that-never. Other people say, "You are backing away from your position." Not at all; we have never advocated it. It is true that a number of our opponents have said that we have advocated it, and it has been the practice of certain hon. members-


Mr. WOOD:: If it is a good thing, why
is it not good for the farms?


James Shaver Woodsworth: That is another
matter; it is entirely irrelevant. The point I emphasize is that we have never advocated public ownership of farms. A great many people then get up and say that we are receding from our position. I want to make the point quite clear.


Charles Avery Dunning: Does my hon. friend
believe in private property at all?


James Shaver Woodsworth: That is still another question; let me dispose of one question at a time, if you please. I want to emphasize the fact that we have never stood for the public ownership of farms. A good many members have followed the practice of keeping files from newspapers that are antagonistic to the ideals of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation; then they come into the house and read clippings from newspapers that are opposed to us, taking it for granted that our position is as represented by these quotations. I repeat that the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation has never proposed the public ownership of farms, and that point ought not to be raised here.
Now I come to the question asked me by my hon. friend from Brant (Mr. Wood). In outlining our policy-and I think he will agree that we have the right to determine our own policy-we have considered that the farmers were not exploiters but that they were among the worst exploited class, and that so long as they were carrying on individual farming operations and were content to do so, there was absolutely no reason why there should be any public ownership of farms. It is altogether different when we come to the banks, which we believe have exploited the people banks, which are great corporations tending to create a monopoly. Under these circumstances what we have advocated is that when institutions rise to a position of monopoly or near monopoly it is right that the state should take them over. That is our position. We say that when the very means by which we live are in the hands of other people it is high time for the state to
5go	COMMONS
Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Woodsworth
interfere. In connection with the farms, the individual farmer owns his own tools. To that extent he is free. I should say with regard to the farmers' problems that we have advocated public control of marketing operations, and public ownership of abattoirs, stockyards, elevators and things of that kind because we believe that in this direction the farmer is exploited. But we are not advocating public ownership of farm lands, and we do not think it necessary to do so. If the time should come when in western Canada, for example, the mortgage companies take over large tracts of land and operate them as great company farms, it might very well be that we should then consider it was time for the state to intervene and take over farm lands.


Charles Avery Dunning: And take the loss?


James Shaver Woodsworth: They might have
to take the loss. That is another matter. I come to a question by my hon. friend the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning). He asks whether we believe in private ownership or not.


Charles Avery Dunning: Private property.


James Shaver Woodsworth: 
Mr. MacNICOL:: I should like to ask-


James Shaver Woodsworth: Just a minute. I wish I could get through my speech without too many interruptions; however, if the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. MacNieol) wishes to ask a question, I will answer it.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I was just going to ask the hon. member if he would limit the size of the private farm that is permitted under the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation program to ten thousand acres, or what size?


James Shaver Woodsworth: We have not discussed that matter at all, because, as the hon. member for Davenport knows, the control of land is within the jurisdiction of the provinces, and we have left that problem to be dealt with 'by the various provinces concerned. We have not gone into details; we are simply stating general principles. There was a gentleman across the floor who wanted to speak, I think.


Mr. EVANS:: Is it not true that during the provincial election in Saskatchewan two years ago your party advocated the use lease system in Saskatchewan?


James Shaver Woodsworth: The question comes from Saskatchewan: is it true that two years ago the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation in Saskatchewan advocated the use title system, I think was the term used. Yes; there was a meeting of the provincial council of Saskatchewan and they decided that the farmers in that province were so hopelessly insolvent that the best way to meet their difficulties was to permit any overburdened farmer voluntarily to come to the government and ask the government to take over his farm, reducing the value to something in line with what the farm was able to produce, giving the farmer a certain amount to cover his equity, and issuing interest free bonds to those who neld the mortgage. That was their plan at that time in Saskatchewan. No other provincial organization has adopted that plan. It was entirely a provincial matter, and perhaps the proposition is not an altogether unreasonable one. I remember being in Sas-

Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Woodsworth
katchewan at the time and talking to a very well established farmer, who was not overburdened with debt, but he said that if the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation came into power in Saskatchewan he would be the first, as an independent owner of a farm, to make application to have his farm taken over in that way. The question was fundamentally whether the present Torrens title, permitting a man to become hopelessly mortgaged, was the best way of carrying on farms in Saskatchewan, or whether an alternative system could be set up under which one could voluntarily ask to be placed.
May I once again call attention to the terms of this resolution. Even my hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Euler) seemed to fail to grasp just what it stated. The resolution reads: that in the opinion of the house, industrial, commercial and financial organizations that are failing to function in the general interest should be taken over by the appropriate public authorities. I spent a good deal of time in quoting from the price spreads committee report to show that a great many of these institutions were, according to the evidence given before the committee, failing to function in the general interest, and it was because of that failure that I thought they should be taken over by public authority. That was a perfectly logical conclusion to which to come.


Hervé-Edgar Brunelle: Will the hon. gentleman give us the names of a number of these financial organizations or undertakings that are failing to function properly?


James Shaver Woodsworth: I suggest to the
hon. member that he read the price spreads report. I should like to commend the government upon their action with regard to the mills at Sherbrooke, and especially the Statement of their position which appeared in the press at the time. I think I am right in saying that the ground was taken that if some private concern failed to provide for the needs of the workmen employed and generally to function in the interests of the public, consideration might very well be given to the question whether it might be necessary for the government to take it over. I think the Minister of Trade and Commerce took very much the same position in his speech the other day, and I think the speech from the throne suggested that there might come a situation which would require state interference.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Take that particular instance: would the hon. member advocate that the government take over the mills at Sherbrooke.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Yes.


John Ritchie MacNicol: And operate them?


James Shaver Woodsworth: Yes, decidedly.
They would have to. If they are failing to function in the public interest and if the company would not come to time, I should say, let the government take them over and either close them or operate them in the public interest. The government could very easily set up a commission.


An hon. MEMBER:: They might close
anyway.


James Shaver Woodsworth: They might close. At any rate all that was necessary was a firm stand on the part of the government to bring that company to time.
In this country, as we all know, there is some little difficulty in carrying out any proposal of this kind because of the division of jurisdiction as between the dominion government and the provincial governments. I sought to safeguard that point by saying they should be taken over by the appropriate public authorities. I can understand that under our constitution some undertakings would have to be operated by the provinces; others by the municipalities. For instance, if we wanted to carry on the milling business or the distribution of gasoline it might very well be that this could be done by the provincial authorities. If we wanted to carry on bakeries, run street cars or anything of that kind obviously those matters could be best handled by the municipal authorities. On the other hand there are certain matters such as railroads, matters of general nation-wide public importance, that can be handled more readily by the dominion government.
Again, Mr. Speaker, I do not think this parliament is the body that would handle these different undertakings. Already in Canada we have gone a long way in the direction of administration by commissions. I think probably that is the line along which we had best advance, by commissions responsible to the government but which will not be interfered with in the day to day operations. I would add this, that I hope we may come to the point where our commissions will not be so largely political appointments and, further, when on the commissions there will be representatives of both the managers and the employees of the undertakings concerned. In a
582	COMMONS
Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Woodsworth
general way, however, we will have to develop a whole series of administrative boards that will carry forward the detailed operations of socialized production and distribution.
I believe there are two ways in which operations along this line can be carried forward. The first is organization as a public service, as we now operate the Canadian National Railways, as the province of Ontario now operates the hydro electric system, and as the city of Toronto now operates its tramways. There are a great many institutions that lend themselves to that sort of operation, in fact they demand a very centralized control. But there is another class of undertaking that might very well be given over to cooperative enterprise. The other day one gentleman said to me that he could not quite see how the cooperative institutions, of which my hon. friend from Grey-Bruce (Miss Macphail) spoke the other day, fitted into our scheme. They fit into it precisely and naturally. We do not want to build up a great bureaucracy; there are a great many things that can be and should be done by cooperative enterprise. I am very happy indeed to point to those developments in Nova Scotia to which the hon. member for Grey-Bruce referred, by which some of the poor farmers, and especially the poor fishermen, whose plight was almost desperate a few years ago, are gradually making progress by taking over their own affairs and merchandising some of their own goods. That is an example of the producers' cooperative. We all have been heartily in sympathy with the idea of the pools in western Canada. I do not want to discuss the merits of the pools to-day; they have failed in some respects, but in my judgment their failure was due very largely to causes outside their control as also outside the control of the regular grain trade.
I should like to emphasize, Mr. Speaker, that we believe in cooperative enterprises. We may have to start a good many of them and have some of them fail before we learn the best *way to carry them on. We are also heartily in sympathy with consumers' cooperatives along the line of the Rochdale system, which has been such a magnificent success in England and the Scandinavian countries; we think it might well be carried on here. The practical difficulty is that the big departmental and chain stores have got in, as it were, on the ground floor, and have developed to such an extent that it is very difficult for a consumers' cooperative to get on its feet. But we of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation believe in these consumers' organizations. They constitute an integral part of our particular class of socialism.

A question that is often brought up-I think the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Euler) referred to it the other day-is this question of liberty. I have a good deal of sympathy with the Liberal idea of personal liberty; I think I was brought up more or less to regard that as one of the most cherished possession of the British people, but I do say that under the circumstances now existing personal liberty is being gradually whittled down until there is not a great deal of it left. I want to quote once more the figure I mentioned the other evening, that outside of the agricultural workers five-sixths of the workers in Canada are working for wages; that is, as the saying is they are not "on their own." They are simply hired men, as it were, fortunate indeed if they can get a job but having very little indeed to say with regard to their wages, hours or the conditions under which they work; having nothing to say with regard to how the product produced under collective arrangements shall be sold, and having no claim on the profits that may be made. Under these circumstances we cannot talk very much of a man's liberty. It is true that he can still go to vote, though there seems to be a tendency towards depriving those who are not working of the voting privilege. But supposing a man can vote; that is a very small area of liberty. If somebody else owns the very means by which I live I am not a free man. The manager of a big concern, as the price spreads committee pointed out, is in the position of a mass buyer. He negotiates with and buys labour with somewhat of the advantage of a mass buyer, which is relatively a fortunate position for him but a very unfortunate position for the individual workingman.
To a limited extent trade unions have asserted their right to collective bargaining. On the railroads that right is recognized as it is in a few factories, but generally speaking it is not recognized across this country. Failing that we find the individual workman in a very bad position indeed. As I stated on Monday, under existing circumstances the labour man and the farmer or primary producer are exploited, the small business man is being crowded to the wall and the consumer-and we are all consumers-is being cheated, and has no effective protection. It seems to me clearly demonstrated that a great many of our big institutions are not working in the public interest.
We are told again and again that the choice is between individual enterprise on the one hand and bureaucratic monopoly on the other.

Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Woodsworth
That is not a fair way of putting it. As I have said, five-sixths of the people are not carrying on under the principle of individual enterprise; only one-sixth of the workers are doing that. That is one aspect of the case. On the other hand we are not advocating a bureaucratic monopoly. We want to release the energies of the people; we want to restore them to freedom, if indeed they ever had it. We want to see that they get freedom not merely in the sphere of politics but also in economic sphere, which is an altogether different matter. Without going into the political question to any extent I feel very strongly that the old Liberal party made a big step forward when it insisted on liberty in the political sphere, but I believe if they do not now go forward to advocate this other kind of liberty their party will become a thing of the past, just as the old laissez-faire economic doctrine on which Liberalism was built is already gone at least as a workable policy. Even the Minister of Trade and Commerce admits that state interference has become more or less necessary.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Take for instance the
iron and steel industry, which represents approximately $100,000,000 or less in this country and employs many thousands of men; how would the hon. member operate it if taken over, if not under a bureaucracy?


James Shaver Woodsworth: I said a few
minutes ago it might be operated by a commission. To-day it is under the control of a private group; it is not operated by the
employees but by a little bureaucracy, a bureaucracy that is absolutely irresponsible.


John Ritchie MacNicol: To-day it is operated
under the law of supply and demand.


James Shaver Woodsworth: No, I suggest that my hon. friend read the report of the price spreads commission, which clearly states that the law of supply and demand does not operate freely to-day. I do not say that supply and demand is not a factor, but monopolies, trusts, combines and international cartels have been built up; we have tariffs and quotas, exchange difficulties and all the rest, so that the old law of supply and demand under free competition has ceased to be a controlling instrument.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I am anxious to get the background of the hon. gentleman's opinion. If the government took over the iron and steel industry and it were operated under a bureaucracy, how would he protect that great industry from being overstaffed, most as we all know every government department is overstaffed? Then the iron and steel industry could not compete with the world, if it were overstaffed as a bureaucracy operated by the government.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I have said I do
not want bureaucracy; I want free operation under something in the nature of a commission. There is a great deal of patronage in our big business institutions, just as there is altogether too much patronage in the government service. I am one of those who have pleaded that, we get away from patronage in the government service, but personally I do not think there is any more favoritism in the management for example of the Winnipeg municipal hydro electric than there is in the Winnipeg Electric, a private concern. I doubt if there is any more favoritism on the Canadian National Railways than there is on the Canadian Pacific. During the war, when we felt it was a life and death struggle, we took over a number of industries. Organizations and agencies were taken over on a very large scale in Great Britain; if they could be managed economically and efficiently during the war there is no particular reason why they could not be so managed under our democratic system, if only we have a little higher ideal of public service. To-day we have monopoly on every hand. I think it is conceded that the old condition, individual shopkeepers and producers and bankers, is largely a thing of the past. We have monopoly or a state of things verging on monopoly in nearly all our industries and in our financial concerns, and in a great many lines of commerce. There is competition in certain respects, but the competitors get together very readily under agreements in various forms. So it is not a question of individual enterprise versus monopoly. The question is whether this inevitable monopoly will be irresponsible, as it is to-day, and inefficient, as I claim it is to-day, and as I think the evidence before the price spreads commission amply bears out. Or will this monopoly be fascist in type? There is danger of that. As time goes on and these institutions get into trouble they come to the government asking for protection, for loans, for special privileges; they are apt to come and say: It is a matter of great public concern that we should continue to prosper. The result is that big business is closely tied up with the government. We do not want fascism in this country, I do not think there is one hon. member who would deliberately say he wants fascism here on the lines they have it in Germany, but if we tie up business and government we are making an approach to that sort of thing.
584	COMMONS
Cooperative Commonwealth-Mr. Woodsworth
There was great danger of that in connection with the new deal in the United States, and that is why some of us had to give only qualified support to the proposals of the late government; we thought their measures were moves in the right direction, but on the other hand we felt that there were certain dangers which had to be carefully guarded against. I have said that the practical alternatives before us are: Is this inevitable monopoly to be (a) irresponsible and inefficient, or (b) fascist in type, or (c) democratic? We of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation urge that it should be democratic in type, under the control of government, federal, provincial or municipal, or under the control of cooperative institutions, which are perhaps the very highest examples of democracy in industry. I need not say anything more at present about that cooperative ideal. I think it is right, it is desirable, because the consumer himself determines what he wants. I should like to see it encouraged. In Ontario last year the Liberal government passed legislation which made it fairly difficult for consumers' cooperatives to carry on. In practice those of us who have been keenly interested in free consumers' cooperative organizations have found that the forces of capitalism are so strong that they tend to crush such organizations. Furthermore the whole motive in business today is that of profit. Our belief is that the motive of profit must give way to the ideal of service, that the ideal behind business ought not to be primarily to make profit, as is now the case, and increasingly profit for a small group, but primarily to give service.


