1939-01-31

MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. PAUL MARTIN (Essex East):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) whether or not the province of Ontario has signified its willingness to approve or guarantee loans to be made by the federal government to municipalities, pursuant to the Municipal Improvements Assistance Act.
Hon. CHARLES A. DUNNING (Minister of Finance): No.



RIGHT HON. R. B. BENNETT OPPORTUNITY FOR REFERENCES TO RETIREMENT FROM LEADERSHIP OF PARTY AND MEMBERSHIP IN HOUSE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. T. L. CHURCH (Broadview):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) a question arising out of the first order of yesterday's proceedings having to do with the resignation of the member for West Calgary, the late leader of the Conservative party, Right Hon. R. B. Bennett. A short reference was made to it about June 30 of last year, but it was expected that the right hon. gentleman would be back here this session. I should like to know if the government would consider setting aside a little time some day this week so that hon. members may have an opportunity to pay tribute to the right hon. gentleman who was leader of the party to which I belong. In view of his lengthy services in and out of the house I think it only fitting that such procedure should be taken and that he be thanked for his services. I should not like to have it said that a prophet is not without honour save in his own country.


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I am afraid

The Address-Mr. Cahan
I was not able to hear everything that was said by the hon. member. I shall read it in Hansard and let him have a reply later.



GOVERNOR GENERAL'S SPEECH


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Monday, January 30, consideration of the motion of Mr. J. E. Matthews for an address to His Excellency the Governor General in reply to his speech at the opening of the session, and the proposed amendment thereto of Mr. Manion, and the amendment to the amendment of Mr. Woods-worth.
Hon. C. H. CAHAN (St. Lawrence-St. George):: Mr. Speaker, the speech of His
Excellency the Governor General briefly expresses the views of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) and his colleagues with respect to the new trade treaty with the United States. It speaks of this treaty as "a far-reaching agreement", as "a constructive contribution toward a betterment of world conditions", as "furthering the ends of international goodwill," as a reduction of customs duties and excise "much greater than that made by any previous parliament or by any other country in recent years"; and, finally, as enlarging "the advantages of the agreement concluded in 1935". I do not intend to-day to combat each and every of these specious announcements, but I should like to refer to one or two of them.
In other official pronouncements it has been designated as a policy of appeasement. Last June in the house I made an analysis of the trade of Canada and the United States under the trade agreement then in force, and I showed from the returns brought down by the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Euler) that the increase of our exports to the United States of commodities, on which there had been no change in the United States customs duties under that agreement, was far greater than the increase of our exports under the schedule of commodities on which the United States tariff was reduced by that agreement. With the permission of the house I should like to place on Hansard a short table of only three lines in which I have brought down the figures to cover the corresponding period of the calendar year of 1938, showing for 1935, 1936, 1937 and 1938 the domestic exports from Canada to the United States, and segregating the value of those commodities exported on which a reduction of duty was made in the United States tariff. If I may be allowed to place the table on Hansard, it would clarify the comments which I may wish to make.


Mr. SPEAKER:: The hon. member may do so only with the unanimous consent of the house.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: All right.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: The figures are as follows:
Domestic Exports from Canada to the United States
Twelve months ended December 31st 1935	1936	1937	1938
Commodities subject tp reduction of duty.. $ 35,723,003 $ 59,281,878 $ 04,582,861 $ 37,975,679 Commodities not subject to reduction of
duty	 225,962,369	277,635,071	295,429,282	232,485,510
Total commodity exports, excluding gold.. $261,685,372 $336,916,949 $360,012,143 $270,461,189
Our exports to the United States for the calendar year 1935, the year before that trade agreement came into force, of commodities on which the United States tariff was reduced on January 1, 1936, amounted in value to $35,-
723,000.	Our exports of the same commodities during the calendar year 1938 were $37,976,000. In compensation for all the tariff concessions which we made in that year to the United States, comparing our trade for 1935, before the agreement came into effect, with our trade for 1938, we gained merely $2,253,000 of export trade under the reductions of duties made by that agreement.
A comparison of our exports of commodities on which the United States tariff was not reduced shows that, exclusive of gold, our domestic exports to the United States of com-

modifies respecting which there were no reductions in the United States customs duties under the trade agreement which came into force on January 1, 1936, were during the calendar year 1935, $225,962,369, while in the calendar year 1938 the same exports on which no reductions of duty had been made were $232,785,510, an increase in our exports on which there were no reductions in duties of $6,523,141 as compared with an increase of $2,252,676 in our domestic export of commodities on which the United States duties were reduced.
If our prospective advantages from this new trade treaty, which was signed on November 17 last, may be judged by those resulting from the previous agreement signed on November 15, 1935, the new trade treaty offers slight hope
The Address-Mr. Cahan


Walter Edward Foster: With the consent of the house.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: The statement is as follows:
Summary of Trade of Canada with the United States
Calendar years 1935 Exports of gold	Imports from United States $312,416,604	Domestic Exports to United States $358,569,736 96,884,364	Excess of Imports over Domestic exportsExports, excluding gold	$261,685,372	$50,731,2321936 Exports of gold	$369,141,513	$406,664,567 72,747,618	Exports, excluding gold	$333,916,949	35,224,5641937 Exports of gold	$490,504,978	$470,181,046 110,168,903	Exports, excluding gold	$360,012,143	130,492,8351938 Exports of gold	$424,754,993	$345,911,915 75,450,726	Exports, excluding gold	$270,461,189	154,293,804Total excess of Imports	$370,742,430
Our imports of commodities from the United States in the calendar year 1935 amounted to $312,416,604. Our domestic exports to the United States for the same year are given by the minister as $358,569,736, although in fact there is included in that amount of our exports, gold bars to the value of $96,884,364, so that our export of domestic merchantable commodities to the United States was only $261,685,372, showing a real excess of $50,731,232 in our imports over our exports to the United States of merchantable commodities.
I see the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) shakes his head. I defy him to find any inaccuracy in that statement.


Mr. DUNNING:: It was very carefully
worded.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I usually try to word my statements carefully and to be accurate.
For the calendar year 1936 the value of our imports from the United States was $369,141,513, as officially given in the returns of the Department of Trade and Commerce, while our exports to the United States of domestic products are given by the minister as $406,664,567, which includes gold bars to the value of $72,747,618, leaving an export of domestic merchantable commodities of $333,916,949, and showing a real trade deficit of $35,224,564 on our year's trading with the United States.


Charles Avery Dunning: Is gold not a merchantable commodity?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: No, gold is not a merchantable commodity in the sense that iron or steel or wheat is. It was not until after this government came into office in 1935 that an attempt was made to bolster up the trade statistics to show in the official returns an
The Address-Mr. Cahan

increase in our exports to the United States Dy including therein the bars of gold that we were sending to the United States in payment of the international balances accruing out of the deficit in our real trade exports. And in 1936 that real trade deficit in our year's trading with the United States in merchantable commodities amounted to $35,224,564.
For the calendar year 1937, the value of our imports from the United States was $490,504,978, and our domestic exports to the United States, as shown in the official returns, amounted to $470,181,046; but these exports included gold bars to the value of $110,158,903, leaving an export of domestic merchantable commodities of $360,012,143, and showing a real trade deficit for the calendar year 1937, dealing alone with merchantable commodities which un until hon. gentlemen opposite assumed office in 1935 had always been the basis on which these records were kept, of $130,492,835 in our trade with the United States.
For the calendar year 1938 our imports from the United States were of the value of $424,754,993, as shown in the official returns, and our domestic exports to the United States, as given by the Minister of Agriculture in his address on January 25, were $345,911,915, but this included gold bars to the value of $75,450,726, leaving our real export of domestic merchantable commodities at the value of $270,461,189, and showing again a real trade deficit for the calendar year 1938 of $154,293,804 in our trade with the United States.
In brief, during the term of the trade agreement with the United States, which expired on January 1, 1939, our excess of imports of merchantable commodities over, our domestic exports to the United States amounted to $370,742,435, and in part payment of these debit balances we delivered to the United States $258,367,247 in gold bars, which are accepted by every country in payment of international balances. We need no new trade agreement with the United States, we need to make no concessions to the United States to the prejudice of our domestic industry, in order to induce the United States to accept gold bars as a trading proposition. Gold bars are the medium of international payments in all countries in the world, and there is not a country on this side of the Atlantic or the other side that would not be very happy indeed to accept our gold bars in payment of any purchases our traders might make in those countries.
If these facts disclose any commercial advantages which we have received from our former trade agreement with the United States, I think we may all fervently pray