Mr. WILSON:: You want the millennium.


Mr. WOODS WORTH:: Someone behind
sneers, "Oh, you want the millennium." Well, I want something better than we have to-day. I am talking in a very practical way-


John Ritchie MacNicol: You are not talking business.


James Shaver Woodsworth: No, thank heaven; I am not talking business. Someone sneers, "You are not talking business." I get disgusted with two classes of people in this house, one of which is composed of a large number who because they have legal training are always throwing it at the rest of us who are not lawyers that we cannot understand things because we have not had that great advantage of legal training. I am willing to concede the advantage of knowledge of the law, but I do not think the lawyers in the house have a monopoly of brains. The other thing

that annoys me is that certain people who have engaged in business, and have spent most of their time and energies in carrying on their own business, along their own lines-


John Ritchie MacNicol: And giving men employment.


James Shaver Woodsworth: -when anyone suggests any change whatever, immediately say: Oh well, you don't know anything about business.


An hon. MEMBER:: Neither you do.


James Shaver Woodsworth: That may be, from my hon. friend's standpoint. But I am putting forward a reasonable proposition, a type of organization actually in operation to some extent in many parts of the world. The stupidest kind of people are those who always look to the past and think we cannot do anything better than follow the old lines. I am not one who wants to jump at every new thing that may be advanced, but I point out that one of the great laws of life is that we must change to meet new conditions, or die. Change or die is not only one of the great laws of nature, but of business as well. Even my hon. friend from Davenport to succeed in business doubtless found he had to modify his methods from time to time. I submit that the whole basis of business in this country will have to be materially modified if we are to succeed as a nation. I think in this house at least we ought to get away from the petty shopkeeping and small workshop idea and look at things from the larger national viewpoint. Only in this way can we adequately discuss general policies. Undoubtedly a great many of these gentlemen who criticize know a great deal more about the details of business than I do, but I rather resent being told so frequently that those of us who have spent the greater part of our lives studying social and economic questions are not in a position to advance a proposal that on the face of it at least seems reasonable.
There is just one other consideration I should like to advance-I wish I could have had a chance to develop it further in the time at my disposal-and that is with reference to the international situation. I am urging this resolution not merely for the welfare of Canada. I am profoundly convinced that it is only as we get away from the competitive principle in our international affairs that we are going to gain permanent peace. In the days after this capitalist system had been set up, we found that a few people were able to accumulate a very considerable stock of goods in excess of that which they could dispose of under the circumstances in their immediate

Small Property Holders-Mr. Deslauriers
locality, and so, quite naturally, other markets were looked for. I am not blaming any individual for that; I am simply tracing the natural development of affairs. Then as production grew, a greater expansion of markets was necessary to dispose of it, and so we developed our foreign trade. At that time I have no doubt that the policy of expanding trade-free trade, in a word-was fundamentally right from the standpoint of business. The Liberals in England came into a position of great prominence at that time, and if I had been living then I would have voted Liberal, as some of my people did, because conditions then were ripe for freer trade. The development went on and on until a good many other nations got into the same position, of seeking foreign markets, and once that point was reached, friction was constantly arising. In the last fifty years there has been friction on a good many occasions between European nations as each sought new markets in countries less developed. The continent of Africa was gradually carved up amongst the nations of Europe until to-day it resembles a patchwork quilt.


Mr. SPEAKER:: I am sorry to have to
interrupt the hon. member, but his time is up.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I must thank you,
Mr. Speaker, for reminding me. At some future time I should like to develop further this external side of the matter. I will close by reasserting our position. I do not believe that we can have permanent peace in the world until we arrive at some other method of doing business than by international competition, which, after all, is simply an extension of the competitive principle on which for a good many years we have been operating within our own country.
Motion negatived on division.



MOTION FOR PAPERS


Mr. CHEVRIER (Ottawa East):: For a copy of all correspondence, reports and other documents, relative to the recent appointment by the civil service commission of the clerk of sessional papers of the House of Commons.



SMALL PROPERTY HOLDERS


Mr. HERMAS DESLAURIERS (St. Mary) (Translation) moved:: [DOT]
Whereas small property holders in the cities are in a most critical financial situation;
And whereas during the past five years the depression has borne more heavily on this
class of citizens than on any other by reason of the unemployed who are dependent on public bodies;	.
And whereas they contribute substantial sums to the public treasury in the form of taxation;
And whereas the agricultural class is now benefiting by government measures;	_ .
Therefore be it resolved, that, in the opinion of this bouse, the problem of these small property holders should be the subject of study in order to determine whether it is not opportune and equitable that they should receive the full consideration to which they are entitled.
Mr. Speaker, the problem dealth with in this resolution is not a new one, although it has acquired with time a far greater degree of acutence. I deemed it proper last year to insert in the Order paper of the house a similar resolution to the one now under consideration, with the intention of placing before the government of the day the sad financial plight of small property holders in villages, cities and, more particularly, in Montreal, and with the object also of making practical and useful suggestions to meet the difficulties created by the crisis. The correspondence which reached me at the time, together with that which I am now receiving, with reference to this resolution, have impressed me with the fact that the evil is greater and more general than I first thought.
Last year, a delegation composed of government followers, judging that the question involved was an important one, travelled from Montreal to Ottawa in order to interview the hon. Mr. Duranleau, then Minister of Marine. The latter replied to the delegation that he highly appreciated the step they had taken and that it was quite possible, even most probable, that before the end of the session the government would introduce a bill in order to come to the rescue of small property holders, the only class in the community which the government had forgotten.
This was as early as February 14; just after the Prime Minister had stated that the elections would come as a thief in the night and that government measures should be proceeded with as quickly as possible. The opposition, knowing the people's strong desire to be consulted at the polls with the shortest delay possible, did not object too strongly to the government's proposal to discontinue at this stage of the session, the study of private legislation so as to give precedence to government measures.
What happened? Well, we found out later. The government totally and deliberately disregarded the plea of small property holders and left them to their plight. However, members who sat in the last house will recall that instead of quickly despatching state affairs, senators and members were sent home
586	COMMONS
Small Property Holders-Mr. Deslauriers
for five weeks, that the house did not sit one single Wednesday evening during last session, that every holiday was observed, that the house adjourned in the middle of the week to allow the people's representatives to attend a cinema performance! And while the government was conducting the affairs of this country at a cost of S7.000 per half-day, celebrating and taking holidays, a large proportion of the population was on relief, famished treckers were wearing out their soles tramping from ocean to ocean, small property holders, having known but sacrifices without any compensation whatsoever from the government, were being, one after the other, despoiled of their property.
In 1932, for motives which I am not called upon to discuss at present, small property holders in the province of Quebec were deprived of all compensation in connection with the rents due by the unemployed, while in all other parts of the country it was just the reverse. Twelve months were required to ascertain whether the term "shelter" contained in the act included lodging for the unemployed; in short, it meant heavy losses for these small property holders who were compelled to meet their fixed charges. Though their rights were recognized later on, no payment was made of the amounts due to them for services rendered in 1932 to the publicly-assisted unemployed.
Most of these property holders had acquired their houses with savings that represented a lifetime of toil and self-sacrifice during a period when the cost of labour and of materials set the prices. The purchasing price at that time represented the true value of the properties; they could not have been acquired for less. They had not been paid double their value as in the case of farmers who during the war bought at inflated prices, land that has since dropped to its normal value. It was not lack of foresight on their part. That is an important point.
In the case of farmers, the crisis exerts its effects which are reflected in a decrease of prices on farm products, as compared with war-time prices and that is all.
In the case of small property owners, however, it is otherwise: they did not buy at inflated prices, and, ever since the height of depression, their property has from a revenue viewpoint, lost fifty per cent of its true value.
They have provided a shelter-and continue to do so-for poor unemployed people who are dependent on the state. Notwithstanding the fifty per cent decrease in value of their property, the municipal valuation has not been reduced; taxes of all kinds pile up on them. Municipal taxes have gone up; water,
fM. Deslauriers. 1
business and snow-removal taxes have doubled; and there are in addition special taxes, super-taxes, dominion and municipal sales taxes, etc.
Many of them have lost their positions and find themselves in the ridiculous situation of having to seek relief-which is denied them because they are property holders-while being compelled to give charity to people dependent on governments.
Every week, these small property holders are, one after another, despoiled by loan companies. If I am rightly informed, one company alone, known as the "Industrial" has, for its share, despoiled 3,000 of them. I know for a fact that rackets exist in Montreal accumulating wealth by preying on these small property holders, they were established by New York and Chicago racketeers. I could right now name one or two of these organizations; I shall give in a few minutes the result of their operations in a case which was brought to my attention. For instance, there is the Continental Guaranty Corporation and the Industrial Loan Investment, companies that advertise by means of the radio. I think, sir, it would be most appropriate for the government to appoint a commission of inquiry to look into their operations.
The government has in the past come to the assistance of the farmers.
I find no fault in this connection, I might even state that this class of the community has perhaps not received all the solicitude and consideration due to it. If, on the one hand we must admit that farmers deserve consideration, on the other hand, the class of citizens known as small property holders in cities are just as deserving of the government's sympathy. We should not remain unrelentingly indifferent towards the latter, but rather, recognizing the fact that they are taxpayers like all other citizens of Canada we should render them all possible assistance and prevent loan companies, such as those I have just mentioned, from exploiting them.
The Liberal party's policy will contribute, no doubt, to restore equality between all classes, providing the provinces and the dominion cooperate and providing certain provincial and federal laws are amended or repealed. For instance, drastic conditions in contracts, such as defesance clauses, should be prohibited; the term "responsible by mortgage" should be sufficient, if more study and consideration were given to transactions.
Australia, Belgium and the United States have passed excellent laws in connection with their small property holders. A glance at

Small Property Holders-Mr. Deslauriers
their legislation might perhaps help the government to legislate in the same sense.
I believe that measures could be enacted, especially in times of crises, so as to come to the rescue of small property holders certain terms included in contracts, such as "personally responsible" should disappear. In times such as these, when credit is lacking, city and country people have been victimized by this term "personally responsible," which has despoiled them of their furniture for the sake of a few hundred dollars which they borrowed and could not repay.
The government is in duty bound to study the possibility of long term loans at three or four per cent interest and of extending to small property holders in cities the privileges granted to the farming community. We have but to consult the history of France, at the period when the credit foncier was established in that country, to understand the eminently patriotic role that this group of French citizens played at a time when the peasant class was threatened with ruin. We could draw very profitable conclusions to the advantage of the small property holders and even of the farming classes, from the study of that page of history.
By mutual agreement with the provinces, it would be proper to establish a five year obligatory moratorium and, finally, to facilitate long term loans, at three per cent in order that these small property holders might borrow the necessary money to pay off arrears of interest and taxes.
I stated a moment ago that I believed that the co-operation of the provinces was absolutely necessary. I am quite certain that the hon. Minister of Labour and Public Works of my province could amend the labour legislation of Quebec and liberalize it in such a way as to provide employment for the man who, because he has reached forty-five years of age or more, finds it impossible to obtain work, and to legalize the stipulations of the contract in order that these workers may have a chance to earn a livelihood and not be looked upon as prematurely old at forty-five.
I stated, sir, a few moments ago, that rackets existed in the city of Montreal to the detriment of these poor workers who have spent all their hard-earned savings. I have before me correspondence referring to the Continental Guaranty Corporation. I shall read it, as I have been given permission to submit it to the house and make use of it as I thought fit:
Dear Sir,-
Enclosed you will find a few documents relating to our conversation of Sunday last. You may, without fear, make use of them as evidenced in support of your resolution.
They refer to the case of a property holder who contracted a loan of a few hundred dollars and finally lost his property.
The following is a statement of account: Re: S.C. No. B-133320 ...
Lawyers will understand what that means.
... Continental Guaranty Corporation of Canada, Limited vs Romeo Garneau & T. Brossard.
Judgment on September 8, 1934, for
the sum of	$ 204 51
With annual interest at 12 per cent from February 12, 1934, to May 8,
1935	 30	70
Judgment and subsequent costs including registration of judgment, sale
fees, etc.,	approximately	
175	00Sheriff's costs, including sale and 2J per cent on sale price, approximately	
280	00Municipal taxes owing to Ville St. Pierre, for the years beginning June 1, 1931. 1932, 1933, 1934 and 1935, including interest, approximately	
1,250 00Repairs, including material only, paint, plumbing, etc., approximately.. ..	75 00Total	$2,015 21
That is the method followed by these racketeers; they have substituted themselves to the city of Montreal or to some other municipality in order that their claims may become privileged and take precedence over the first mortgage. Moreover, their rate of interest is such as to make it impossible for small property holders to meet the liabilities they have contracted towards them. Then comes the sheriff's sale. Since the mortgagee, owing to hard times, cannot borrow the money required, the sheriff sells the property. Now, the Continental Guaranty Corporation has established a subsidiary company called the Yarbrooke Co., which purchases the property from the sheriff, and the same day sends the following notice to the owner of the property in question:
Mr. Romeo Garneau,
Montreal.
Re: Properties in Ville St. Pierre Dear Sir,-
As agreed orally, we shall accept in final settlement of account, principal interests and costs, the sum of $2,000 cash, providing payment is made by May 16, next.
Thus, $2,000 is demanded of this person who does not own $100!
588	COMMONS
Small Property Holders-Mr. Deslauriers
We shall transfer to you the two properties purchased from the sheriff, one situated on 5th avenue, and the other on Camille street, Ville St. Pierre, free and clear of all charges and mortgages.
After that date, the offer becomes nul and void.
Yours truly,
Handheld & Handfield.
The latter are the lawyers for the Yarbrooke company.
I had no intention, sir, of causing any financial embarrassment to the government in submitting this question. My object was to expose the true situation of a class of people which are all the more entitled to consideration at the hands of the public authorities, because for human and charitable reasons, they have taken the risk of losing their properties. Because they have rendered a service to the unemployed who were dependent on government relief, I think it is unreasonable to deny them consideration.
I trust that the facts to which I have directed the government's attention will be seriously considered, that this class of the community, perhaps the most useful to our country from a social and economic angle, will be protected, and that the government, in any arrangement it may make in cooperation with the provinces will see that the small property holders are placed on a level with all the other citizens who make up the Canadian community.


Thomas Langton Church: Mr Speaker, I want to compliment the hon. gentleman (Mr. Deslauriers), who represents one of the industrial ridings in Montreal, upon having the courage to bring this industrial question to the attention of the house at this time. As I too, represent an industrial riding, I feel I should say a few words in connection with this resolution. On three occasions last session I directed the attention of the house to the untold suffering and misery of the industrial worker of this country. He is suffering such privations as I have never seen before. Industrial workers in part of my own riding, in that of the hon. member for Greenwood (Mr. Massey) and in other parts of Toronto are suffering because of economic conditions over which they have no controh The industrial worker is just becoming a proletarian and the time has come when protection should be given to him all along the line and to all the people of Canada and not only to some. During the campaign I remember seeing throughout Ontario liberal billboards announcing that if the-people voted for so-and-so unemployment would be ended; that if they voted for so-and-so work would be pro-

vided for the worker. Attempts have been made by the creation of commissions to end unemployment, but the poor industrial worker still suffers.
Forty-seven per cent of the Canadian people are engaged in industry. Six or seven years ago parliament, not satisfied with incorporating bona fide loan companies and banks, permitted the incorporation of a number of shark loan companies. These companies are flourishing in almost every riding in the city of Toronto. As the former member for Battle River, Mr. Spencer, told the house last year, these shark loan companies are charging as much in some cases as thirty-five and forty per cent on second mortgages. Quite rightly parliament has given some assistance to the farmers in the prairie and other provinces, and to fishermen under the farm loan board, but similar assistance should be given to the industrial workers. The western farmer ate the sour grapes of free trade for twenty-five or thirty years while the grain exchanges, the middleman, transportation and elevator companies were robbing him of a fair price for his crop. Then the depression came along and he found himself suffering untold privation. I am sorry for him; I helped plead his cause, but I must also plead the cause of the industrial worker, as I said three times in the house in 1935, and asked for equality of treatment for the industrial worker also.
In the days of Laurier and Macdonald practically every man was a property owner. A man might own only a small store, a little mill or a shack, a cow or something else, but he was a property owner. He had a little garden on the back of his lot and while he might be working only three or four days in the week, he was as much a property owner as was the man who had large holdings. He was a citizen of the country and he had his property rights. Now it is gone. Those rights have been taken away, and one of the principal duties facing parliament at the present time is to pass some measure that will help in some way to solve the problem of unemployment and distributivism in Canada.
The government has so far brought forward no definite plan looking to that end; neither in the speech from the throne nor in any proposal that has so far been suggested do we find anything in that direction. The Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) read a speech yesterday in regard to the relief camps, which was out of order; according to the rules of the house he should not have made the speech he did except on the orders of the day. But the rules apparently are for some

Small Property Holders-Mr. Church
and not for others and they are badly in need of overhauling. At any rate, so far the government has brought down no definite plan to solve unemployment.
At the opening of parliament I handed a question to the clerk of the house but it never appeared on the order paper. I wanted to know what plans the government had this spring for providing useful employment for the great body of the unemployed, but that question, as I say, never found its way to the order paper. This was not through any fault of the clerk's, for he is a most able, capable and zealous and painstaking and popular officer. But why was not that question placed on the order paper? I know of no rule of the house that prevents a member of parliament from placing a proper question on the order paper. What does the government think private members are here for? Are we to sit here and listen to ministers introducing academic measures for dealing with the unemployment problem, leaving industrial workers in the meanwhile to starve or to go to the poorhouse or to be placed on relief?
In the district represented partly by the hon. member for Danforth (Mr. Harris) and Greenwood (Mr. Massey) and also embracing the part of Toronto represented by myself, there are 300 industries, large and small, in which Canadian workers, and their fathers and grandfathers before them, have been employed and some have lived during all that time on the same property. Sixty-five per cent of the people in that area at one time owned their own homes, but hon. members would be surprised to know how many of them have lost everything. Mortgage companies can afford to put up skyscrapers, but when they come to deal with the industrial worker who is in straitened circumstances there is no hesitancy about sending him a lawyer's letter and foreclosing; and if he tries to get some assistance from one of the shark loan companies incorporated by parliament he finds himself faced with a demand for interest rates of 25 , 30 and 40 per cent. If he is unable to meet his liabilities he loses everything-his piano, bed, chairs and every other article of furniture, all under chattel mortgage at 10, 12, 15 and 20 per cent.
What is going to become of the industrial worker? Where is he going to end up? Unless the two old parties open their minds to new ideas and their ranks to men with new ideas, then I say that by 1940 or 1945 we shall have a socialist government in this country. I say that advisedly; I said it in the last parliament and I say it again. The
two old parties in the house must wake up to the realities of the present day problems just as the parties in England have done. Consider what the National government accomplished over there. They provided a measure of protection for the working population and built homes for them, balanced their budget and adopted a tariff that brought jobs and a housing policy.
With regard to the principle of the resolution, parliament has established a system of protection for the farmers under the farm loan act. If a farmer gets into difficulties there is a farm loan board to which he can turn and have some arrangement made with his creditors along new and more satisfactory lines. An effort is made to obviate foreclosure. That is quite proper; it affords a long overdue measure of protection for the farmer.
At the last session the plight of the fishermen was under consideration. Our fisheries constitute one of the greatest industries in Canada, but the fishermen have had a very hard time of it. The Bennett government of that day, 1935, introduced legislation for the relief of the fishermen, and when the bill was before the house I took occasion to plead the cause of the industrial worker. I supported the bill, because there was a farm loan board to which the farmers could appeal and I thought it only fair that the fishermen and industrial workers should also be given some consideration. I should like to read some of the remarks I made at that time:
The time is not far distant in this country when we shall have to set up for the industrial workers a board similar to those set up under this fishermen's loan act and the Farmers' Creditors Arrangement Act so that the retail storekeeper, the individual worker, and those engaged in industries will have some means of protection. A retail grocer who fails and whose little shop is gone or an industrial worker who gets out of work or is only on part time should be dealt with in the same manner as the poor fisherman or farmer; he should he able to secure similar protection. There ds no reason why forty-six per cent of the people who are engaged in industry should not have the same form of protection as is given under the Farmers' Creditors Arrangement Act, the fishermen's loan act and so on. There should be created for these people a similar board to establish long term mortgage credits even up to twenty-five years for the small retail grocer or the small industrial worker who is out of work or may be on part time as many of them are. Sooner or later we shall have to extend this very wise and commendable feature of this legislation. I would like to see some kind of board set up for the industries to which I have referred and some credit established either through banks, insurance companies, loan companies, mortgage companies or through parliament or partly through one and partly the other, for
590	COMMONS
Small Property Holders-Mr. Church
the protection and relief of the small industrial worker and the small storekeeper on the same basis as these other acts I have mentioned. We should have protection not only for the fishermen and for the farmers but for everyone; we want a system of protection that will take care of all the people. Those small industrial people who have lost their all by foreclosure or unemployment or high taxes are in the same plight as are the fishermen and the farmers, and the principle of this bill should be extended to them.
Speaking for an industrial province, I say that the industrial workers of this country are no longer going to stand for handling out protection to some and not to others. Under the provisions of this bill we are paying through the new fisheries board, taxes, mortgages, lien notes, security to the bank, hypothecation of the plant and equipment of the fishermen. The same principle of protection should be extended either through parliament or the banks or a board similar to the farm loan board to the industrial workers so that they will have a fair show under protection as we have it to-day to hold and retain their properties and their equities and their small business ventures.
The hon. member who has just spoken (Mr. Deslauriers) is a physician and on that account he knows, better than most members do, what the industrial worker's condition is; no one knows more than the physician does what the worker suffers. I suggest, therefore, that he might urge upon the government the consideration of what has been done in England and the United States in the interests of the working classes. Steps have been taken in those countries to save the workers from foreclosure. Along the lake shore in the riding of York West there will be no vacant houses on the first of May. I plead with the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning), because I think something should be done in regard to this matter. No one wants to pay additional taxes, but it would not cost very much to bring in a measure of relief for our industrial workers, as the government can borrow at a low rate of interest to prevent foreclosures on industrial workers, the same as for farmers and fishermen.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


Thomas Langton Church: The hon. gentleman who noved this resolution is a government member, and it is the duty of the government as long as they are the government of the day to solve these unemployment problems. At the last election appeals were made throughout Canada to the industrial worker to vote for the Liberal party. In my riding bill-boards contained advertisements: "Vote for Snelgrove

and end unemployment"; "Beat Bennett and bad times"; "Beat Unemployment:	Vote
Liberal"; and all that kind of thing. As I said, "End unemployment; vote for so-and-so" appeared throughout Ontario. Where does the Liberal party stand in the house with relation to this problem of the industrial worker?
I was referring before six o'clock to the two old political parties in this country: they have to open their ranks to new men and their minds to new ideas, as the people of the old country have done. The old country has done something for the industrial worker. We in Ontario and in fact throughout Canada are in this respect almost as backward as the inhabitants of England were at the time of the industrial revolution one hundred years ago. If hon. members read Green's History of England, to which I was referring in a debate on this problem on January 30 of last year, and examine the condition of the industrial workers in England at that time, they will be interested to find that the Liberal party of the day were opposed to reform. As I said in this honourable house on March 21 of last year during the debate on unemployment, when I was urging the party to which I belonged to take up the problem of the industrial worker-and I again mentioned the matter in the debate on the farm loan board and the fisheries board:
The Liberal party of this country to-day represents the last stand of economic liberalism in ^ Canada. It relies on these social measures being declared unconstitutional. It is the party that for nine years had a chance to do something along these lines, but only dilly-dallied. It is the same party which in England opposed the factory acts and free schools, and the liberation of the trade unions. To-day it concentrates its attention in Canada on the tariff and on wider markets when wider markets are not available. The Liberal party in Canada is an advocate of social reform, pensions, doles, social insurance-all these are in its platform for the higher life, but they refuse to give to this house a plan or platform to grapple with the cause and effects of the social revolution and with those economic factors which deprive men of the bread of their own production and the fruits of their own toil. I believe that free trade and the error of the Liberal party's policies have been to the detriment of agriculture and of industry in Canada. Many children are in factories to-day who should be in school, and most of the young offenders who come before our courts are underprivileged children many of them from poverty stricken homes, who from birth have never had a proper chance.
The Conservative party was the founder of protection in Canada, and it believed in preserving the home market. Its policy was: Our own markets for our own products, and our own work for our own workmen. Would

Small Property Holders-Mr. Church
that we had that policy to-day in this country; the industrial worker would then not be suffering as he is. We are apt to forget the home market in considering the agricultural and industrial problems of this country. My plea is on behalf of the industrial worker.
This resolution goes on to criticize agriculture. I do not approve of that at all. It says:
Whereas the agricultural class is now benefiting by government measures-
So it should. But I plead for protection for all of the people all the time, not some of the people some of the time, not only for the agricultural worker and the fisherman but all along the line, protection for them in their markets, for the primary producer and the consumer as well, but also for the industrial worker in the main centres of population. The resolution correctly refers to the fact that we have had five years of depression and to the suffering which has been caused to small property holders in the cities, and these small property holders are suffering. It goes on to ask that:
-the problem of these small property holders should be the subject of study in order to determine whether it is not opportune and equitable that they should receive the full consideration to which they are entitled.
I agree, Mr. Speaker, that they are entitled to the same protection that agriculture and fishermen have. Forty-seven per cent of the population is engaged in industrial pursuits, and these people are suffering untold privations, misery, and conditions of hardship. We should have lower bank rates in this country? The federal power can borrow money at one per cent if it wants to. They are doing this in the United States, in England, all the world over. Yet banks start with seven per cent and charge not. only that rate but-well, we do not know what the charges beyond that are in some cases. Then we find mortgage companies demanding seven and eight per cent in addition to the charges for foreclosure after people have lost their homes. We find shark loan companies that put on a chattel mortgage as well as high class first and second mortgages. Industrial workers who are out of work are losing their homes very rapidly. Some of these men are returned soldiers. I know dozens of them in my own riding who have lost their properties, and some of these men are at Christie Street hospital serving out a life sentence passed upon them by this country, for which they fought at the hazard of their lives. They have to spend the rest of their days under a life sentence for defending
Canada, on the top floor of Christie Street hospital while we sit here in parliament, two hundred and forty-five men, doing nothing.
My hon. friend the member for Parkdale (Mr. Spence) the other day asked a minister -we have discussed so many departments that I have forgotten which one it was, but I think it was the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Crerar)-about the Ottawa observatory; they had an earthquake, and the hon. member for Parkdale inquired: Were there any people hanging around this department in the observatory doing nothing? Well, there are two hundred and forty-five members of parliament hanging around here and what are they doing to end these conditions? We have heard much in Ontario in the past about "follow your leader." I can only say that if the two old parties are going to be content with that kind of program the day is coming for the same sort of earthquake reckoning that obtained years ago in the old country with regard to their two old parties. We must open our ranks to new men and our minds to new ideas.
Regarding these industrial workers who are losing their homes, let us consider the effect of modern machinery on the employment, of these men. Every new process seems to put men out of work. Our artisans are becoming machine minders, and women can mind machines as well as can men, with the result that this is becoming a country of machine minders. Thus there is a rise in female employment and a disastrous fall in the number of men at work. It is apparent to anyone that the very object of machines is to put men out of work. That is the reason they are invented and installed and they succeed in their purpose admirably. Where is liberty while all this is going on. Our greatest care as a people should be the welfare of man and that of our workers' children.
As I have stated, I know that many men who have owned homes and have had them taken from them are returned soldiers. Some are on part time; some are off the pay roll altogether. As Theodore Roosevelt said, "A man who is good enough to shed his blood for his country is good enough to receive a square deal afterwards." More than that no man is entitled to. Less than that no man shall have. And yet we find these men, these industrial workers, have lost their homes; some are soldiers, and a few are on the top floor of Christie Street hospital, and nobody is to blame but the parliament of Canada. I am not blaming the present government; all governments since the war must face responsibility for that condition of the industrial workers of this kind, but the late government
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decided to help industrial workers. And we make speeches in the house about foreign affairs; we, who have no fleet and practically no army left except the girl guides and the boy scouts, can waste months and months on suth matters as that. If hon. members want to get a bird's-eye view of Canada's navy they should go down and look at the boat in the canal in front of the Chateau Laurier; it has steam up now and a few planks on the deck.
A few years ago the government created a basic industry known as the "ambassador" cure for unemployment; they were sending ambassadors all over the seven seas. That is about the extent of their contribution to this question, except that my hon. friend the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers), who aspires to create an economic commission. Let me tell him on behalf of the industrial workers of Ontario that ten years ago I asked the government of which he is a member if they would appoint an economic commission to study unemployment. The reply they then made was that this was not a matter for the federal government. The then Minister of Labour and the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) tried to have my question ruled out of order, although it was the very same question that was asked in the British House of Commons the other day by the leader of the Labour party in the old country, and the British government this spring is providing work for a great body of unemployed. That question, through no fault of the able, learned and popular clerk of the house, was not placed on the order paper. I agree with some of the members who have been criticizing the rules, that the rules are certainly not what they should be.
But I will say this on behalf of the industrial worker. In the campaign which preceded the by-election in the riding of East Toronto in 1934 many leading Liberals took part. Among others my good friend the present Minister of National Defence (Mr. Mackenzie), Mr. Ralston and even the present Minister of the Interior (Mr. Crerar) all came to my riding to tell the industrial workers what the Liberal party would do to end unemployment. I can say to the government that the industrial workers of this country are no longer going to stand idly by and see their property, that was owned by their fathers and their grandfathers, taken away from them through no fault of their own by the insurance and mortgage companies. These insurance companies have squandered millions of dollars of trust money all over the world in useless common stock. If the new members of the