that such advantages may no longer be dispensed to us in the form of debit trade balances for which we have to export our gold.
I repeat that it is only since 1935 that the government of this country has attempted to boost its statistics of export trade by including its export of gold bars as a trading commodity. But no trade agreement is necessary to induce foreign countries to accept bar gold. Gold is not an ordinary commercial commodity which is subject to customs duties, and gold has no place in trade statistics which are quoted to show the advantages of a reciprocal trade agreement between this country and the United States or between this country and any other country.
When, late in 1932 and early in 1933, I was in Paris endeavouring on behalf of Canada to negotiate a new trade agreement with France, the official representatives of the United States used all available tactics, and even intimidation, to preclude the government of France from negotiating any trade treaty with Canada that would even implicitly recognize the right of the United Kingdom and the dominions to grant to each other any trade preferences, basing their objections on the assertion that members of the British commonwealth were, in relation each to the other of them, really foreign nations, and urging that France should insist that the most favoured nation clause should apply to all the concessions we had made to Great Britain; and if hon. members have read that treaty they will notice that in that agreement with France I insisted upon an unusual form of drafting, by including a special use and application of the term "foreign nation" with respect to France.
In fact, from the time that the Ottawa agreements with the United Kingdom and other British dominions were signed at Ottawa on August 20, 1932, the State department of the United States and its representatives at foreign capitals have striven, by every possible means known to United States diplomacy, to weaken, and, if possible, to destroy the effect of those interimperial agreements.
On the day that the new trade treaties were signed, a special dispatch from Washington to the New York Times clearly indicated the official view of the Washington government that the new trade treaty between Great Britain and the United States "sounded the death-knell of the empire preference theory of trade among members of the British empire."
The Times special correspondent further reported :

The Address-Mr. Cahan
It is believed on good authority here that Mr. Hull and his aides refused to consider any exchange of concessions on the basis of a preferential tariff for empire produce, which was considered, in principle, a form of discrimination against American commerce.
On January 25 the Minister of Trade and Commerce assured this house that the "new agreement reaffirms the principle of the British preference, and the United States is admitting that principle." In support of that statement the minister read from the seventeenth article of the new agreement as follows:
Nothing in this agreement-
I call the minister's attention to that.
-shall entitle the United States of America to claim the benefit of any treatment, preference or privilege which may now or hereafter be accorded by Canada to territories under the sovereignty of His Majesty the King.
That stipulation is obviously restricted to the provision that the terms of the treaty shall not entitle the United States to such preferences as may subsist after the treaty goes into effect, and it in no sense affirms the right of Canada to grant such preferences, and leaves the United States still free to condemn such preferences on diplomatic grounds other than the terms expressed in the agreement itself.


Mr. EULER:: Is my hon, friend there expressing his own opinion or reading from somebody else's opinion?


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: No; I gave the citation and read the language, and I am now giving my own opinion with regard to it. It is so clear from a study of the English language incorporated therein that there is, I submit, no other meaning to it.
The Prime Minister's policy of appeasement is already proving insufficient to satiate the cupidity of politicians at Washington, who are now emulating Hitler and Mussolini in their claims for territorial expansion. I have seen an Associated Press dispatch from Washington, dated December 23, more than one month after this new trade treaty was signed, in which Robert B. Reynolds, democratic senator from North Carolina during the past six years, emphatically affirms that-
If Britain wants to prove her friendship for America, she could arrange for the transfer to the United States of a fifty-mile corridor from the United States to Alaska for construction of a super-highway.
A claim even more insolent than Hitler's claim to the Memel corridor or Mussolini's claim to Tunisia! The senator adds:
When American people think of Britain, they think of what Britain owes us and wonder why the debt isn't paid. Let them give us this fifty-mile corridor as part payment.
And then on reflection he adds, as an additional partial payment:
Let them deliver to us Bermuda.


William Daum Euler: It was not done, though.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Oh well, the agitation is still under way. Tunisia is not controlled by Mussolini, nor the Memel corridor by Hitler, but their claims are being urged, with the same persistency being shown as the United States has shown in dealing with this country.
Another Associated Press dispatch from Washington, dated December 8 last, announced that:
The new United States defence program, broadened to embrace the entire western hemisphere, may become a factor in deciding the long-standing controversy over development of the great lakes-St. Lawrence basin.
A war department spokesman said to-day that the huge seaway plan was being studied by the army high command in connection with other national defence matters.
What part the proposed project would have in any defence scheme was not disclosed. President Roosevelt said some time ago that demands for electrical energy by industry located in the St. Lawrence area probably would increase tremendously in time of war. . . .
President Roosevelt indicated a few weeks ago, however, that he intended to press the issue. He announced that he had discussed the new seaway treaty with Premier Mackenzie King when the Canadian Prime Minister was a recent guest at the White House. Mr. Roosevelt said that Mr. King agreed that speedy conclusion of a waterway pact was desirable.
Other political commentators in the United States have also declared that the voluntary assumption by the Washington government of the defence of Canada against foreign aggression would involve control of the navigation of the St. Lawrence river and lake system by the naval and military forces of the United States. Evidently an adequate appeasement of the Washington government will involve radical encroachments upon the autonomy and sovereignty of Canada.
There is no doubt that if the Anglo-American treaty shall serve to increase United States exports to Great Britain, it will also serve in like manner, and probably to the same extent, to restrict Canada's exports to Great Britain. On the other hand, if we may measure the possible advantages to Canada under the new trade treaty by the very meagre increase in our export trade to the United States under the former trade agreement which expired on January 1, then it is a safe conclusion that this new trade treaty will not serve to reduce, to any considerable extent, the widespread unemployment from which Canada now suffers.
Canada's economic condition can be improved only by increasing production in Canada, and thereby increasing the national income which
The Address-Mr. Cahan

is the only source from which distribution can be made for the continuous employment and sustenance of our people.
The product of our gold mines will in every country find a natural market at stable prices, as gold is still the currency of universal acceptance for the payment of international debit balances; but, in the conditions which prevail throughout the world, increased markets can only be found for other primary products, either while the great nations are feverishly preparing for war or when they are - actually engaged in carrying on war.
But the needs of our own people are manifold and ever increasing, and I am convinced that the satisfactory solution of the problem of unemployment in this country will chiefly be found in the rapid development and extension of our secondary industries, which are undoubtedly capable of very great expansion.
If members of this government, instead of conducting for months, and even for years past, futile negotiations with the republic to the south of us, which is now really as protectionist in sentiment as in times past, should devote themselves, for a time, to the development of the secondary industries of this country, unemployment "would rapidly be abated. The time has come for the government to call into conference our leaders in industry, as well as the leaders of labour, to consider and devise ways and means for extending existing secondary industries and establishing such new industries as would have a reasonable prospect of success under stable tariff and stable monetary conditions.
It is futile to extol, in grandiloquent terms, as we are accustomed to do here, our vast latent natural resources, which will doubtless prove to be sources of vast wealth for succeeding generations of men who are sufficiently intelligent and courageous to take adequate measures for their development and for their utilization to supply the increasing needs of our people. Is this present generation of men and women incompetent to devise and establish ways and means for employing in domestic industry those of our people who are employable and who are now unemployed? I do not think so. We have ample funds and credits available for the purpose. But we can never achieve permanent prosperity by annual grants for temporary relief of the indigent, or by ever increasing our excessive national debt by large expenditures upon unproductive public works. That course only serves to hasten this dominion on the way to ultimate economic ruin; but, by increasing the volume of our domestic industry, by giving reasonable

security to both capital and labour, and by establishing reasonable safeguards against the products of the conscripted labour and low living standards of competing foreign countries, we can and should make Canadians the most prosperous and happy people in the world.
If we can assure industry of stable tariff and monetary conditions for a term of five or ten years, industry can safely guarantee the employment of all labour that may be available. It cannot do so when radical tariff changes are so frequently made that industry cannot foresee the fiscal conditions which will confront it and cannot plan its business with confidence six months in advance. Let this parliament ensure such stable fiscal conditions, and let the government forthwith inaugurate a new deal, a beneficent advance, by convening the leaders of labour and the leaders in industry to devise and put into operation adequate measures to ensure the accomplishment of the ends which we all desire to attain.