house want to find out what these companies are doing let them read the six hundred page report of the superintendent of insurance. There they will find that these companies have invested millions of dollars in stocks that to-day are practically without value. They have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in south sea bubbles throughout the world, but they have not a dollar to loan at low interest rates to the industrial workers of Canada.
What has been done in other countries? In the United States the New York Life loaned $25,000,000 to help pull the Roosevelt government out of the mire. That company did not depend upon the government to do everything, but they would not do that in Canada. In the United States they are loaning $25,000,000 on Gravesend beach in Brooklyn, creating employment for carpenters, bricklayers and other workmen of Manhattan island; the railways are cooperating by providing steam suburban service to take the workers to the country. That is not however being done in Canada. I do not ask the government to do everything; all I ask is fair play and equality of treatment for the industrial workers of Canada. Very few of the new members of the house have seen fit to plead the cause of the industrial workers, who are oppressed by intolerable conditions. In the United States and England the governments are taking steps to get these people out of the slums into the country, where they can build homes and own a few acres of land.
I am not here to criticize the government unduly; I am ready to support any plan it may bring forward to remedy these conditions, because after all is said and done I realize that these hon. gentlemen have been placed on the treasury benches by the people of this country and they are a government of Canadians, but they should see the handwriting on the wall. Parliament has been in session now for almost four weeks but we have done nothing to give relief to the unemployed. On my right we have the overflow from the opposite side, and I venture to say that any fifteen of these hon. gentlemen I might pick out could create for the government a policy in this regard, but instead we waste time talking about foreign affairs while domestic politics are forgotten. Constructive statesmanship is lacking; people have lost their faith and confidence in the government because no plans have been brought forward to improve the present situation. The industrial workers were greatly disappointed the other day to read the statement made by

Small Property Holders

Mr. Mallette
the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers), who rose in his place and read a long treatise on relief camps to be closed after the fashion of a college professor. The government intend to close the relief camps. What are they going to do with the industrial workers now in those camps? Will they drive them into the gaol as vagrants?
Let me remind the government that many of the young men in these camps are high school and university graduates. The fathers of many of them are on relief; some of them had good jobs with industrial concerns, but it is a long time since they have had any work to do. There may be three or four sons in the family; the eldest says, "I cannot loaf and sponge any longer," so he takes to the road and probably rides the rods out to the coast. We have two railways that can hand out hundreds of thousands of passes every week, but when these poor young fellows are caught riding the rods they are locked up in the gaols throughout the country though their only crime is that they have" not been able to get jobs. I have never failed to show ordinary Christian charity towards hon. gentlemen opposite; under our parliamentary system they are now the government of the day, and the responsibility is upon them to solve the great economic problems facing this country.
I thoroughly agree with the principle contained in this resolution. All I want to see in Canada is equality of treatment for the industrial workers who have had to do without protection for five years and who have lost their property. The other fifty per cent of the population, the farmers and fishermen, have had protection, and I was glad to see them get it. I think the late government should be congratulated upon having had the courage to give these people, through subsidies, subventions, bonuses, stabilization funds and so on, the relief to which they are entitled. I only ask the government to take up this question and make a study of it, as the mover of the resolution (Mr. Deslauriers) has proposed. I believe if they do that they will do something which in years to come will be remembered to the credit of the Liberal party and of twentieth century Liberalism in this country.


Mr. VITAL MALLETTE (Jacques-Cartier) (Translation):: Mr. Speaker, I consider that the house owes a debt of gratitude to the hon. member for St. Mary (Mr. Deslauriers) for having so clearly and forcibly described the plight of the small property holders. The hon. member, in so eloquently submitting this resolution to our consideration, had no other
thought in mind than the unfortunate situation of these small property holders, particularly those of his electoral division. It is therefore only right that some of us should rise to congratulate him.
In my humble opinion, this question which relates to mortgage debts and municipal taxes, comes under the jurisdiction of the provincial rather than of the central authority. However, I trust that, as a result of this debate, the provincial legislature will take up this question and enact the needed legislation.
(Text) Mr. Speaker, I think the house owes a debt of gratitude to the hon. member for St. Mary (Mr. Deslauriers) for having brought to the attention of this assembly what he has called the plight of the small proprietors. No doubt, as I have just said in French, when he spoke so eloquently and well he had in mind particularly the electors of his division of St. Mary, 'but this problem touches everyone in every county, and relates not only to the small proprietors but also to the large proprietors, because all have been affected. In my humble opinion, since this question is so closely connected with taxes and mortgages, it should come before the provincial legislatures, and I hope that as a result of this debate our wise provincial legislators will see to it that something is done to help these poor small proprietors. My experience in municipal problems and administration has extended over twenty-five years and it has been my privilege to come into contact almost daily with proprietors of all classes, especially the small proprietors.
I believe these proprietors can be divided into two categories, one being the man and woman who have invested all their life savings in a small home, and the other the small owner who has bought a house larger than his own needs and rents the rest of it in order to obtain a small revenue. When the depression came this class was hit hard. In the first place many of these owners lost their jobs or positions, and those who had tenants saw their tenants lose their jobs or positions, so that there was no more revenue either from wages or rents. These poor people had to go to the banks or the notaries and borrow money, and many had to sell everything they had including their life insurance policies and afterwards go on relief. When relief began nothing was done for these small proprietors. Those who were distributing relief had the idea that before anyone could be given relief he had to dispose of everything he owned. So these men found themselves penniless and forced into the army, already too large, of paupers or seekers of relief.

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In Quebec the provincial government wisely passed a moratorium act by means of which proprietors in hard circumstances could go to a judge of the superior court and so long as taxes and interest were paid they could secure an extension of the mortgage. Consequently this problem became largely one of taxes. So the provincial authorities passed another law compelling the sale of all properties on which taxes were more than two years in arrears. At first sight that looks like a hardship, but it is not, because the same law carries the provision that these proprietors have the right to go before a judge of the superior court and, upon showing their position, if they are unable to pay they get permission to fund the taxes and pay them over a period of five years. Although the Quebec government consists principally of lawyers, and so much has been said about the legal profession to-day, the provincial government saw to it that the lawyers who prepared the papers to secure these extensions were not allowed to charge a fee higher than five dollars. Let me say this for the legal profession; I know of many cases where lawyers prepared these cases and went before the courts on behalf of poor people without charging any fees at all.
Another curse we have in our province is the money lenders. They advertise in the papers and over the radio and many people are caught, thinking they can get out of their difficulties by obtaining an easy loan. The procedure is something like this: The would-be borrower comes to see the lender and explains his position. The first thing the lender does is to ascertain from the corporation of the municipality in which the property is situated what is due on it for taxes, and then he arranges with the borrower as to the amount to be lent. The loan is made and the tax receipts are registered for preference over mortgages, so that at the end of the term if the loan is not repaid the lender has a chance to get the property for almost nothing. Further, I understand that a borrower from these loan companies on being granted a loan of say $100 is first charged a fee of $10 for searches and other matters; then he has to pay, I am told, seven per cent on the whole $100, so that for a loan of nominally $100 all he gets is $83, and if I calculate aright the interest works out at something over twenty per cent per annum. If that is not usury I would like to know what it is. No wonder the hon. member for St. Mary has brought this question before the house; it surprises me that it has not been before the house or the provincial legislature before.

How can this be cured? I am not able to give a complete answer. But if the dominion government were to go into the matter something could probably be done along the lines of the farm loan board. I have every sympathy for the small proprietor, in fact every proprietor, but the small proprietor is looked upon as the back-bone of the nation. I wish there might be a more extensive distribution of landed property, because the man who owns some real estate feels he has a stake in the community and is watchful to see that no undue extravagance takes place. However I believe this problem is more one for the provinces. I feel fairly sure that the mover of the resolution had no intention to embarrass the government, and although I am heartily in favour of the motion still I think the matter should go to the provincial legislature.
I have noticed that when speaking to a motion members are allowed to speak of other matters, so seeing that this is the first time I have spoken in the house I crave indulgence for a minute because I want to thank whoever made the seating arrangements for placing me where I am. Thanks to the seat I occupy in this chamber, I have the pleasure not only of seeing the government in front of me but of having on my right a member from Manitoba, in front of me a member from Nova Scotia, and on-his right, a member from Ontario. This is very interesting from the point of view of the exchange of ideas. Moreover, I have on my left the pleasure of being close to the representatives of the Conservative party, a situation which is very interesting indeed; I find that there is not such a very great difference between us. Also I say in all sincerity that I believe this is the most interesting side of the house because it comprises men of all hues:	radical Liberals,
orthodox Liberals, Conservatives, Cooperative Commonwealth Federationists, Reconstructionists, and Social Crediters. And on top of all that there is one more reason why this is the most interesting side, that is because it contains the entire feminine representation of the country.
Mr. DOUGLAS G. ROSS (St. Paul's): Mr. Speaker, I am very much embarrassed by my hon. friend speaking of me in such glowing terms. That is all.


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: Mr. Speaker, my first duty is to extend my congratulations to the hon. member for St. Mary (Mr. Deslauriers) on the eloquent and convincing manner in which he has introduced his resolution; and as he has used the French language, I shall, both as a courtesy to him and in order to maintain

Small Property Holders-Mr. Rinjrel
the usages of the house which provide for the conducting of the debate in either of the two official languages, reply to him in the French language.
I also wish to congratulate my good friend, the hon. member for Jacques-Cartier (Mr. Mallette), who, in his first speech, was able to interest the house. He deserved all the applause he received, showed that we have made in him a precious acquisition and that he will be a powerful support to us in the future debates of this house.
As to the resolution itself, I may say that the government looks upon it with much sympathy and is disposed to accept it, since it is a resolution calling for a study of the problem. The grounds it states are in themselves a conclusive argument. All are aware that the financial situation of the small property owners in cities is most critical, and more especially those who represent city divisions-like the hon. member for St. Mary and myself-are well acquainted with the extremely critical situation of a large number of the small property holders. I also agree with the sponsor of this resolution that, for the last five years, this class of citizens have felt the crisis if not more at least as much as any other class of the community. It is therefore but natural that our attention should be drawn to the lot of this particular class, with whom I greatly sympathize. But I may be pardoned if I state that the question is primarily a municipal one. The small property holders, in fact property owners in general, are the chief ratepayers of our cities. A large proportion of city revenues are drawn from their properties, and in so far as we may seek to consider property owners as a distinct class, we have to do so first from a municipal viewpoint. It is equally from a municipal point of view that they are interested in the various enterprises of our cities, in police and fire protection as well as in all other municipal services.
Secondly, the responsibility of property holders, from the viewpoint of civil rights is a provincial matter, and I think that those who are interested in the welfare of property owners should first apply to the legislatures of the various provinces. In fact, the sponsor of the resolution as well as those who followed him, have indicated in their remarks that they relied on provincial legislatures to remedy part of the ills which they have pointed out. Mention was made, for instance, of the moratorium granted in connection with mortgage debts. It is, therefore, proper to settle in the course of this debate that, if the dominion government-and. I am sure.
127.HD-381
parliament as well-is disposed to embrace the cause of small property holders, one must not expect it to invade a domain outside of its prerogative and where it cannot produce effective action.
We have had proof of this in the course of last session. There are excellent measures which may be discussed and adopted, but unless there is certainty that they come under the jurisdiction of the dominion government, it would be most unwise to legislate, as we would be exposing ourselves to the possibility of having to duplicate the proceedings already taken and which consist in submitting to the Supreme Court of Canada the question of the dominion government's jurisdiction.
In our own sphere, sir, I think that the dominion government and parliament deal especially with the larger classes of society, such as the farming, labouring and business classes. The federal government has large departments that look after agriculture, commerce and labour, and I desire to point out that it is from the general point of view that it is possible for us to act. I wish to point out to the hon. member for St. Mary (Mr Deslauriers) that the fact of being a property holder is not in itself a federal qualification.
A labourer may also be a property holder, a business man may equally be a property holder; and although we legislate as regards the labouring classes, the business men and farmers, it is the provincial legislatures or the municipalities that deal with property owmers as such.
Times are hard and all governments must work together, but the desire to cooperate must necessarily stop at certain limits. With reference to the unemployment problem, it is quite possible for the dominion government -and this would indirectly help property holders-to increase, as was done recently, federal subsidies to the provinces and municipalities and permitting the application of the subsidies to rentals and other charges which indirectly interest property holders. In the levying of taxes as well, the Minister of Finance may make allowances for small holdings, by increasing their exemptions while calling upon the wealthier citizens to contribute more to the revenues of the state.
Likewise and in the same spirit, parliament, last year, studied the question of housing. I was a member of the housing committee and I wish to state that in the course of the few weeks we devoted to the question, no political consideration ever cropped up; quite the contrary all the members of the committee were inspired by purely social motives. Wp particularly stressed the fact
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that, if the federal government helped in the construction of homes, it should npt forget the present property holders. In the desire to supply our cities with better homes for their population, we must not lose sight of the fact that there are in those cities property holders who should not be ruined by the state's competition. The legislation at present embodied in our statutes authorizes the lending of large sums for the construction of wholesome homes in our cities. I again wish to emphasize the fact and I could quote many authorities on the subject, that, however excellent the principle of the measure, we must always bear in mind that the state must not compete against private property holders, however laudable may be the object. This was a reserve we made when this measure was enacted last year, and that is also a feature that this government intends to respect in the interpretation and application of the act.
I have before me a resolution from a committee dealing with municipal affairs of the city of Montreal, dated June 5, 1935, in which it is precisely requested that the government should not be too hasty in applying this housing act, because, it is pointed out, the government or the state must not compete against small property holders in such a sphere. It is, therefore obvious that, while the question is first a municipal and provincial one, it may from a certain standpoint become a federal one; that is why I congratulate the hon. member for St. Mary (Mr. Deslauriers) for having submitted this resolution to the house. I am aware that this is a very serious problem in our large cities, and had I simply been the member for St. James, I would nevertheless have risen to support the resolution of my hon. friend for St. Mary. I am pleased to inform him, on behalf of the government- while bearing in mind the reservation I have just mentioned-that as his resolution calls only for a study of the problem of small property holders, the government has no objection, in so far as it is concerned, to accept this motion. It goes without saying that the government is desirous that these small property holders be given, as my hon. friend stated himself, every consideration to which they are entitled.
Mr. Speaker, I desired to speak on this motion in the language of the mover (Mr. Deslauriers) out of courtesy to him and in order to uphold that very good usage which permits the conducting of the debates of this house in both languages. I do not desire to repeat my argument. I have made a qualification in accepting the motion, namely,
[Mr. Rinfret.l
that I believe the responsibility for the welfare of the small property holder is primarily -municipal and provincial. Inasmuch as the motion calls for a study of its subject matter, and as there can be no objection to giving effect to such a pious wish, I am quite willing on behalf of the government to accept the motion and to congratulate again the mover.
Mr. E. C. ST-PERE (Hochelaga) (Translation) : Mr. Speaker, during the session of 1934 I rose to present to the house the needs and claims of the small property holders of the city of Montreal. They requested me, during the last election campaign, again to intercede with the federal authorities on their behalf. Like all members who preceded me in this debate, I admit that this question primarily concerns the provincial authorities, but I might also point out that the Dominion government should not abstain from dealing with the purely practical side of this problem. May I sir, congratulate the hon. member for Jacques Cartier (Mr. Mal-lette) who, this evening, has presented the claims of small property owners for the relief they need. The majority of small property holders, in Montreal, belong to the working classes; they have followed the advice of the economists, who have followed the recommendations made to them from public platforms and even from the pulpit, to be thrifty and invest their savings in fully secured investments. The small property holders of Montreal and of every city of Canada have been creators of wealth; they have accumulated savings from their small earnings, not only for their own ends but in the interest of the whole community which they have served by contributing to our large cities a considerable portion of the taxes levied, etc. They have supplied work to the working classes and paid them high wages, thus raising the purchasing power of the workmen and greatly increasing the revenue of merchants in all our cities.
In the course of last year's session, the principle of assisting all classes of society was recognized by the house, and this principle, it must be admitted, has always formed part of the Liberal party's policy. We now have rural credit. Why then not facilitate loans at reduced interest to our small property holders and why not establish in this country a system of real-estate loans? This, sir, is a suggestion I make, to the house, as representative of Hochelaga. I also belong to this class of property holders who, to-day, claims consideration from the public authorities.
Since the question of more intimate cooperation hetween the federal and provincial

Small Property Holders-Mr. St-Pere
authorities has been mooted for some time past, as our Secretary of State, the hon. member for St. James (Mr. Rinfret), has stated, why should this matter not be again considered in the course of future negotiations between provincial and federal authorities.
I would not go so far as to advocate in this house that the Canadian government follow in all respects the policy of Mr. Roosevelt towards small property holders; but let us bear in mind that, thanks to the Home Loan Banks, to the institution which he has created, Mr. Roosevelt, in issuing bonds at reduced rates of interest was successful so far in saving the properties of small holders; more than 880,000 small American property holders have benefited from this protection.
With reference to the measures enacted by the United States government, which I .mentioned a moment ago, some have been declared ultra vires by the Supreme Court of the republic, but to conclude from this that our government, through fear of these decisions of the United States Supreme Court, should entirely neglect those who at present need relief is a far cry.
The member for Hochelaga, like all those who have preceded him in this debate, recognize that the federal government cannot be held responsible for the present depression, but for heaven's sake, let us spare those who have economized, let us lend a hand to those who have brought wealth to our cities, let us relieve those who have built homes to insure the future of their wives and children; let us prevent by legal means, I say, these home builders, these small property holders, from being suddenly despoiled of the fruit of their thrift.
Certain loan companies, sir, shamelessly exploit the small property owners of our cities. These people seize properties without any compunction and what is amazing-I have myself ascertained the fact in my own constituency-these people, after taking possession of a property, find it always possible through their organizations to compete with, small neighbouring property holders, who have bled themselves to meet their obligations, by lowering the rental of the houses they seized.
I wish to state to the house that like the hon. .member for St. James (Mr. Rinfret) I am not very enthusiastic over the coming into effect of the housing bill, so highly praised in the house of late. There is not such a scarcity of houses in Montreal, and if two households occupy the same home, it is not because the number of houses is limited, but because the workmen living in that manner cannot afford to rent a separate home; they
simply have not the money to pay the landlord. Such conditions are due to the present depression.
I have nothing further to add; but may I, sir, thank the hon. member for St. Mary (Mr. Deslauriers) who, like myself, represents a working-class constituency composed of small property owners, for having followed the claims previously submitted to the house on behalf of the more humble dwellers of our large and small towns throughout the Dominion.


Mr. DAVID SPENCE (Parkdale):: Mr. Speaker, 1 had not intended taking part in this debate, but I have been moved to do so by what has been said by other hon. members. I rise to endorse the sentiments expressed by the hon. gentleman who introduced the motion (Mr. Deslauriers) and I wish to congratulate him upon bringing it before us. Since I have been a member of the house the urban centres have received very little consideration from any government. I see no reason why industrial workers in these centres should not receive the assistance which they need so badly. I am glad the Secretary of State (Mr. Rinfret) has said that he is willing to accept this resolution, but I do not agree with him when he says that this matter is a provincial responsibility. I think the federal government has some responsibility for the urban as well as for the rural centres. Assistance has been given to rural Canada by way of farm loan boards and the farmers' creditors act and many other pieces of legislation, so surely something can be done to help those in the urban centres who are in such distress. I could picture to hon. members many instances of distress which I have seen in my own city, but I do not believe in doing that as it is bad advertising for Canada. My hon. friends to my left indulge in that sort of thing but I never do. Such tactics do not bring good results and there is no use talking about anything that does not bring such results.
I know of working men who for the last twenty years have lived economically and saved every cent, but who have lost everything in the last five years. If the present state of affairs continues, the city of Toronto will be the largest landowner in that centre. Taxation is high because of relief costs and interest rates should have been reduced long ago. These conditions have proved a handicap to the thrifty man in the city who is trying to get along. They have also affected the builder who has constructed a few houses for rental purposes. Even though he has all his houses rented, in many instances they are rented to

Small Property Holders-Mr. Spence
people on relief. Such a man finds it difficult to collect his rents and sometimes he loses one house after another in an effort to save what is left. There are many instances where a man has endeavoured to purchase a home worth from 83,000 to 85,000; he may have managed to pay everything up to about $1,000 or $1,500, and then he loses the whole thing. This is what is happening in Toronto, and I assume the same thing is occurring in all the urban centres of this country. I appeal to the government to set up a committee of some sort to try to discover means of assisting the people mentioned by the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church) and the mover of the resolution. I hope the government will give this matter every consideration because it is absolutely essential that something be done.
Mr. L, A. MUTCH (Winnipeg South): Mr. Speaker, coming as I do from the third largest city in Canada and representing a portion of that city which is composed very largely of home owners of the class and description mentioned in the resolution under discussion tonight, I would be doing something less than my full duty to the great majority of my constituents if I did not rise to my feet to say just a word or two respecting the seriousness of their situation and the earnestness with which they are looking to the legislators of Canada for some measure of consideration. They are looking to the federal and provincial governments for assistance and the efforts to be made on their behalf need not necessarily conflict. Therefore I think it is a responsibility of mine to lay before the house very briefly the opinion which my constituents hold and the opinion which I, their representative, hold, knowing their conditions to be what they are.
During the last five or six years I believe this class of citizen of the cities of Canada has done more in the way of burden bearing than has any other class in the dominion. Not only have they been forced during these trying times to maintain their homes on very much reduced incomes, but, as tax collections will prove, they have had to carry the burdens of their less fortunate brothers. Therefore, whenever their plight is raised in the house the good resolution which I made when I came here for the first time a couple of weeks ago has to go by the board like most of the other good resolutions which I have made from time to time. That resolution was to hear and not to speak. But on behalf of those people whose problems I know and sympathize with, and whose problems I bel Mr. Spence.]
lieve every hon. member sympathizes with, I feel compelled, when such problems come before the house, to rise and speak as briefly and sincerely as 1 can. The present resolution is in my opinion one that deals with a problem which, in the words of the motion itself, should be the subject of study. The resolution does not go very far, and with that I have no quarrel at the moment; but the problem of the people I represent is one that should be investigated. The motion proposes a short step in the direction in which I hope the government will shortly move. I rose simply to record my own humble opinion that a great need exists.
Motion (Mr. Deslauriers) agreed to. UNEMPLOYMENT



PROPOSED PROGRAM OF PUBLIC WORKS AT TRADE UNION RATES OF PAY

Mr. C. G. MacNEIL (Vancouver North) moved:: Unemployment-Mr. MacNeil
tion to unemployment they seem to suggest that the government has squandered millions of dollars to keep these people in idleness; that those on relief could get jobs if they wanted to, and that relief satisfies the majority of them anyway, so why worry? They suggest tha t the unemployed might be returned to pioneer conditions and left to "rustle" a living somehow.
This policy was suggested to me in a very blunt and pointed way at a conference not *o long ago by a prominent representative of business interests in this country. He remonstrated with me for advocating measures that were not at all radical or revolutionary but were designed to spread more equitably the available opportunities of employment. He said, "The sooner we get back to the good old days of 'root, hog or die,' the better." That was a very blunt restatement of the doctrine of rugged, or if you like, of ragged individualism and the survival of the fittest. Nevertheless there are many who still hold this view and urge that we put the brakes on all manner of social legislation at this time. I feel that those who would condone this policy of drift or of rugged individualism as applied to the unemployed have surely overlooked the changes that have occurred in the Canadian social and economic structure and the manner in which these changes have affected the great majority of wage earners in Canada.
It was only a few decades ago that the great majority of Canadian workers were farmers, lumbermen, shoemakers, blacksmiths, or were engaged in other trades where they worked on their own account with their own tools and with a greater degree of self-reliance than is possible today. Many individuals in those days scorned to work for hire. Those who did work for wages consisted mainly of lumberjacks, seamen, a few farm labourers and domestic servants, and probably those who were em-* ployed by the fur-trading companies. When one contrasts this with the situation that exists in Canada in 1935 and 1936 one will find that the wage earning class or the working class, including those who receive what are politely called salaries, amounts to over three-fifths of the working population of this country.
In the early stages of Canadian development the workers lived mainly in small towns and villages and usually had a small piece of land or a wood-lot on which they could gain a living, so that seasonal unemployment was a misfortune but not actually a calamity. There was not the modern form of specialized production. They were not confined, as

present workers are, to specialized labour. They usually could do anything or go anywhere as demanded by the rough work of a pioneer community. These conditions developed in them an adaptability and a dependence on their own resources in marked contrast to the capabilities of the modem wage earner who has been forced to specialize perhaps with the same kind of tool or machine for half a lifetime.
This process of modem industrialism with its mass production technique has had on Canadian life an impact which has been condensed into a short period as compared with similar developments in European countries. As machines displaced labour, only those in the wealthier class could afford to own and control the tools, the machinery of production. As these developments took place, Canadian workers were alienated from all access to the sources of wealth production. Hence we have ownership of the vital instruments of production in the hands of a comparatively small owning class, and the great majority of our people have been obliged to hire themselves out by the day or week to work in those enterprises controlled by a few. This means that a comparatively large proportion of the Canadian people have nothing to exchange for the commodities required to satisfy their material wants except their own labour power, and they must market this on the labour market. They can secure a livelihood only as they are engaged in coordinated groups as and when required by the owners of the machines, and because of the trend of events over which they have no control they are left more and more helpless and without opportunity to apply individual initiative or resourcefulness during this period of economic instability.
A century ago not more than one out of five of the occupied population in this country worked for hire or received a salary. To-day the wage earning group has changed from twenty in a hundred to sixty or seventy in a hundred. In this as well as in other countries the wage earners have risen from this comparatively small minority of twenty per cent to become a powerful and unorganized majority consisting of seventy per cent of the whole population that might be gainfully employed. At the same time the percentage of our population engaged in farming has fallen proportionately from fifty to about twenty-five per cent. The percentage of our population living in towns of 5,000 or over has risen from twelve and a half per cent to approximately forty-five per cent.
Also, according to the latest statistics, seventy-eight per cent of dwellings in rural

Unemployment-Mr. MacNeil
districts are occupied by owners, but in urban centres only forty-five per cent are shown to be dwelling in homes for which they may claim ownership. It should be noted that many of these homes are so heavily mortgaged, as witness the evidence presented in the debate on the previous resolution, that ownership confers upon these people merely the doubtful privilege of paying taxes and repair bills. At the same time we are aware that the average wage in Canada has never risen above $1,000 per annum. Nearly half the population over seventy years of age are eligible for old age pensions. It is quite accurate therefore to say that there is in Canada a large propertyless working class numbering perhaps over two millions, or sixty per cent of our working population. In the United States statistics give the proportion as seventy-three per cent, and it is reasonable to assume that developments in Canada follow the same trend. This is a natural development under capitalism.
More and more the workers are being alienated from access to the means of work. So I ask some previous speakers: What are our unemployed to do? Why should they be exhorted to "rustle," as these hon. gentlemen suggest? To live they must eat; to eat they must work; to work they must secure employment. They can secure work only from those who own the means of work. To-day the supply of labour is greater than the demand. This leads us in this group to the conclusion that security for the worker will not be established until the nation owns and controls the means of work. I mention this point at this stage, however, to emphasize the fact that to-day the workers are in a greater degree than before dependent upon private enterprise. The worker is helpless unless he can gain access to the land or tools through which he may employ his labour power and gain a livelihood, and for this reason I feel that the house cannot escape responsibility for widening the opportunities for the worker who finds himself in this plight.
Another feature of the situation that cannot be overlooked is that we are rapidly tending towards a condition of chronic or permanent unemployment, and that whatever may be done to bring about a revival of export trade and thereby stimulate our productive activity, these measures will not and cannot possibly provide for the re-absorption into industry of all our unemployed in Canada. Due to technical advances in industry there is little hope that we can substantially reduce our unemployment simply by the methods to which I have referred. To get a proper understanding of the situation I think we should
study very carefully the statistics of unemployment prior to the beginning of this depression, namely, during the period from 1920 to 1929. It was interesting to note an editorial appearing in the Ottawa Citizen only the other day as to the manner in which employment in the United States is keeping pace with the recovery that is evident there. The editorial states;
The singular fact regarding "recovery" in the United States is that the gain in production is not being accompanied by a corresponding gain in employment. While the nation is three-quarters of the way towards bringing production to its pre-depression level it has gone only a little more than a third of the way towards bringing employment to its 1929 level.
No one knows for sure how many unemployed there are in the United States, but the generally accepted total to-day is ten million. This represents a drop of some four millions from the depression's worst, or a gain in employment of forty per cent as compared with a gain in production of seventy-five per cent.
Unless progress through the remaining twenty-five per cent cuts down unemployment at an infinitely greater rate than did progress through the first seventy-five per cent, it follows that even when the United States is producing on the old pre-depression scale again, the unemployed will still number in the neighbourhood of five million.
The official report, Recent Economic Changes, shows a decline in the number of persons employed in the United States from
25.105.000	in the period from 1918 to 1920 to
23.420.000	in the period from 1924 to 1926. This was accompanied by an eighteen per cent increase in total output. In other words our peak of employment on this continent was reached in 1918; the peak of production was reached in 1929. Prior to 1929 we have adequate evidence as to unemployment caused by technological advance in industry, and while it is true that a large percentage of those now unemployed in Canada have been brought to their present plight because of general economic conditions it is also true that included in that percentage is an increasing number of workers displaced by technological progress in industry. It is interesting to note that an official report further states:
The elimination-or the release-of human labour as a result of technical progress is by no means peculiar to very recent times. It is, indeed, one of the essential processes in the course of economic and social development. But for the spread of machinery it would scarcely have been possible to raise the standard of living of the world'. The nineteenth century was truly an age of miracles in the realm of technical progress. But so long as the liberation of workers from certain branches of production is more than balanced by the creation of new branches and the expansion of production as a whole, there is no such thing as a problem of technological unemployment