Mr. R. W. GLADSTONE (Wellington South):: I shall not endeavour to follow in a critical or analytical vein the very fine speech of the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Cahan). A gentleman highly trained in the law, he has turned his marked ability today to the discussion of certain phases of our economic and trade problems. My inclinations and training turn me usually to a consideration of the business side of government, but I should like to offer the hon. gentleman my words of tribute and praise for the fine service over many long years which he has rendered in this parliament to the people of Canada.
We have listened to many excellent speeches on the motion to adopt the address in reply to the speech from the throne. We have before us an amendment proposed by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Manion). The amendment adds to the motion one short paragraph, twice containing the words "the government has failed." We have an amendment to the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth). This accepts the amendment proposed by the leader of the opposition and adds thereto certain opinions respecting financial institutions and monopolistic enterprises. In his proposed amendment the leader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation expresses views with which in part I have much sympathy, but he has tied himself up with the leader of the opposition in a way that precludes me from voting with him on this occasion. The government may not have achieved everything that many of us would wish, but the government has not failed. Despite some distress,

The Address-Mr. Gladstone
where is there a country in the world whose people are so happily situated as the people of Canada? Nevertheless we must press forward to restore in Canada the happier conditions that prevailed before the war. I am confident that these can and will come again under progressive Liberal government. But it must be progressive.
I propose to-day to continue my efforts of previous sessions to bring better business methods into vogue in parliamentary procedure and government administration. On first coming to parliament I made a critical study of the unbusinesslike form of presenting the estimates for the expenditure of public money Last year I offered a resolution calling for a revision of the rules of the house. However, the government considered the rules to be not so bad. But is it not true that we waste time on relatively unimportant matters and do not come to grips in a businesslike way with matters of great national importance? What value to the country is much of the speaking in parliament? There is endless duplication of the same arguments. Many speeches contain valuable suggestions, but on account of lack of organization to develop the ideas into workable form many suggestions do not receive consideration. Political speeches should give way to business deliberations. Some means should be found of doing away with the prevailing type of bickering discussions and enabling us to assemble as earnest-minded Canadians determined to debate matters back and forth without Hansard recording it, exchange views, offer suggestions and arrive at prompt legislative action.
Recently three men visited me-a farmer, a factory foreman, and a merchant. The farmer said:
My father bought a binder for $98 and sold wheat for $1 a bushel. I had to pay $250 for my binder and I sell wheat for 50 cents a bushel. Farmers cannot become purchasers of goods under these conditions.
The factory foreman said:
I know you need adjustments to give you increased purchasing power, but they cannot be made through reducing factory wages.
The merchant said:
The only relief for the two of you is through drastic reduction in the overhead of debt and cost of government. This must come speedily, by fair means or foul, to save the country from bankruptcy and for democracy. The government has done many helpful things, but we must move more rapidly towards new methods for this new era. Meantime the middle class of citizen is disappearing. Soon we shall have only the rich and the poor. Through our system money has gone into bonds rather than into channels requiring labour.
There you have the crux of the situation which frustrates development of our resources 71492-31
and deprives the present generation of work and the rising generation of opportunity to get started on a career. All honour to those who have struggled bravely to keep off relief and maintain their self-respect as true Canadians; but would anyone suggest that the morale of homes can be maintained under such precarious conditions of life? Youth in sheer desperation takes to the road, travels from place to place in search of work. The refusal must be enough to break any brave heart. , Some keep on and on until they become transients. Recently I visited the Ontario reformatory at the meal hour and watched the groups of ten pass to and from the dining hall. There were some seven hundred of them, mere boys, the average age being 19-7 years. Fifty per cent of them are there for first and second offences of petty stealing. They are boys who have not been fitted into some definite work and are without pocket money. Bent on enjoying the pleasures that other boys have, they steal to get pocket money. Would these boys have found their way to the reformatory if they had obtained employment? I say decidedly, no.
Wider markets will help, but we need something further. Crushing overhead, in which the cost of government is a heavy item, is imposed on agriculture and industry alike. These taxes, added to the cost of goods, must be paid by the consumer. High costs of production will shut us out of export markets. Well, what are we going to do about it? If we follow the course of the last session we will talk and talk; it is the system. Is there no way whereby we can meet and discuss the needs of the country with the directness and dispatch of a board of directors in any business? We talk so much about matters of minor importance that there is little time or place for businesslike consideration of the larger issues.
The great railway problem is almost taboo in the house, except when we are called upon to absorb the annual deficit of about $50,000,000 of the Canadian National Railways. Just what is wrong with the system, past and present, of our federal administrative organization? Let me make it clear that my observations and criticisms throughout are intended to apply to all governments over the long past, and not only to the government of the day.
Do we, in the party systems of all parties, permit our organization set-up to approach too much towards dictatorships within democracies? Do we at times, provincially or federally, have leaders who momentarily become so powerful or so idolized that we condone temporarily their autocratic methods? Or do we build our administrative organi-
The Address-Mr. Gladstone

zation on a false economy? Do our efforts to save in small matters result in waste running into millions? We have provincial cabinets of fourteen members in Ontario and fourteen in Quebec. Those provincial ministers have time to clear their desks and give themselves freedom to receive the people and to move about for contacts with conditions and problems.
Until recently the federal cabinet was composed of fifteen members, but now there are sixteen. Federally we overwork some of our ministers until we wreck their health. The ministers have no leisure time to discuss broad issues with private members. In their offices our ministers are always cordial, but pressure of time brings about two-way welcomes,-"Glad to see you come, but more pleased to see you go." I venture to say that private members can mention scores of matters which should be studied, not by royal commissions but by groups of members in conjunction with ministers, and ministers' advisers, in the departments affected. Why not set a few members to work on such matters, choosing men of broad vision, men who are accustomed to dealing with problems from a business standpoint? I shall not take the time here to give more than two or three illustrations of the need for organized study between sessions of conditions which to-day are unsatisfactory. I would place those matters as follows:
1.	Radio. I believe the directors of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation are improving progressively our Canadian programs. It is difficult to suit all tastes, but I have confidence that generally speaking the matter of the preparation of programs is in good hands. I do believe however that the financing and collection methods need an immediate and thorough overhauling. The Minister of Transport can hardly be expected to appreciate the defects of the present system, because his time must be fully taken up in the direction of railway, steamship and aeroplane transport services.
2.	Rural -mail couriers. There is the feeling, quite generally held, that the basis of remuneration for these men in the mail service is not satisfactory. It is an old problem, and the new Postmaster General (Mr. Mc-Larty) would be well advised to enlist the cooperation of members or of some other group of men to consider wherein adjustments can be made.
3.	Public buildings. The Post Office Department does not pay for the buildings occupied. It does not pay interest on the cost of the buildings. It does not pay for light, heat, water, or janitor services, or anything
IMr. Gladstone.]
else required about the premises. Consequently any announced surplus in the Post Office Department is fictitious. Likewise, the Department of National Revenue, in connection with many of the buildings occupied for customs and excise purposes, does not pay for any of these items. When we are erecting new public buildings for the joint occupation of these two departments, the Ottawa executives of each clamour for space for extravagant present and over-optimistic future needs. I understand the present Minister of Public Works (Mr. Cardin) has endeavoured to curb these demands, but I imagine he has not had an easy time getting cooperation towards economy. There are government offices in Ottawa where one official occupies as much space as the general managers of three or four large industrial organizations I could name. If we listened with our good ear we ought to be able to hear the demand coming from every part of Canada for lowering the cost of government. The protest is not only against the cost of too many members in federal or provincial houses; it is as much and possibly more against the multitude of employees, clerks, stenographers, inspectors, supervisors, technicians and others developing and carrying on practically identical services in many of the centres of government.
Some large business concerns do business in every province. From one head office the board of directors may formulate a general policy, arrange finances, conduct research, prepare general advertising and in the interests of economy and efficiency handle all matters which are more or less matters of common need to all branches. Periodically managers, sales managers, engineers, accountants and officers from the branches meet at head office in convention, as a business parliament, to discuss policies and programs. Have we not in any well-organized dominion-wide business the suggestion and example of a pattern for economic and efficient organization for the government of Canada? Why do not we get at it? Some say it is politics; they say we are politicians and there is nothing complimentary in that remark. We came here as a group of honest, well-intentioned men and women keenly desirous of doing our part for the good of Canada. I am satisfied that not many have lost their zeal to assist with every measure that gives promise of promoting a betterment of conditions.
Somewhere our system is wrong. It lends itself to too much speaking and not enough to businesslike deliberation. This has been true with all governments, regardless of what party was in power. Too much dependence is plac-

The Address-Mr. Esling
ed upon the initiative of the cabinet. Members who are warm supporters of the government on measures of policy know that, according to the rules of the house, an adverse vote on a comparatively minor issue may defeat the government. This rule should be amended to require an affirmative vote on a definite want of confidence motion to defeat any government. Such a change in the rules would promote independence of action on the part of the members.
After all, many of the electors are not worried as to what party is in power or when an election is to be called. Their primaiy interest is in employment and decent living conditions. When we think of unemployment we are apt to look at the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) and criticize him because he has not provided work or pensions or insurance for every person in Canada. The Minister of Labour has to work under great handicaps. There is a limit as to what can possibly be done in his department. Those limiting conditions can be overcome only by the other departments of the government.
How can we rid ourselves of excessive costs in government? How can we speed up the development of our resources by private enterprise reasonably controlled? The Rowell commission is expected to help us answer these questions, but what of the many other important considerations that cannot possibly be touched upon by that commission? Here is where we need group leadership in foresighted planning. Every member should do more forward thinking so that time will not be lost. I say to my fellow Liberals in this parliament, we each have our responsibility, yet the blame for any inactivity on our part falls inevitably upon the shoulders of our leader.
Strengthened organization without the loss of a single day is a crying necessity. That is my recommendation to-day to the Prime Minister and to the government. I want to exonerate myself at once of the charge of selfish ambition. Let them free me of any suspicion of office seeking. My motives have to do solely with the needs of the nation. The distress of the people demands that a new fresh group of say five or seven members be set to work immediately to represent us all in definite forward planning. It matters little whether they be under-secretaries, ministers without portfolio or simply members of an advisory group, so long as they have the opportunity and the ability to think ahead for us along new lines. High qualifications are essential. It may be that the best equipped members from the standpoint of organizing ability may come from two or three provinces only. If that be so, let them be 71492-31J
chosen accordingly, whether they come fronn Prince Edward Island or Quebec or British. Columbia. The situation demands the immediate time and thought of more men of broad outlook.


Mr. W. K. ESLING (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, the people of the federal district of Kootenay West, along with all the people of the Dominion of Canada, have both pride and pleasure in the prospective visit of their majesties. However, there is cause for regret in the fact that the interdepartmental committee could not see its way clear to include in the royal itinerary the southeastern portion of British Columbia. It is felt that their majesties would have pride and pleasure in viewing the largest metallurgical plant in the world. Situated at Trail, this plant operates on the output of the mines at Kimberley, the largest silver-lead-zinc mines on this continent. This plant at Trail is of special interest to the empire at large. At the outbreak of the war there was available a very limited supply of zinc, and this supply was controlled by a New York syndicate which taxed the empire and its allies with exorbitant charges. At that time there was no method of treating the complex silver-lead-zinc ores, but the task of finding such a method was turned over to the research department at the Trail smelter. It was not long before the problem was solved. It is true that this involved a huge expenditure for plant and that there were many initial obstacles to overcome, but the result was a steady supply of zinc at a cost less than twenty-five per cent of what the New York syndicate was charging. A continuous supply of zinc was then available to the empire and its allies.
In this debate on the address it is permissible and even advisable for an hon. member to bring to the attention of the government certain conditions which exist in his district as well as complaints which may affect other portions of Canada. This is done in the hope that the government may consider the amendment of existing legislation or the enactment of new legislation to remedy such complaints. Residence property in the city of Trail is. quite scarce and this makes it necessary that many of the employees of the smelter find' accommodation elsewhere. Many of them have their homes in the rural districts or at Rossland, which is five or six miles up the-mountain. With so many homes located away from the immediate vicinity of the smelter the problem arises of transportation for these employees. It is necessary for the men to be on shift on time, and the men on shift are anxious to get home on time. That problem confronted the employees, as well as the matter of a much reduced transportation
The Address-Mr. Esling

charge. One of the employees, Mr. John Gordon, conceived the idea of a cooperative transportation company. In 1932 fifteen of the employees made a first contribution of five dollars each towards the purchase of a car, and to-day that transportation association is perhaps the most successful cooperative concern in the Dominion of Canada. It carries 441 men to their labours each day and brings them back. The result has been that another similar organization has been established to transport men some ten or twelve miles from the southeast and another to transport men twenty miles from the north to Trail.
These cooperative transportation societies carry members only, and they were of the opinion that they were exempt from income tax. The Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Ilsley) was generous enough to extend the time for payment of penalty and interest until the matter could be looked into. Section 2 of chapter 24 of the Income War Tax Act, 1930, sets forth that cooperative associations of farmers, live stock men, dairymen, poultry-men, fishermen are exempt from income tax, as well as societies of a like nature. I am going to ask the minister if he will not, early this session, consider my suggestion that the Income War Tax Act of 1930 be amended so as to exempt also these transportation cooperatives from the tax.
Under the harbours and piers act, as amended last session, the Minister of Transport was authorized to recommend to the government the appointment of wharfingers, or controllers as they are called, and to collect tolls on all farm products and merchandise passing over public wharves. While that is all very well for the larger wharves, it is certainly an innovation so far as the wharves on the lakes and rivers in the interior of British Columbia are concerned, because there is not a wharf there with a community of many more than a thousand people behind it, and very few with that number. The people using these wharves have had the use of them for as long as forty years in some cases, and they never heard of such a thing as paying tolls to use the wharf. It is true that some ten years ago one wharfinger was appointed, but he lasted only two weeks. Subsequently there was not another until June last, when at a place called Renata on the Columbia river one was appointed. What was the result? The people absolutely refused to pay tolls of any kind; they simply landed their produce on the beach and carried it up over a gangplank.
I cannot conceive of anything which the people of that district are going to oppose more strongly than a proposal that the farmer be required to pay tolls on the little bit of

produce he takes to market, and that the merchant pay tolls on the little bit of merchandise which comes over the wharf in a community where there are no more than from three to five hundred people. These fanners and the people of the district generally have a hard enough time to keep off relief. Most of them manage it by sending a little bit of produce to market, and now they are asked to pay tolls on a side of beef, a case of eggs, or anything else which they take to market and hope to sell. I want to say to the Minister of Transport with all deference that he might just as well try to change the course of the Columbia river as to try to make these people pay wharf tolls. The idea is impractical and simply impossible, and that has been demonstrated by the fact that during the last six months the wharfinger at Renata has been standing there and not one case of produce has gone over the wharf.
Why should these people be asked to pay toll? Are people who use the post office called upon to maintain the post office building except as general taxpayers throughout Canada? The residents living behind these wharves contribute their share of taxes to the consolidated revenue fund, and there is no sense under the sun in attempting to collect fees from them on the farm produce they send over these wharves. As a matter of fact, the majority of people using these wharves are English settlers who were brought to Canada during the boom days when the government was spending three million dollars a year to encourage immigration. Unfortunately the lands have materialy decreased in value since then, and there are not the same opportunities for people to make a comfortable living along those lakes. So I do hope the Minister of Transport will reconsider his inclination in that direction. If he will have some officer or officers of his department visit the Arrow lakes and other lakes in the southeastern section of British Columbia, I am sure that their report will convince him of the injustice and impracticability of appointing wharfingers and attempting to collect fees and tolls from the farmers and residents in that district.
Last session I presented to the house the case of a resident in my district who, on bringing in a radio from the United States, was confronted by solicitors of the radio patent holding company and charged a royalty. He was also served with notice that if he brought in another radio it would be subjected to confiscation and destruction. The question of radio patents has been referred to the tariff board and I am perfectly confident that when it makes its report it will contain very