Unemployment-Mr. MacNeil
Even if the balance is temporarily disturbed the results may be considered as part of the price nations have to pay if they^ wish to progress. The novel feature in the industrial development of the United States after the war was that the counter-balancing mechanism broke down right in the middle of a boom period, and the expansion of production created no extra demand for labour.
It is clearly shown that the annual increase in output per head of wage earners in industry during the period 1923 to 1929 developed at the rate of 4-8 per cent. It is also shown that any increase in production was not serving to absorb the workers released by technological progress. It is also interesting to note that in four years the oil refineries increased output eighty-four per cent, and laid off five per cent of their men while doing so. The tobacco manufacturing output climbed fifty-three per cent during the same period while thirteen per cent fewer men were used in the process. In Iron Age we find this interesting statement, which is confirmed by the findings of Stuart Chase:
If the productivity of industry through mechanization continues to increase in the next twenty-five years in the same way and at the same rate as during the last twenty-five, only 45 men will be needed for the work which to-day requires 70 and that formerly required 100. In the automobile industry 30 workers were doing in 1925 as much work as 100 workers in 1914. What are we going to do with the 25 men out of 70 that are displaced in the next twenty-five years? And there may be far more than 25 displaced, as the curve of technology is an accelerating one.
I think that is a question for which we should endeavour to discover an answer in Canada to-day. There are other factors to consider, such as unemployment resulting from mergers. It is well said that under every merger you find a human bargain basement. As a result of the mergers that have taken place in Canada more men than ever in the S3,000, S4.000 and $5,000 a year class are seeking employment at lower rates of pay.
Another factor to which I think we should give earnest consideration is the fact that efficiency experts, undertaking what is sometimes called the rationalization of industry, are steadily eliminating men. This happens whether men are swinging picks in the coal mines, sorting potatoes, picking fruit or doing many other things. The time-study brigade are eliminating motions, and with the motions they are eliminating men. Not only in motions but also in shop arrangement, routing, lighting, ventilating and management generally is this process being carried on. It is true that this brings about better conditions but almost always it results in fewer men being employed. The statement is made by

prominent economists that even if we could restore our trade and industrial conditions to the productive level of 1929 there still would be no work in Canada for approximately fifty per cent of those now unemployed. I submit, Mr. Speaker, that the trend now developing in the growth of our productive forces indicates that we are fastening upon Canada a condition of permanent or chronic unemployment, and in my opinion it is intolerable that we should even contemplate a condition of permanent unemployment in a country so richly endowed with natural resources as Canada.
The first suggestion I have to make is that the federal government should assume full responsibility for dealing with unemployment and unemployment measures. I feel that this step is essential if we are to achieve a national and properly coordinated plan to deal with the problem. There must be not only federal responsibility but also federal direction and control. I feel that to all intents and purposes the federal government is now assuming almost entirely the financial responsibility for this problem. Why should not the present administration go but a step further and assume a larger measure of management? I understand that as a result of the conference with the provincial governments the way has been cleared of constitutional difficulties, and I submit that the situation is of sufficient gravity to demand the mobilization of all our national resources. We would attempt such measures if a similar number of Canadian citizens were threatened with death through war conditions. To-day they are threatened with conditions equally dire, that may be termed famine conditions. They are forced into slums. The statistics of juvenile crime are mounting year by year. Our educational institutions are turning out thousands of young people every year to waste their trained faculties in a hopeless search for employment. Many of those on relief are at the peak of their physical and mental powers but know they will never work again, while many of our young men have not yet learned what work is. It has been aptly said that unemployment is doing to the bodies and souls of the present generation what the war did to the bodies and souls of those of another generation. It is not only the increase in the burden of relief costs but the demoralization, the pauperization of men that demands some change in our relief policy, a more enlightened and humane procedure than the mere payment of relief.
There is a woeful lack of uniformity in the present scheme. In British Columbia I find from personal observation that the monthly

Unemployment-Mr. MacNeil
payments to the average family of five range from $16 a month in some districts to from S35 to $38 in others. Some work for the relief, many do not; policies differ in different municipalities. Some receive a degree of medical attention and care; in other districts this need is absolutely disregarded. In some districts definite provision is made for rent, fuel and clothing; in others, particularly the unorganized districts, no provision whatever is made for these needs. All through we find the supplementary activities of social welfare agencies related to the general relief scheme in a haphazard and ineffective way. This spells waste and inefficiency and not only tends to breed distress in many quarters but produces a very unwholesome atmosphere. Any effectiveness of unemployment relief as now operating is largely lost because of this general mismanagement, which I contend is due to lack of coordination on a national basis.
The need for national coordination is shown very clearly in the operation of the Employment Service of Canada. In 1919 parliament passed the Employment Offices Coordination Act, the purpose of which was to establish in Canada an employment service patterned after the system of labour exchanges which was then operating in Great Britain, and which has operated with a reasonable degree of success there since that time. The federal government defrays I think fifty per cent of the cost of the maintenance of this service. The personnel is largely furnished by the provincial governments. The results however have been in my opinion wholly unsatisfactory, largely by reason of the loss of confidence that has developed, among employing interests as well as among the unemployed, in the efficiency of this service.
I have some knowledge of the purpose of this legislation, and it was clearly in mind at that time that this service should become a genuine placement service; that it should be manned by people expert in determining vocational aptitudes and in the scientific placement of workers. It was also intended that this service should bring about definite cooperation between organized interests throughout the country and the government. Provision was made for the establishment of an employment service council to act in an advisory capacity to the Minister of Labour. This council was to be representative of all organized interests; agriculture, labour, exservice men, the national council of women, manufacturing interests and so on. I understand that the last time this council was summoned was in 1930, prior to which date it met infrequently. Provision was made
also for the establishment of local employment service councils affiliated with the local offices of the employment service. There seems to have been some disinclination on the part of officials to accept the cooperation of the organized interests in the various communities, with the result that the service has largely failed to command general cooperation in these communities. To a large extent the offices serve merely for the mechanical registration of those who may apply for work and the occasional inquiry for workers by employers.
Because of lack of coordination in this and other respects we are far behind Great Britain and other countries in our technique. I have not time to make any detailed comparison with the United Kingdom except to say that there the wage earner to-day is assisted and guided by the government practically throughout his whole life by the following methods: Maternity grants to workers; free medical treatment and hospitalization, not only to the worker but to his dependents; illness allowances;' financial assistance to parents whose children, between the ages of fourteen and sixteen years, are continuing school; unemployment insurance benefits for those workers coming under the act and unemployment assistance to those who do not; free juvenile and other courses of training and instruction; the payment of pensions to widows of insured workers and allowances to their children; and finally old age pensions to any non-contributory persons arriving at the age of seventy years, and old age pensions to contributors upon reaching the age of sixty-five years. In many respects they are in advance of the methods employed in Canada. I realize that it. may not be possible to do in this country all that has been done in Great Britain; neverhteless we should profit by the excellent results achieved in the mother country.
I suggest that we should now institute socially useful public projects, and in this way provide employment for those now unemployed. In discussing this matter in a previous debate the minister quoted a statement issued by the imperial ministry to the effect that public works have not been found effective. I would refer him to the reports of the International Labour Office in which a very careful study has been made in this regard, and the conclusion reached that in many respects public works have served to stimulate employment. One conclusion reached was stated in these terms:
Even when the problem is examined in very great detail the old truth is confirmed that

Unemployment-Mr. MacNeil
to give employment on schemes in which wages form a high proportion of the total cost is the best way to provide more employment.
Much has been done by the housing measures in Great Britain. I need not remind the minister of all that has been accomplished under the housing scheme in Great Britain; the Labour Gazette for January, 1936, gives a complete report.
It is interesting also to note what has been accomplished in Sweden. It is stated there by reliable authorities that the big loan expenditure largely devoted to this purpose and incurred during the financial years 1933 and 1934 appears to have met with success, since production is greater than in 1928 and unemployment is less than at any time since the early months of 1932. The index of production has gone up mainly in consumers' goods.
It goes without saying that in public works projects the workers engaged should be paid the going rates of wages. To do otherwise would have a most deplorable effect on wage levels and would react disastrously on the success of any such scheme. The "work for relief" policy which has been in force in many sections of the country has been most pernicious in its effects. It has created a wrong attitude on the part of those affected and has actually worked a hardship on men who, without any increase over and above the relief payments, have been put to the expense of buying protective work clothing and food necessary for the satisfactory performance of manual work. I suggest that housing, reforestation and development of health services would provide employment on the basis that I have suggested without any undue outlay for material or equipment or any undue capital outlay in relation to the total cost of the projects. These projects are at least to a degree self-liquidating, and they would at the same time meet a serious social need. I suggest that they could be financed by opening up fields of taxation not yet developed, but I shall not deal with that at length except to say that in principle it seems to me just that those who have been able to secure large profits during a period of depression should now be called upon to make some further contribution to the welfare of those who have suffered the most during this period of depression.
The Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) suggested in a previous debate that we should exercise prudence in determining the limits of government expenditure and government borrowing in regard to these projects. I am not suggesting in this resolution that we should spend our way into prosperity, but I am inr\Tr, MacNeil.]
dicating to the minister, who is well versed in sociological and political problems, that if prudence should dictate the limits of public expenditure, then prudence should also determine the limits beyond which we should not require our unemployed, those now in distress, to endure their present misery. The minister is well aware as are other members of the house that conditions developing in Canada to-day because of unemployment are largely destructive of our democracy. We must consider matters of public expenditure sanely and rationally. It is the wiser part to anticipate the demands of the future than to attempt tn devise policy when we are confronted with the clamorous cry of those who are experiencing the pangs of hunger. I suggest that the government may accept this resolution in principle at least because it is well within the range of government policy as already outlined.
Many will suggest that we must go very carefully lest we court or bring about a major disaster. I often wonder, Mr. Speaker, what such persons would consider as a major disaster. We have over one million people so destitute of this world's goods that they must apply for relief. If we had over one million people in an army we would consider it a very large army, or if we had one million people sick, suffering from some epidemic, we w'ould turn almost the whole country into a hospital. I say that our unemployment to-day is in every sense of the word a major disaster and should be dealt with on that basis as a great national emergency, requiring a definite course of action and a complete and unified mobilization of all our national resources. I would earnestly appeal to the Minister of Labour and the members of the government generally to accept the resolution as indicating steps which may safely be taken at this time towards at least the amelioration of the evident distress, and which will lead more definitely than our policy of the past towards the restoration of at any rate some of our people to a larger measure of independence, freedom and comfort.


Mr. W. F. KUHL (Jasper-Edson):: Mr. Speaker, in rising to speak on this motion I am fully aware that the subject has already been comprehensively dealt with by the mover (Mr. MacNeil) and also on a resolution of a similar nature which has been before the house, but as, according to the speech from the throne unemployment still remains one of our most urgent national problems, I do not believe any discussion that may take place on this resolution is a waste of time. I shall, however, in my remarks try to avoid any repetition of facts and points that have already been taken up. I do not believe we can over-emphasize the absolute necessity of

Unemployment-Mr. Kuhl
dealing with this problem in the immediate future. It would be superfluous for me to endeavour to describe the deplorable conditions of the unemployed as we find' them to-day. Many cases of a serious nature have been placed before us, and I am sure that each and every member of the house is well aware of the conditions of the unemployed.
There is, however, one feature of the unemployment situation which I feel we are sometimes prone to forget. The greatest punishment which the unemployed are receiving under present conditions is not the lack of the physical necessities of life, but a far greater punishment, I believe, which they are undergoing at all times is the mental torture which they are called upon to endure. I sometimes think it is only those who have gone through the experience themselves who can fully realize the mental torment which the unemployed must experience to-day. I am sure, however, that we realize their humiliation at being compelled to accept the dole. I believe the condition of our youth to-day is most serious. No one but the young man or the young woman himself or herself knows the mental torture and agony they -must endure when they realize that there is no hope for them. Is it any wonder that they are tempted to take their lives? Undoubtedly at this very moment there are young people throughout our land who are debating whether or not to end it all. I believe their agony would not be so great if they felt that their unfortunate circumstances were due to a famine or some other visitation of a like nature, but the fact is that they see the actual physical possibilities and realize that they are living under conditions which really need not be tolerated. We all know there is no lack of the physical necessities in this world. We know that providence has been kind enough to bestow on this earth a superabundance of all things.
However, what do we find? Man to-day, instead of making use of all these blessings as he should, is deliberately destroying them. According to a report in World Events, the commission for relief declares that during 1934 the following foodstuffs were destroyed: One million cars of grain, 267,000 cars of coffee,
560,000	hundredweight of sugar, 50,000 hundredweight of rice and 50,000 hundredweight of meat. When I was a child my mother taught me that it was a sin to destroy even as much as a crust of bread, a gift with which God had blessed us. This wholesale destruction of the blessings that have been bestowed upon us is a crime. Who knows but that providence may withhold its blessings.


Mr. CAHAN:: Where did this enormous destruction take place?


Walter Frederick Kuhl: That is a summary of the
destruction that is supposed to have taken place throughout the world.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Did any part of it occur in Canada?