The Address-Mr. Esling
commendable recommendations upon which this government may act. But the fact remains that the government could have remedied existing conditions long before it ever referred the matter to the tariff board. It could have relieved the people of Canada from the conditions which existed during 1938. When the matter was first presented to the tariff board, evidence was given which showed that the cost of radios in Canada was from fifty to ninety per cent higher than in the United States. The facts are simply these. There are some seventy patents covering the construction of radios. These patents are held by a holding company which is owned and controlled by the eleven or twelve radio manufacturers in Canada. The manufacturers then purchase from the holding company a licence to use their own patents. Of course that money comes back to them, but at the same time it is tacked on to the price of the radio. Then they are in a position to restrict production, and also to regulate prices. I am sure that the tariff board will give this house a very clear description of the existing monopoly. This holding company has not been so keen to prosecute anybody since the subject was referred to the tariff board. It will be seen that for the first six months of this year radios to the value of 8440,000 were brought in under the S100 exemption, and it is fair to assume that, including the Christmas trade of 1938, the total value of such radios will be around a million dollars. My point is that there was a necessity for referring it to the tariff board, but conditions for the people of Canada could have been very much improved had the government itself acted under the authority conferred first of all in the Patent Act, which permits the commissioner of patents to annul a patent where the owner is abusing it. On the other hand the combines act permits the director of combines to annul these patents where they are being used for the purpose of regulating prices or controlling production.
I want to take this opportunity to convince the government that it did not need any further evidence than was placed on Hansard last year. There was placed on Hansard the list of patents, the demand of the solicitors of this holding company for royalty, and a letter from the holding company telling the resident of Nelson to whom I have referred that if he brought in another radio it would be subject to confiscation and destruction. I have it from one than whom there is no keener or better authority in Canada, that under the Patent Act as it exists to-day that holding company has a perfect right to demand the surrender for destruction of any radio
brought in from the United States. Is it not a fair assumption on the part of any citizen that when he purchases a radio, pays the duty on it, clears it and takes it to his home, it is his radio and he is secure in its possession? But certainly that is not so, and surely it is a condition which this government should not tolerate when it has the authority, under the combines act and under the Patent Act, to put an end to such monopolistic tactics.
I am going to take this opportunity to thank hon. members of all parties and groups in the house for their unanimous approval of a bill last session which curtailed the activities of the Canadian Performing Right Society. The bill exempted all music communicated by radio or gramophone from payment of royalties to the Canadian Performing Right Society, on the ground that that music was paid for at the source-in other words, paid for by the broadcasting stations and by the manufacturers of gramophone records. Before His Honour Judge Parker, the royal commissioner, evidence was given by the American director of the Canadian society-and the American society, let it be understood, is the parent of the Canadian society-to the effect that the small users of music which are now exempt, that is to say hotels, skating rinks, stores, lodge halls, and so on, have no commercial value and should not be taxed with royalties. That was the evidence of this director. Apparently they had no commercial value then, yet this same society after the passage of this bill goes to the government or to the appeal board and attempts to collect-how much? Instead of $83,000, as collected from the broadcasting stations last year, it attempted to collect $191,000 this year in order to make up the losses which it said it had sustained by the passage of this bill, although, as I have indicated, the director said there was really no loss. But we have to thank the appeal board for its action in the matter, because had the appeal board not taken a hand, had it not reduced the minimum fee of this society, dear knows where it would have stopped. The appeal board brought their fee down from $30 to $5 as a minimum. The appeal board has allowed this society the $83,000 which was allowed last year from broadcasting stations plus some $6,000 additional to make up for the increased number of radio licences issued by the department as at March 31 last.
This is just about the driest subject that one can broach, and there is no interest occasioned in it except by persistency; but I want to try to impress on members of the government the actual burden which this society inflicts upon the public. In the Canada Gazette of November 5 last you will find
The Address-Mr. Esling

a statement of the fees which this society proposes to charge for 1939, and in the Canada Gazette of January 7 there appears a statement of the fees which have been approved by the appeal board. I ask hon. members if the people generally are not justified in the conclusion that these fees go to the government and not to the society. The government seems to sponsor this private Canadian Performing Right Society as it sponsors no other institution in this dominion. In the Canada Gazette of January 5 what do we find? A government notice over the signature of three government officials. That notice tells the public and the users of music in Canada just what they shall do. It tells them that they shall pay this society so much in advance, that they shall make periodical reports to this society, that these reports must contain the number of performances of each sort of instrumental music, that they must say whether that music be afternoon, dinner, evening or otherwise, and that unless they do all these things they will be subject to prosecution for infringement of copyright. I want to ask why. Why should the government sponsor advertising the rates for this private society and pay for the advertisement at the rate of about $600 in the official Canada Gazettef Why should it do so any more than pay for say the advertising and subscription rates of every periodical in Canada? There is no reason under the sun for it.
Then comes the question, to whom are remitted the fees which are collected here? Eighty per cent of the fees collected in Canada are remitted to the picture producers and the film agencies which really make up what are classed as publishers in the American Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers. It all goes to the large picture producers and theatre owners. To them I shall refer in just a moment.
In addition to this payment for advertising -it is trifling, I admit, but why should the people pay for it?-we have the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation paying the society
835,000	of the taxpayers' money this year. In the last five years they have paid the society nearly $100,000, and that is just a slight factor in the reason for increasing the radio licence fee from $2.00 to $2.50. It does not amount to much, but why under the sun should the people of Canada pay these fees to a society that does not prove its ownership? Somebody slipped.
Take the Canada Gazette for January 7 and then look at the amendments to the Copyright Act. Permission is given the society to collect fees and royalties for the use of music which it claims to own, whereas the amendment of last session provides that it may be permitted IMr. Esling.]
to collect these fees for music which it does own or in respect of which it has authority to make collections. Anybody can claim anything and that is the trouble with the society. It has been making these claims right along and the government does not realize the imposition. The society claims by assignment the ownership of between two and three million pieces of music. Who knows whether it does own that music or whether there was ownership in the assignors? When an individual or an orchestra or a band is prosecuted for the use of music for which royalty has not been paid, that defendant is compelled to show that the society does not own the copyright. That is an impossible situation. The average man has not the financial ability to prove such a thing as against a corporation that is backed by millions of dollars- and when I say backed by millions of dollars I mean that it is backed by the American society, which is composed of theatre owners and picture producers.
Can any hon. member give one good reason why Canada should continue to be a member of the Berne and subsequent conventions? The United States is not a member. The American Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers is not a member because it finds it to its advantage not to be. Instead, it uses the Canadian society as an instrument for collecting money from the people of Canada in order to fill the purses of the picture producers of the United States. We must not lose sight of the inherent right of the individual to all that is due him under the Copyright Act; but when it comes to a concern acquiring these copyrights for the purpose of creating a monopoly and levying tribute on everyone, then I say the government should intervene. I do ask the government to consider the question of withdrawal from the Berne convention.
I wish now to refer for a moment to the Canada-United States treaty. I do not think anyone is fully qualified to pass judgment on the treaty as a whole until the matter has had a full-dress review in this house, because the opinions that are expressed are governed largely by the way in which the treaty affects each member and the people of his district. So far as West Kootenay is concerned, we have mines and fruit. There is a reduction on zinc going into the United States, but to Canada it means absolutely nothing because Canada is governed by world prices. In the United States the zinc market is self-sustaining and they do not have to worry except for the fact that through the reduction in duties the producer in that country gets that much less. That is on account of the fact that