Walter Frederick Kuhl: Not that I know of. Is it any wonder that people are asking why this should be, why they should not be permitted to enjoy these blessings? I contend it is ridiculous for anyone to-day to maintain that we are living in an age of scarcity. The mover of the resolution has given us plenty of evidence as to the extent to which goods can be produced to-day. Are not all human beings entitled to the blessings which have been bestowed upon man? We call ourselves Christians, but if I know anything about Christianity, it is not Christianity to act as we have been acting. Unless we remove this blot from civilization we will lower ourselves to the point where we shall have to admit that we are hypocrites, we shall have to consider ourselves as nothing less than heathens.
After five or six years of experimenting with palliatives, I believe the time has come when we should begin to formulate a permanent solution of the unemployment situation. As the mover of the resolution points out, unemployment is a permanent problem and is on the increase. The best brains in the country are endeavouring to-day to eliminate employment; when a manufacturer says that he is reducing costs he means that he is eliminating labour. We know that industry never can absorb all the people in need of active employment. The object of the resolution is to provide employment. I agree with the mover that the construction of public works is right and proper and we all know that a great deal can be done in this connection, but I do not agree with the idea of constructing public works just for the sake of creating work.
I believe we have arrived in our economic and industrial history at a stage at which we shall have to change our ideas with respect to many matters. Many statements are taken as axiomatic which are not so. It is a fallacious argument to maintain that the economic system is failing because it does not provide employment. The purpose of an economic system is not to provide work, but to provide and distribute goods and services up to the consuming capacity of the public. Considered from this point of view, the perfect economic system would be one which necessitated no employment at all; it would be
Unemployment-Mr. Kuhl

one by which all the goods and services required by individuals would be dropped into their laps just as a banana drops from the tree or the sunshine pours down in the morning.
I am not suggesting that provision of employment is not desirable, but provision of employment is not fundamental to an economic system. To illustrate a little further what I mean by this, I should like to give a definition of "work." When considered from the economic standpoint "work" is really a very ambiguous term. If we define "work" as being an involuntary or forced activity, we have still to distinguish between activity forced upon man by nature and activity forced upon man by other men. There is the work forced on man by nature-the work God referred to when He told Adam that, outside of Paradise, nature would yield him bread only in the sweat of his brow. There are the slave owners and bankers, for example, who from their high thrones declare that man shall not eat, not without nature's consent but without their consent. Work forced upon man by nature is natural and dignified and necessary, whereas work forced upon man by men is artificial, unnecessary and degrading.
Ever since the history of man began he has been endeavouring to free himself from both kinds of work. Freedom from servile labour may be defined as liberty; freedom from nature forced labour may be defined as progress. Man has always striven individually for liberty and collectively for progress. Collectively man has attained a degree of progress beyond his wildest dreams and many statistics have been quoted to substantiate that fact. But tragically enough, just at the very moment when the state of progress warrants a wider extension of individual liberty than any community has ever enjoyed, the world is faced with the threat, backed by the sovereign power of private credit control, of an ever increasing number of individuals being forced into artificial, manmade servitude. That is exactly the position we find ourselves in to-day. The condition of progress to-day warrants a leisure slate, that is, a condition of economically guaranteed voluntary activity. The leisure state with all its cultural possibilities lies at our very door. Of course I quite realize that it is somewhat ironical to speak of a leisure state when what most people are looking for is bread and butter. However, that is the possibility which our present economic system holds out to us when it is accompanied by a proper monetary policy.
I believe that we are faced with two alternatives. Unquestionably in the very near
[Mr. Kuhl.l
future we are going to be compelled either to introduce a leisure state or to participate in another world war, and I believe the determining factor is going to be our financial policy. I do not at this time desire to enter into a discourse on financial policy, but I would say this: The solution not only of unemployment but of all our problems lies, I believe, entirely in policy. I disagree with my hon. friends to the immediate right in this. The solution lies not in ownership but in policy; and if we adopt a monetary policy which will make financially possible what is physically possible our problems can be solved.
I would conclude with a few quotations from Major Douglas to show the gravity of the situation which we are facing to-day. In giving evidence before the committee on agriculture of the legislature of Alberta Major Douglas was asked this question:
Q. Is there any way to stop the erratic retreat in living standards except by changing our present method of distribution of goods and services created?
A. Yes, and it constitutes the greatest danger with which the world is faced at the present time. There is no difficulty whatever in providing the world with a rationing system if you establish everywhere a complete dictatorship. leaving all powers in the hands of the dictator. Unless steps are taken within a comparatively short time to readjust the financial system so that it will work, the financial system as we know it will be swept away and we shall all be faced everywhere with some form of dictatorship, either fascist or what is called communist, which is, I think, in the strict sense, not communist at all but another form of dictatorship. It is possible to deal with the material basis of the present problem; it is possible to provide for the general public a higher standard of living, through the agencies of a dictatorship; but that involves a surrender of all those things for which the Anglo-Saxon race has fought for a thousand years.
He elucidated this by an answer to a further question:
Q. Major Douglas, you said this afternoon, "without surrendering the things we have fought for, for a thousand years." What are those things?
A. The things that we have fought for for a thousand years, I should say, are, broadly speaking, the right to express our opinions upon any subject whatever, the right to see that we have control of such matters as education in its broadest form, the right to see that we are not plunged into adventures, national or otherwise, which are being pursued for reasons with which we could not agree and over which we have no control, and the right to see that we are not hindered in the attainment of legitimate desires which can be attained without preventing our neighbour from also attaining the same result. That is a very cursory view of the situation, but it is undoubtedly summed up in the word "liberty."

Unemployment-Mr. Brunette
Let me give one more quotation fiom Major Douglas. Giving evidence before the same committee of the Alberta legislature, he said:
And just as I told them in Ottawa in 1923 exactly what was going to happen in 1928, so I .tell you now in 1934 that before 1940, if you have not changed this financial system, it will change and probably eliminate you.
I think that gives us a definite idea of the possibilities of the very near future. In view of the fact that the prediction which Major Douglas made in 1923 has been literally fulfilled and we are still endeavouring to extricate ourselves from the conditions which he predicted, who is there but will say that if our monetary policy is not changed we shall find ourselves in the condition to which he refers and that this will take place before 1940? I am heartily in sympathy with the principle of the resolution as a means to assist the unemployment situation through the transitionary period, but I feel that the permanent solution lies in one of monetary policy alone.


Hervé-Edgar Brunelle: May I have a few minutes to speak to this motion and humbly make a suggestion to the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers)? I think we are all very anxious to settle the problem of unemployment, and I take the liberty of telling hon. members who sit at the other end of the chamber that our anxiety to solve the problem is limited only by financial incapacity. I have heard from persons who, I must say, are sincere, many queer expressions of opinion such as these: We must act at once; we must meet the needs of millions; we must get them off relief; we must diagnose the trouble; then we must find the remedy, and then we must apply it. We should have some practical suggestions to make if we are going to take up the time of the house, and if we have some practical suggestions we should make them to our Minister of Labour.
To solve the problem of unemployment the only remedy at the present time, in my opinion, is more taxes and more expenditures, and I repeat that our financial capacity is limited. I think the business of the government is or should be conducted like the private business of any person. When we want to buy a horse or a house or a farm, the first thing we do is to look in our pocket or find out at the bank if we have the money to buy that horse or that farm or that house. If we have not the money we do not buy it; that is all, and the question of unemployment is on about the same footing. There are certain things that the government can
do and there are certain things that neither it nor the country can do. We ought to give the government time to make a survey and find out the difficulties and troubles in which we have been placed by the last administration in order that the government may bring forth the most practical remedy.
Allowing for an increase in our population, which fact accounts for an increase in the number of unemployed, I contend that the system which has been followed during the last five years has proved to be a failure. More people are working at the present time than were employed in the last few years, and yet there are more people on relief. Since 1930 we have spent, mostly on relief works, the enormous sum of approximately 8238,000.000. Perhaps those works were useful, and for that reason I am not going to say anything about them. But since 1930 we have spent another enormous sum amounting to S296.000,000 for direct relief pure and simple. Our country is large and rich and our population is rather small. Now, sir, if we must continue to feed and clothe and shelter so many people, and at such expense, naturally we shall have also logically to admit that our country is not so rich; that it has not such large resources and that it does not provide so many opportunities to our young people. But I make haste to state that I believe our country is both large and rich.
Older countries may not have the possibilities we have of settling their unemployed on the land and they may have to solve their problem solely by giving charity. But that is not the case with Canada. We have plenty of land, agricultural land, and I think it provides the way to solve partly at least our problem of unemployment. I believe even in prosperous years it would be sound political economy for the government to facilitate the development of our natural resources first instead of doing so much for the advancement of industries, the development of which is sometimes premature. There are many people in the cities who are waiting in vain for work which they cannot find in industries.
I have a plan or an idea which I submit to the Minister of Labour. We should make a survey of all the agricultural districts of our country-perhaps it has been made-and then we should divide those districts into lots or homesteads. Possibly I should preface the outline of my plan with certain remarks concerning colonization. People from the cities will not stay on farms which are covered with timber or brush; they will lose heart at the end of the first year when they see how little they have accomplished. The plan which I wish to submit to the house consists particu-

Unemployment-Mr. Brunette
larly of taking from the cities those people who have already had some experience on farms and putting them on the land. All the colonization plans that I have known of in the past were faulty because they gave the settler the impression that he could live for four or five years on that homestead or new land with subsidies or moneys that were to be given him by the government, instead of looking to the productivity of the land to supply him a living.
Having surveyed our agricultural districts and divided them into lots, we ought to take our unemployed or a portion of them from the cities and make them work to improve those lands, cut the brush or clear the land or possibly make some other improvements. I will not discuss the degree of improvement that should be made; if necessary we should conscript some unemployed for work on these farms and pay them decent wages. The settlers would then go on these farms which would almost the first year be productive. I can imagine the great development of our country we would have made in the last four or five years if only part of the money that has been spent for direct relief had been spent on the improvement of these raw lands. This would also have made it possible for people from the city, who have known better days, to go on those partly improved farms, come to like farm life and make their permanent residence there. I do not think I am mistaken when I say that Mussolini has opened up one or two provinces by following this system, and to-day those provinces are a source of wealth for Italy. We have given protection to industries ever since Sir John A. Macdonald inaugurated his national policy. Why not encourage a movement such as this? After all, farming is an industry. We have been protecting our industries because they were called infant industries. I believe some of them at the present time are elephants, and white elephants at that.
By following this suggestion I think three advantages would become evident. We would provide for some of our unemployed, for the time being, work for which they would be paid reasonable wages; we would promote the back-to-the-land movement and we would provide permanent places of abode for a great many people now unemployed. I believe more people on the farms would mean more taxes with which to pay our national debt. These people would buy a great variety of articles and in doing so would encourage, our industries. These same people, if they stay in the cities, will only cause us to spend

a great deal of money for relief; they will do nothing good for themselves, for their families or for their country.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I submit that our national wealth, confidence, courage and cooperation are the four levers that will help most gradually to solve our problems of unemployment. Our natural wealth, consisting partly of agricultural land, will provide work for a while and later permanent homes for many of our unemployed. The people of Canada have clearly manifested their confidence in the present administration. Our people have inherited that virtue of courage which was displayed so nobly by our ancestors on many occasions; courage in the mass of the people will respond to courage on the part of our leaders, and that cooperation which, I believe, was mentioned in the speech from the throne, if put into practice by all concerned-our party leaders, the heads of our provincial governments, the heads of our industries and the workers themselves-will soon put this country on the path of progress and happiness.


Hon. H. H. STEVENS (Kootenay East):: Mr. Speaker, I feel like occupying a very brief space of time in which to express a few words of commendation for the subject matter of the resolution, with one or two minor exceptions, and particularly for the manner in which the mover presented his case. I have rarely heard in the house a more moderate, more carefully reasoned speech, so full of material appropriate to the subject, and whatever may be our individual opinions about various matters, nothing but good can come from a presentation of a subject in the manner in which the hon. member for Vancouver North (Mr. MacNeil) presented his case, from a discussion on such a high plane and from a similar degree of intelligent study and earnest consideration of the questions involved.
I should like to say to the hon. gentleman (Mr. Brunelle) who has just taken his seat that I think his observations might very well be added to the resolution as an additional suggestion for the solution of the problem. There was food for thought in his remarks. He did suggest, and quite properly, that we should consider the cost in this matter, and I gathered that his inference was that the mover of the resolution and others who might support it were a little reckless in their suggestions for expenditures without considering costs. I recall that a day or two ago another hon. gentleman made an excellent speech in which he directed particular attention to the fact that any expenditure that might be made in

Unemployment-Mr. Stevens
a certain way, similar to this, would have to come out of the pockets of the taxpayers. In that he was quite correct, but I would invite those who stress the danger of incurring costs to consider this: In the first place, are we now spending wisely? In making that query I am not casting reflections on the activities of the government for the past five or six years; I am speaking rather to this country as a whole, to this parliament, to the provincial legislatures, to the municipalities and to all those who are responsible for dealing with these great questions of unemployment and relief. I think we might well pause and ask ourselves if we have been spending wisely.
It may be that it could be argued that the emergency seemed to call for certain measures of prompt relief, and so forth, but now or at some other time we must stop to take stock and see whether we have spent wisely. The hon. member for Champlain, who has just taken his seat, suggested that we had spent some $238,000,000 on relief works and some $296,000,000 for direct relief. I am quoting his figures, which I have not verified but which I accept as correct, so in round figures we have spent about $530,000,000 for relief. If we could turn back five years and start out with the object of spending $500,000,000, could we act more wisely? I think most of us would say that we could, and I think we can say that without casting reflections on anyone. So it is not out of place to pause and invite consideration of some other method of dealing with the problem. Indeed I think the government is to be commended for the excellent statement made yesterday by the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers), and I hasten to take this opportunity to compliment him upon it. That is a wise move, a very wise move; I invite the Minister of Labour to consider further the principle he has therein enunciated and the possibility of applying it to some other lines of activity. I commend him and I commend the government for their action; I think it is a sane and practical step. But that does not alter the fact that this resolution also offers some wise suggestions, and I wish to spend a few moments in a brief analysis of it.
May I preface my observations with an invitation to the government to give earnest consideration to this resolution. It is not necessary to accept it in toto, but it contains some good suggestions and I think it deserves favourable and thoughtful and sympathetic consideration. In the first place I would suggest that when we invite the government to take full responsibility, a suggestion with which I fully agree, we ought 12739-39
to make certain exceptions. I suggest, for instance, that we should leave with the municipalities and the provinces the responsibility for normal charitable work. I am not speaking of unemployment as we generally understand it, and I suggest that we must define that term more carefully; I am speaking of the normal needs of people in all our communities. I suggest that we take the average, say for the five-year period from 1926 to 1930 inclusive and use that as measuring the cost of caring for the aged and sick and indigent persons that unfortunately we have with us at all times.
The next suggestion that should be made is that if the federal government assume full responsibility, which by the way they are largely doing now, either by guaranteeing loans or actual participation, then there should be some prohibition of the provinces enlarging their expenditure to fill up the gap made by the dominion government taking over the whole cost of relief. In other words there should be an understanding with the provinces that they are not just going to make a Roman holiday with the contributions that may be entailed by that suggestion. With those two provisions I would favour the federal government taking over unemployment relief. By that I mean the relief arising out of modern industrial and economic conditions; a narrower and more precise definition could be found. But some protection of that kind must be provided before the principle suggested in the resolution is accepted.
Then I commend very earnestly the excellent presentation made by the mover of the resolution in relation to mechanization. Perhaps I may be pardoned a personal reference; in the election of 1930 when unemployment was just commencing-it had been under way some nine months-I was asked this question in a public meeting: Did I believe that the party I was then associated with could provide for employment of all the unemployed? And I answered: No, I did not think they could, for some time at least. And the reason I made that answer at that time was that we had as a country given no serious study to the problem of displacement of men by machines. There was sporadic study by individual economists; some interested sociologists were giving dissertations about the matter, but no authorities had fastened their teeth into the problem of how to take care of those displaced in industry by mechanization, and we have not yet started such a study; nor have they in the United States. I am not able to speak with the same assurance in regard to all the European