The Address-Mr. Esling
United States prices are governed by London prices plus the duty. We are governed entirely by London prices. But there is one certainty about the treaty so far as we are concerned, and that is the cost to the people of Canada in dollars and cents.
There are 447 items on which all excise is removed, and that means that the Minister of Finance must make up $10,000,000 there. There are 238 items on which there is a further reduction of duty, and a conservative estimate of the duty will give about $8,000,000. To appease the Canadian industry, which will suffer by reason, of the importation of manufactured goods from the United States, if we accept the press reports, the government intends to go further and reduce or cancel the excise oh the raw materials used by Canadian manufacturers in order to permit of competition with similar products from the United States.
May I say that it is a genuine pleasure to have the Minister of Finance back in the house able to resume his duties. I imagine that his lot, the lot of any minister of finance, is a most unhappy one, particularly on the eve of an election when he has to combat the preelection demands-I will not say requests-for more funds than he would like to give out, demands that come from what we might call a top-heavy majority of government followers. They are the ones he has to consider.
For a moment now I will deal with the Income War Tax Act. I suggest to the minister that in addition to the $20,000,000 which he has to make up by reason of these losses under the treaty, he has a great many other troubles to which he must give his attention. He has, for instance, the wheat losses. They range all the way from $30,000,000 to $60,000.-
000.	Let me be modest and put it at $30,000,-
000.	Then he has to cover another $18,000,000 of loss of sales tax on building materials, $12,500,000 on terminals, and about $2,000,000 or $3,000,000 on the importation of goods under the $100 exemption. Then there was the Canadian National deficit, which in last year's estimate was placed at $42,000,000. The press reports indicated that at the end of six months that $42,000,000 was gone and that another $12,000,000 would be required. With all these worries the Minister of Finance will almost throw up his hands in despair and ask what is the use. Will he not welcome a suggestion which would bring in something instead of allowing it all to go out?
By amendment to the Income War Tax Act, there was a decided loss to the government. Hon. members know full well that if anybody living outside of Canada has an
investment in Canada he is subjected to a deduction of five per cent in the remission of the revenue from it. If from some investment he has a revenue of $100 his agent sends him $95 and accounts to the government for the other $5. But for some reason the government was persuaded in 1936 to reduce that five per cent to two per cent in connection with films. I contend that this government has in the last three years lost no less than $450,000 to $500,000. The film agencies say that they are entitled to this reduction because when their films have been run-and I am told by a theatre manager, that the average run is about four hundred times-the films are worn out. Suppose they are; I submit that does not make any difference.
I do not want hon. members to think that I am speaking at random; I ask them to take the report of the Minister of Trade and Commerce covering motion picture films. For the year 1936 they will see that the rentals for films paid to these agencies amounted to $7,-
500,000,	and in 1937 it was $8,790,000, an increase of over a million dollars. First of all they wrote off in 1936, about $1,008,000 in wages; according to the report, for 1937 the figure was $1,060,000. That is all well and good. They are supposed to retain for the benefit and profit of the agency some 35 per cent, and the balance is remitted to the picture producers and theatre owners in the United States.
It appears to me that Canada is fertile ground for raising money to transmit to these picture producers and film agencies in the United States. They do not lose anything on these films. Hon. members must not think that into each province of Canada there comes a film from the states. Not at all. They bring in one negative and send it to a film processing plant in Montreal or Toronto, and from that one negative they make as many prints as are required. That negative is valued for duty purposes at five cents a foot, which represents about $165 on a film of
7,000	feet-I use that figure because according to my information that is the average length of a film. Everything is by the foot, whether it be from the United States or for distribution in Canada. The film remains here only ten days and then goes back to the producer undamaged. The prints are turned over to the film agencies for 31 cents a foot plus the sales tax, so that the total cost of a film shown in one of these theatres for as long as it can be used is about $246.
Talk about figures as long as you please, the fact remains that these films yield a rental of between seven and eight million dollars a year. Yet for some reason the government thought it necessary or advisable to reduce that
The Address-Mr. Esling

five per cent tax to two per cent. The five per cent could well be paid. I think the minister should take steps to recover the half million dollars that he has lost in the last three years; certainly there should be no further loss. The agencies in each province are supplied with as many prints as they want, and there cannot possibly be any loss to the agency.
I ask the Minister of National Revenue, then, to include transport cooperatives under the exemption clause, and to see that this three per cent reduction no longer applies to films. There is no reason under the sun why huge concerns sending millions of dollars to the United States should be more favoured than the poor fellow in the United States who has a little investment in Canada from which he receives a dividend. And also I ask the Minister of Transport to drop the tax or toll upon wharves used by settlers.


Mr. T. V. GRANT (Kings):: As the hon. leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition (Mr. Manion) is a distinguished member of the profession to which I have the honour to belong, I wish at once to extend my hearty congratulations to him upon having been chosen at a nation-wide convention as chief of the National Conservative party of Canada, which supersedes the Liberal-Conservative party.
I think our hon. friends are making a great mistake in changing their name so often. In other walks of life only companies that have gone bankrupt, or individuals who have got into difficulty and would feel safer under some other name, change their names. Even some ladies hesitate to change their name, although they are specially privileged in that regard. Why has the Liberal party not found it necessary to change its name-


Mr. LAPOINTE (Quebec East):: They are proud of it.


Thomas Vincent Grant: Of course they are. There is something fascinating, something charming about it. There is much to be proud of, and nothing to be ashamed of, in the name " Liberal." Even the Democrats in the United States like to call themselves Liberals.
There is much wisdom in the oft-repeated expression that there is none so blind as those who will not see. Our opponents have demonstrated the truth of that saying in their interpretation of the speech from the throne, a document which no well-informed Canadian can deny to be a true summary of a record of achievement unequalled in any similar period by any previous government in Canada. It would take much more time than I have at my disposal, and a much better artisan, to deal 
adequately with the various items in that speech. But I join with all loyal Canadians in welcoming to this country Their Majesties King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. This is the first time in history that Canada has been honoured by a visit from her sovereign.
In connection with the royal visit no doubt many maritimers had to smile recently when it was announced over the radio from the old country that their majesties would visit " Canada, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland." And yet Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, in the order named, are the two most important provinces in this great dominion. Prince Edward Island, the cradle of confederation, comes first, although we have been given this doubtful special mention over the radio.
My next pleasant duty is to congratulate the mover (Mr. Matthews) and the seconder (Mr. Chevrier) of the address in reply to the speech from the throne. The mover, a native of Prince Edward Island, to which I belong, did not surprise me in the least when he delivered his fine address. Before he left the garden of the gulf for a wider field of endeavour, I had intimately known him as a clever writer, a polished speaker and an educationist. His departure at that time was regarded as a distinct loss to our province.
The seconder has been a near neighbour of mine on the back benches since I came to the house in 1935. I have always found him a most agreeable and lovable gentleman, and I am proud of the exceptionally good speech he made, delivered as it was in both the official languages. It was a treat long to be remembered.
Before leaving the matter of paying compliments let me extend my heartiest congratulations to another genial associate in the person of the new Postmaster General (Mr. McLarty). I am sure his recent promotion will not tend to decrease his popularity among his former companions in the house. The distinguished though lone Liberal member from Alberta (Mr. MacKinnon), with whom I am not so well acquainted, is also deserving of congratulation upon his promotion to the cabinet. I understand his wife comes from Prince Edward Island, a fact which bespeaks his good judgment.
I was surprised to hear the leader of the opposition stress unemployment in his first speech since his return to the house. It is too true that his party was elected on the unemployment cry in 1930.


Mr. MacNICOL:: And we shall be elected on the same cry next year.

The Address-Mr. Grant


Thomas Vincent Grant: At that time there were
117,000	unemployed in Canada, and by featuring this comparatively new inspiration they succeeded in persuading the Canadian electorate that it was a most serious state of affairs. Their leader's voice resounded from coast to coast in such expressions as, "King promises to enact measures to relieve unemployment; I promise to end unemployment. Which do you like best?"


Miss MACPHAIL:: None of you ends it.


Thomas Vincent Grant: But on taking office what did they do? They added more than 100,000 annually to the unemployed in Canada, and did little but herd them like cattle into unemployment camps of idleness, until the unemployed in Canada exceeded the million mark. I well remember a speech delivered by the then Prime Minister after the numbers of the unemployed had reached about
600.000,	in which address he stated that 150,000 unemployed was normal for a country of
10.000.	000 people. And yet, in 1930, he and the present leader of the opposition bellowed themselves into power on the cry that to have 117,000 unemployed was disastrous. I say to the leader of the opposition and his followers that such a cry cannot be repeated, and might as well be dropped, so far as trying to deceive the electorate of Canada is concerned.


Agnes Campbell Macphail: But it was repeated
by the Liberals.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Thomas Vincent Grant: Our opponents would like to make it appear that the government has been idle. One hon. member who, I am sorry, is not in his seat, has described the procedure as that of waiting for Santa Claus. Nothing could be more unreasonable. We have had Santa Claus continually with us since 1935, in the person of the senior member for Queens, Prince Edward Island (Mr. Dunning)-and may I say that regardless of party affiliation, all hon. members are delighted to see him with such a ruddy complexion and looking so well since his return to the house. I doubt very much if the hon. member who made that statement will have as generous a Santa Claus to deal with him when he hangs up his stocking after the next federal election.
This government have been alert and progressive since the first session of the present parliament. In fact the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) has consummated a trade agreement with the United States even before the first session of parliament. In my own constituency programs 71492-32
of public works have been carried out continuously by both federal and provincial governments. In many instances the work has been done jointly, and in order that the needy should not be overlooked in the distribution of work the federal Department of Labour appointed a war veteran whose duty it was to visit the various undertakings and see to it that the poorer and the more needy were given work in preference to the more fortunate.
Since the federal election of 1935, no time has been lost in striving to provide work for our people, through the construction of public works which had been entirely neglected for five years under Tory rule, and by numerous other undertakings, some of which I shall enumerate later. In my constituency almost every federal wharf, with the exception of the one adjoining the business stand of the Tory member who then represented Kings, was either fenced off or had a danger sign posted on it.
With regard to defence, regardless of what our opponents in other groups may say, I believe the government should not engage in the manufacture of war material. We have white elephants enough on our hands in Canada. If we must have armaments, let there be competition, as in other public contracts, and let the work be done under honest and competent government inspection. Let there be no pets or favourites, or anything in the nature of a family compact. Large sums of money which are being asked for to provide for defence would then be spent to the best advantage. Let it not be said at some future time that some one has "plundered". I am not a military man, and shall leave the debate on this subject to those who think they know what should be done to meet any condition which may arise out of what is taking place in this confused and troubled world.
As other hon. members have said, the new trade agreement between the United States and Canada has yet to prove its beneficial effects. But we know the trade agreement of 1935 has helped to save the country from ruin through stagnation of trade, and we know the new trade agreement has been built on a firm foundation, and with the most friendly understanding between the Englishspeaking nations on this continent. It was surprising to hear the leader of the opposition condemn the abolition of the three per cent excise tax, which was one of the obnoxious taxes imposed on the people by the late government on top of all the rest of the taxes, and at a time when the people had been ruined by high tariff policies which

The Address-Mr. Grant

brought about a stagnation of trade. Yet the new leader of the Tory party states in this house that he believes in trade agreements and reductions in taxation! The impressions of youth are hard to eradicate.
The leader of the opposition states that we have not reduced taxation, and yet in the same breath he complains that the three per cent excise tax has been removed. Let me quote a few words from the speech of the governor general:
The Canada-United States agreements have involved, in addition to the wider markets secured for Canadian products, a thoroughgoing revision of the Canadian tariff structure, and a reduction of taxes on trade much greater than that made by any previous parliament, or by any other country in recent years.
Do our hon. friends opposite think for one moment that the intelligent electors of Canada, who suffered so much during the five years the party opposite were in office, will vote against a government that has done more than the government of any other country in the world to reduce taxes and encourage trade?
The present Liberal party is no more perfect than any other man-made organization. I had hoped for some constructive criticism this year from the official opposition after their three years of subjugation. They were recently delivered from bondage at a convention of their party, and I had hoped that during this session they might show themselves worthy of retaining their present position after the next election, which is all they can hope to retain. Whatever may be said about the Grits and the Tories, it cannot be denied that they have been democratic in principle, and we do not want to see the present official opposition relegated to third or fourth place in this house. I think their new leader has had ample proof of that.
The recent visit of President Roosevelt to Canada was significant in many ways. His assurance during that visit of the loyalty of his great nation to this dominion in case of invasion should dispel from the minds of our opponents their apparent fear that our United States neighbours are not to be trusted. I think our hon. friends can be reassured that with Liberal governments in office in Canada and the United States, trade treaties will be respected in both countries. The treaties of 1935 and 1938 are but the beginning of freer trade arrangements than have hitherto existed between these two peace-loving countries. I suppose there would be a great many obstacles to the removal of the present strict immigration regulations now in existence in both countries, but I cannot see any reason why such barriers should continue to exist. I

believe their removal would result beneficially to both the United States and Canada. While I am not in favour of opening the gate to foreign immigration, I doubt the wisdom of dividing the north American continent into two pens.
The brilliant young member for Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. Maybank) stated in effect some days ago that when the present leader of the opposition was Minister of Railways and Canals in the previous government he was responsible for certain amalgamations and reductions in the railway service, and that the people of this country feared amalgamation, but the hon. leader of the opposition denied this charge in emphatic terms. During his term of office, however, as Minister of Railways and Canals, the Elmira branch line in my constituency was closed out entirely as far as passenger service was concerned, and the Post Office Department was obliged to establish a mail route to serve this territory. Another line, the Murray Harbour branch, was reduced to three trains a week, and in this instance a mail route of approximately eighty miles had to be established by the Post Office Department.


Mr. MANION:: I do not want to interrupt the hon. gentleman's essay, but I should like to point out that when I was Minister of Railways and Canals I had nothing to do with the running of trains any more than the present Minister of Transport (Mr. Howe) has anything to do with that. I had nothing to do with the closing of branch lines or anything of that sort. That was done by the management of the road without consultation with the government. I think the Minister of Transport will tell my hon. friend that if he does not know it already.


Thomas Vincent Grant: I said, during the hon. gentleman's term as Minister of Railways. Another line, the Cardigan branch, was scheduled to be reduced to three trains a week, and the railway time-table contained the change, but a certain minister without portfolio in the late government happened to be operating a general store on the Cardigan line and that part of the time-table was never put into effect.
But let it be said to the credit of the present Minister of Transport (Mr Howe) and the management of the road that we succeeded in having the train services restored in my constituency, to such an extent at least that the mail routes referred to were done away with during our first year in office, and indignation meetings which were at least semi-annual occurrences during the Tory rule have not occurred in a single instance since 1935. These

The Address-Mr. Grant
are facts well known to every elector in my constituency, and they are unimportant compared with the charges made against the late administration by the employees of the Canadian National Railways.
When our opponents say that we have done nothing to relieve unemployment and to assist the farmers and fishermen, how can they shut their eyes to the splendid trade agreements negotiated by this government; to the National Housing Act; to the Municipal Improvements Assistance Act, and to the home improvement plan under which loans at the lowest rate of interest in history are made to municipalities, organizations and individuals in order to encourage employment? How can they shut their eyes to the abolition of the sales tax on all building materials, including paint and heating and plumbing, in order to encourage the building trades; to the assumption of provincial and municipal taxes on the properties so constructed; to the abolition of the obnoxious excise tax imposed by the previous government; to the encouraging of public works by assisting the provinces with federal aid; to the assistance given the unemployed by a most liberal expansion of public works; to the program of settling unemployed young men on farms in provinces adopting this plan; to the amendment to the War Veterans' Assistance Act; to the employing of young men in forestry conservation work; to the courses given to young men in the arts of curing fish, scientific farming, carpentry and other trades; to the supplying of seed grain to farmers and to the opening of world markets for the sale of farm products; to the loans given without interest to fishermen to enable them to buy nets as well as food for their children; to the reimbursement of the fishermen for losses due to storms; to the Unemployment and Agricultural Assistance Act, and to the appointment of fishermen's assistance boards which, among other accomplishments, erected a great many up-to-date buildings-at least six in my constituency-at fishing centres in which buildings the fishermen may cure and save their products, and the construction of which provided employment for the fishermen? The electors of Canada, Mr. Speaker, know all these things, even if some members of this house choose to shut their eyes to them.
The leader of the opposition stated that the present government, or perhaps he said Canada, had done less in the way of social legislation than any other country in the world. But let me point out that except for two or three years the Tories have had a majority in the senate for the last twenty years or more, and that when Liberal governments tried to pass social legislation, a Tory senate invariably threw it out. The old age
pensions legislation is an example. The bill passed this house but could not survive in the senate until the Liberals at last had a majority in that chamber. And the irony of it was that the Tories, after voting against the old age pensions scheme and defeating it in the senate, once it had been enacted despite their opposition brazenly adopted it as part of their 1930 platform, and boldly promised to pay the pensions one hundred per cent from the federal treasury. I think every elector of pensionable age received from the Tory organization a circular letter containing this promise. The official opposition should be ashamed to mention social legislation in this house or anywhere else in Canada. They did reluctantly, when in power, pay seventy-five per cent of the old age pensions because the Quebec government forced them to do so. It was not because of their pre-election promise.
Let me at this point give a brief summary of the promises made by the Tory party to the rural mail couriers of Canada before the 1930 election. It was well known that the rural mail couriers had been organizing for some years; that almost every mail courier had joined the organization and paid the membership fee, and that they were all naturally anxious for a change from the tender system to employment under the civil service of Canada, with a guaranteed living wage and permanency of employment. The then leader of the Tory party, mad for power, resorted to the lowest kind of deception in this instance. Letters were sent out to each and every mail courier in Canada promising to comply with the wishes of the couriers' organization, immediately upon the party's being returned to power. Imagine the influence on these poorly paid mail contractors! They honeycomb Canada from one end to the other, and come in daily contact with all classes of people in the rural sections. They have numerous friends; of necessity they are educated, upright, honest and intelligent, and until 1930 they were unsuspecting. Whatever the Liberal party has done or has not as yet been able to do, we have not attempted to deceive the mail couriers. The Tories deceived them and got their votes and support in 1930. But as a class the couriers have good memories, and they now feel that if their grievances are to be settled this will be done by a Liberal government. I should like to hear some one of our Conservative friends opposite, especially one of the 1930 survivors, discussing this question of the mail couriers.
Some of our opponents have said that the dictators are showing the democracies how to end unemployment; that there is no unemployment in countries ruled over by dictators. Well, Mr. Speaker, if the United States, for
The Address-Mr. Grant