Unemployment-Mr. Stevens
countries, but I doubt whether any country in the world has yet definitely fixed upon a solution cf that problem. The hon. member who moved the resolution very properly called attention to that, and I think we certainly should give earnest consideration to it, because, as he pointed out, the curve of displacement by mechanization is rising at an annually increasing ratio. I do not know where we shall arrive if we continue to drift as we have been doing in this and other countries in regard to providing for those so displaced.
There are those among my friends of the Social Credit group who argue that- the very essence of this vast problem is found in the credit structure and the financial and monetary system. There is a measure of truth in that. As I have intimated before, I am perhaps not prepared to go the full length with them, but do not let us brush these hon. members and their particular pet theories, if you like, aside in a sweeping manner as if there was nothing in them, as I have noticed a number of hon. members speaking in the house this session are rather inclined to do. I believe there is a germ of truth in what my hon. friends are bringing so forcibly to the attention of the country. I repeat, I do not go along with them fully in their theories and the mechanics of their system, but in the sphere of credit and monetary control is to be in part at least a solution of that phase of the question.
But in the resolution there are two very practical proposals which I desire to emphasize and support; that is in regard to housing and reforestation. It is twenty-two or twenty-three years ago that I first brought to the attention of the house the hopeless manner in which we are dealing with the great forest wealth of Canada. If time permitted I could tell hon. members how in British Columbia since I went there forty-two years ago I have watched the vast areas of primeval forest of the richest and most prolific kind being swept away and nothing but devastation and a wilderness left in its place. I have travelled across this continent some two or three hundred times,-I have lost track of the number-but coming from Fort William right to and beyond the city of Quebec one sees year after year these vast areas where the timber has been swept away, and what little soil there was is gradually being washed into the streams, and it will never be possible to reforest a great deal of that area. Again I would request hon. members to pause and ask themselves: What about fifty years from now in regard to the forest wealth of Canada?


Mr. MacIVOR:: If I may ask the hon. gentleman a question, does he know that we have in Ontario vast areas where the timber is too old to make ties? When ties are cut from it they are condemned by the railways.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Yes, but that does not alter my point at all. There is in British Columbia, too, a great deal of timber that is what they call ripe and that should be harvested, but there is a vast difference between harvesting timber in a sane and scientific way and slaughtering the wealth of the forests as we have been doing during the last forty years Despite what the interjection would imply, the fact remains that we are doing next to nothing in the way of reforestation. I am not going to enlarge upon that subject because it would take too long, but I want to say this, that there is a splendid opportunity for the investment-the investment, I repeat-of public moneys and the giving of work in a fine occupation which, as the mover of the resolution so aptly said, would be something that was self-liquidating, not next year or within five or ten years from now, but in thirty or forty or fifty years. There will be many a person in Canada in the years to come who will look back over this period of the last ten or fifteen or twenty years, and ask what on earth the people of this period were doing that they did not engage more earnestly in this great reforestation scheme. I invite the Minister of Labour and his colleagues earnestly to consider the suggestion of reforestation as one of the methods of solving this problem of unemployment intelligently.
The other matter to which I wish particularly to call attention is that of housing, and here again I shall be brief. If we launched now upon a national housing program, including slum clearance, the erection of workmen's houses, farm houses, and general housing such as already is involved in the act passed last session, I believe this would take us ten years and even then we would not have caught up with the normal decent requirements of the housing situation in Canada. I do not know why this is-I am not necessarily just referring to this house-but as Canadians we seem to fail to see the opportunity that rests in housing for providing a measure of relief in regard to this unemployment problem. Furthermore, there is no class of occupation in which money may be invested which results in more work for labour than building and housing; you can carry it right down to the production of the logs, cement, bricks and so forth. Everything you put into a building, everything you touch, every dollar that goes into it, ultimately will find its way to labour,

Unemployment-Mr. Poole
and so I say that there is a great possibility there, and I would strongly urge upon the government a real forward movement in housing. Let us not just play with the thing. The bill passed last session had its merits, but it does not touch the problem. We need a really earnest concentration of effort by parliament upon this problem of housing, which I believe, together with a few other activities such as the one mentioned by the minister yesterday, reforestation, the suggestion made in regard to settlement, and a few other movements of that kind, would rapidly absorb the unemployed of this country.
Would it be too trite a suggestion if I were to remind the house of this? There are only three major activities that underlie, shall I say, the interchange of human labour-the providing of food, the providing of clothing, and the providing of shelter. Anything beyond that is, if not a luxury, something more than an absolute necessity, but those three are absolutely necessary, and it is by an interchange of labour in providing those necessities that we lay the foundation of society. The business of parliament, of course, is to see that the balance is held fairly, and that is where the theories of the control of credit enter in and form such an important factor. Parliament must see that the balance is held fairly between those who control credit and wealth and those who need these things to which I have referred as absolute necessities, and I commend that phase of the question to my friends on the treasury benches.
The next suggestion in the resolution is for a living wage. No one will criticize that. I think we all realize that the providing of work at just enough for sustenance is not a solution of the problem because what is scarce to-day in this country is purchasing power. The agriculturist, through the low price he receives for his products, has not sufficient purchasing power to do more than barely keep body and soul together. He cannot purchase the implements, the clothing, the furniture that he would like to have and should have to-day. The very essence of democracy in my opinion is this, that the primary producer, particularly the farmer-and you can carry it on down to the fisherman, the lumberman and the miner- shall be paid for his effort sufficient for a decent livelihood. That I think is the very essence of democracy.
The second point is equally important, and that is that those workers who are engaged in the actual production or transportation or distribution of these things should be paid a wage which will enable them to live decently. Those two factors are essential if we are to have a healthy democracy. And, Mr. Speaker, 12739-39i
this resolution suggests that these employees should receive a living wage.
I am not going to go further into the question at this time, but I believe that if these matters are given earnest attention, and if the will to do them, the will to accomplish, is behind them, much may be accomplished. May I say with all kindness and all humility that we should drop perhaps the habit over the years we have formed in the house of looking backwards and forwards across the floor, and because someone here or someone over there makes a suggestion, of someone over there or someone here sneering at what is proposed, for it does seem to me, that we as adult and supposedly sane individuals act very often like a bunch of children when we are dealing with the well-being and the welfare and the bodies and souls, as one hon. member has put it, of human beings. Too often we treat these problems as if they were legitimate subjects to be bandied backwards and forwards on a partisan basis. I am accusing nobody, but I do say out of a long experience that we-and I include myself

are too prone to view these matters from that angle.
I suggest that the resolution in its principle and in its spirit, not in all its details, might be approved by the house and might form, shall I say, the basis for a coordinated effort on the part of parliament to do something towards a solution of this terrible problem of unemployment.


Mr. E. J. POOLE (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, I am glad of this opportunity to speak to this motion. It is important because again we have an opportunity of discussing one of the scars on our present system, and we find the suggestion made to-night that we apply a little more ointment. I was surprised to hear the suggestion made in the house to-night that we conscript the youth of this country and place them on the farm, and further that we should encourage people to go back to the land. There has been developing in the west over a period of years a situation which has caused much concern to the provincial governments in their efforts to help stay on the land people who have been farming there for twenty and thirty years.
This resolution suggests that we have a problem of unemployment. Unemployment is the reflex from a certain economic condition; in itself it is the cause of nothing. We hate been in the habit of saying that we cannot find employment for our people and we suggest or infer that there is some particular virtue in employment. What has happened during the past five years? The Dominion of Canada has spent approximately $592,000,000 in connection with unemployment
Unemployment-Mr. Poole

relief, and our problem is greater to-day than it ever was. Every time this question is raised in the house there comes up the predominant problem of money. Parliament is governed in its ability to do anything by its ability to extract taxation from the people. As time goes on this ability will become less; that is inevitable. We tried out a scheme of public works but found that it was costing too much for materials and was not meeting the requirements. Various suggestions have been made as to what can be done, but I say that this situation will continue while we continue to focus our attention upon unemployment as a problem. What is the economic system for? Is it to find employment? If it is, then this problem should have been solved long ago. An economic system should produce the maximum amount of goods and distribute them to all; its purpose should not be to find employment. Employment is incidental to production. The very fact that we have so much unemployment in this country and throughout the world proves that we are wealthy. We have accomplished that which man down through the ages has endeavoured to accomplish.
To anyone who dispassionately surveys the trend of events, it becomes more and more evident that government is nothing more than an administrative body to carry out the will of finance rather than the will of the people. We speak of democracy in one breath and then we speak of conscription in the next. What purpose is there in trying to keep afloat a ship that should have long since been sunk? Democracy is a splendid ideal for which Anglo-Saxons have fought down through the years, but I am convinced that more fighting must be done before we can enjoy a practical democracy which means, in its broadest terms, not just the freedom to vote, not just the right to walk the streets unmolested, not just the right to worship as we may or work as we will, but freedom from all restrictions that would otherwise impose the will of others upon us. Democracy is the freedom of the individual to pursue happiness and culture free from all influences detrimental to these objectives. To-day we are passing through a period strange to any age, strange because our environment is changing, not because people have desired these changes but because science has thrust them upon us.
Parliament is supposed to be composed of a body of men who have received instructions from the people of Canada to bring about certain results. The result demanded by the people at the last election was prosperity. It was not the business of the people to go into details as to how this prosperity should be brought about; it was the duty of the

government to make use of those experts who know just what to do. It was the duty of the government to introduce legislation to bring about this end. The people demanded that the government bring down legislation or have laws enacted, which, when given effect to, would make available to the Canadian people the wealth of Canada, whether it be produced by hand, brain or solar energy. However, this is not being done, not because all the people who have been sent here are insincere but because the individuals who go to make up a government persist in moving along orthodox lines. Any hon. member who may be more enlightened than the rest, who may feel the responsibilities placed upon him by the people he represents and who dares to give expression to his views may soon be reminded that he belongs to a party and must act in the interests of the party. In so doing he elevates partyism and submerges the principles for which he was elected. The people of Canada asked the government, in language that was unmistakable, to bring about prosperity, to remove any or all of those barriers that stood in the way.
I recognize the difficulty that any government faces to-day. I realize the necessity for a transitional policy. I say "transitional" because I know we are having thrust upon us new conditions to which we must adapt ourselves, but in the meantime the greater portion of our citizens are suffering privation and want in the midst of plenty and potential plenty. Many schemes have been tried out and many volumes have been written suggesting to the various governing bodies just what they should do. We have built up in six years a system of camps as a means of looking after one portion of our problem. These camps were tolerated only because we felt they were of a temporary nature. However, they have now taken on the nature of a permanency. Their purpose in the first place was to provide a cheap means of feeding those who had been displaced by better industrial processes, coupled with a declining market for export goods and the ever diminishing demand for labour. There are those who believe sincerely that our only hope lies in a greater export market. No doubt it would help for a time if those markets were obtainable, but I do not believe they are. I look at the world to-day and I see its tremendous ability to produce an abundance plus the policy of every nation of self sufficiency. Surely our experience has taught us that the methods by which we obtained markets in the days that are gone are no longer available. We must realize that our problem is internal; that the only value of an export market is the means

Unemployment-Mr. Poole
of exchanging our surpluses for the goods which are not common to the production of Canada. But this connot be done until we have monetary reform. Until we recognize that money in the final analysis is nothing but a ticket; until such time as we place in the hands of the people the tickets or tokens equal to our total price values, the complexities of this administration will be increased and the poverty of the Canadian people will become deeper and more widespread.
We have expressed so much concern for the economic rash. We are endeavouring to suppress it but we must know that there is no cure that way. You cannot feed your people when you must borrow to do so. By borrowing, you force the people of the future to carry a heavier load and mortgage the future. There is no cure that way. The disease goes much deeper than the skin; it is concerned with the vital processes of the body politic and to avoid substituting a more lingering horror it is necessary to restore these vital processes to health and balance functioning. The first act of the government should be to recognize the needs of the people and accede to their demands. First, they should find out what can be done, and then proceed to do it. Before this can be done we shall have to eliminate many traditional dogmas. I might add that the dogmas to which I refer do not belong particularly to the government benches.
Probably one of the greatest fallacies of the present generation is one most commonly expressed: I want work! This is repeated by governments when they say: We have an unemployment problem; we must put our people to work, the usual excuse being: We must give the taxpayers some return for the money they are spending. The people are thus led to believe that work has a particular virtue and that it will cure everything if we will just accept enough of it. The implication is that the sole purpose of an economic system is to find employment, while money is spoken of with reverence as though it had a quality superior to all things mortal or immortal. This is further emphasized as we review the attempts of governments to do something when the very thing without which we can do nothing is locked up in the tabernacle and the high priest demands that all who would use must first of all genuflect, and all must agree to be enslaved for all time. And if you protest you lose your respectability and are termed a radical, and you are referred to in a tone that suggests dishonour.
Is it the purpose of the government to find
employment? And having created it, do they believe that all will be well with the people? If this be true then it is high time we scrapped the machine and hanged on the highest tree every scientist living to-day, because he is detrimental; he is unemploying men at a rapid rate, He is responsible for this national or international calamity; he is responsible for all the misery and poverty in the land, because government policy is one which dovetails into that philosophy that belongs to the dark ages-Men must work to live. The golden age of the world was before the advent of the machine, those glorious days when men worked from the cradle to the grave and when dying gasped out, "Thank God I avoided starvation."
After all, it is not long since the ignorant of the jungle and of the plain burned and slew men who practised white magic; it is not long since we burned Joan of Arc at the stake as a witch because she showed a courage that was unusual; it is not long since the people thought the world was flat, and just a few short years ago a large group were insisting that those crazy Wright brothers be placed in some mental institution because they were trying to build some infernal contraption to fly. But did you ever hear of a people, or I should say a government, who told men that they could not eat their fill because there was too much? This sounds very much like that Irishman who said, "Don't come down that ladder because I have taken it away."


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Monday, March 2, 1936