example, wished to adopt the same method followed in Germany or Italy of ending unemployment, she could declare war on Canada, and that would end unemployment in both countries until the war was over. Most of the dictator countries have their surplus population either training for war or actually under arms. But Canada and the United States, being peace-loving countries, desire to find honest work for all their people.
I believe, sir, that every member of the Tory party, every member of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, even those who have taken post graduate courses in Russia, and every member of the Social Credit party, the party which makes money out of nothing but their words only, as the Lord made the earth, knows that in the last three years this government has done more to relieve unemployment than could possibly be done by adopting their fantastic policies-and the electors of Canada know this too.
I am sure that every member of the Liberal party in this house and throughout Canada, every elector who supported the Liberal cause at the last federal election, and a great many who did not, are proud of the manner in which the right hon. the Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. Mackenzie King) answered the charges made against this government by the hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Manion), and that all thoughtful Canadians are indeed thankful that Canada has had at the head of her affairs in these troublous times a man with the long experience and vision of the Prime Minister. Fathers and mothers who wish their families to grow up as peace-loving Canadian citizens have indeed much for which to be grateful. The electors of this dominion feel that they are in safe hands once more; the fishermen know that this government is doing everything humanly possible to solve their difficulties; the farmers who were well to do in 1930 but were either bankrupt or facing insolvency in 1935 have again taken courage, and with the fair prices they have been receiving for their products are not considering a change of government; the fox producers, whose uncertain industry has been placed on a secure foundation by the joint regulations inaugurated by the departments of agriculture, provincial and federal, are not considering a change of government.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, speaking of agriculture reminds me that the genial minister of agriculture for the province of Prince Edward Island, the Hon. William Dennis, has been seriously ill in the civic hospital here in Ottawa, and I would ask every member of this house who loves a good sport to say a prayer for his complete recovery.


Mr. DAVID SPENCE (Parkdale):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who has just preceded me has gone far beyond the bounds of parliamentary discussion in saying that our honoured leader in the last election resorted to deception. I object to that because it is not, in my opinion, proper for any hon. member to use that expression, and anybody who knows the Right Hon. R. B. Bennett knows that he never used any deception. Let me tell the hon. member that it will take more than the support of the rural mail carriers of Canada to save him and his party at the coming election. The hon. member spoke of being proud of the name Liberal. He also claims that in the United States the Democrats are resorting to that word to describe their party, but may I remind him that the Liberal party in Canada has nowadays very little beyond its name of which to be proud. With some of the things he has said about the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) I agree; with others I cannot; but of course he has the right to say what he likes, when he likes, and in whatever way he likes.
For some weeks I have sat here attentively listening to a good many speeches. Until yesterday I did not know that I was going to speak in this debate. Since I came back from Toronto I have had little time to prepare anything, but I have in my head a rambling lot of stuff which comes from my knowledge of the business world and has been instilled into me for a good many years.
The speeches made in this debate have been splendid; each one has expressed the views of the speaker and frequently the views of his party. Regardless of what may be said outside this house in criticism of them, they are a credit to Canada, and I am sorry that my own lack of training will not allow me to maintain the standard which some others have reached. My life in the business world has been a busy one, and I have had no opportunity of training along the line of making speeches in parliament; in fact I never expected to be in parliament. I am here, however, and I am glad to be here. I intend not to make a speech but to offer some observations in my own way about matters of which I know something.
I am sorry that my good friend the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) is not in the chamber. I am delighted that he is back in the house and is feeling in good condition, smiling as he usually does, and sometimes adding a little sarcasm to his wit and humour. He would not be genuine if the sarcasm could not come out as well as the humour; in that respect he may be like myself.

The Address-Mr. Spence
I wish first to offer my congratulations to the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Matthews) who moved, and the hon. member for Stormont (Mr. Chevrier) who seconded the address
in reply to the speech from the throne. Both of their addresses were admirable, and as good a presentation of the subject as I have ever heard.
I can assure hon. [DOT]members that the old historic riding of Parkdale will rejoice with the rest of Canada at the coming of Their Majesties King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. We shall all be proud to see them. I know the people of my riding will be present in large numbers to see the king and queen, because we are not far from what will be the headquarters of their majesties while they are in Toronto. If they are given, a nice drive, which I hope will be arranged, they will go through a portion of my riding which is the most attractive part of that city. We shall all be delighted to see them there.
I would first ask forgiveness if anything I may say should hurt somebody's feelings. It is absolutely not my intention to say anything which will cause strife in this house; I do not think I have ever attempted to do so. I have always acted more or less as a peacemaker among some of my hon. friends, even those on the other side of the house.
We have to-day plenty of trouble, without creating any more strife. We have no unity, no cooperation among ourselves and worse still, no cooperation with other countries. Conditions everywhere are in a terrible state, and we have found no superman yet to solve our problems.
Some hon. members have suggested as a remedy the nationalizing of everything, and especially the controlling of business. My advice to this or to any other government is to forget nationalization and attempting to control business because it cannot be done. While in business for many years I have learned at my own expense that the law of supply and demand will always regulate prices. There is no use of any government trying to run business; they cannot do it; it requires men trained in the business world. The government should stop interfering with business and tinkering with tariffs. Many men have been driven out of business because the worry of running business to-day is greater than can be realized by anybody who has not had practical experience in it.
I agree with the statement which has been made in this house that customs regulations should be simplified. There are many rulings which not only the customs officials, including the commissioners of the different branches, but the minister himself, cannot understand, and the fact that there is such diversity of
opinion among those who are administering the customs tariff makes it impossible to get a definite decision from anybody. About a couple of years ago there was put on the order paper a resolution to the effect that, something should be done to make it easier for customs officials and business men to understand customs rules.
Toward the end of the session of 1937 the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Ilsley) introduced a bill to prevent men who had claims against the government from realizing on those claims. I consider that this was quite unfair. He had that bill piloted through the senate committee with the assistance of all the commissioners he could gather together and the odd hired individual who had left the department and who was brought back for the purpose of defeating the wholesalers and importers who were trying to have their claims satisfied. One would think he was dealing with a bunch of thugs or highwaymen rather than with men of high integrity in the wholesale business. Not only did he prevent them from getting their money, but there was put through this house a bill that had the effect of putting them out of court altogether so that they could not sue the government.
He did, however, allow two big firms in Toronto to sue the government for drawbacks which they should have received that year and years back, and they successfully beat the government in the courts. I am wondering whether the government have paid their debts. My view is that the government themselves should pay their debts just as they expect others to do. I do not know how much money was involved in that particular case, but the gentleman in Toronto who looked after the railway claims and the claims in connection with customs had the whole thing compiled. The fact is, however, that the government had the money with which to pay their debts, and they should have done what a good many others do when they fail. Private persons give their creditors 50 cents or 20 cents on the dollar. But instead of that the government robbed these people of every dollar that was legitimately due them. Would anyone with high integrity do such a thing? Is it any wonder that conditions are as bad as they are? Is it any wonder that no one wants to be in business, that no one wants to own a home or property or anything else, because everybody is robbed to death? We are all simply asked to pay taxes. When this gentleman who was looking after the claims of the railways and customs went back to Toronto, he took to heart so seriously the treatment he had re-
The Address-Mr. Spence

ceived at the hands of the minister in the senate committee that he dropped dead. He left here on Thursday night and on Friday night he was dead. He was only a young man, between thirty and forty. That is the way in which this government is treating people; driving them into their graves. I am not saying this is the only government that has done such things, but this is the worst instance I have ever known. Thousands of dollars were stolen from people in business, and not a dollar to which they were justly entitled was paid them. That is lesson number one.
The firm that I backed financially had no claims against the government at that time, because my advice to them was to do no business through the government, but to act through someone else. I remembered that for thirty years I had done nothing but fight with the customs department in Toronto, though I must add that there have been ministers who straightened things out once in a while. The Hon. Jacques Bureau was one of them; the Hon. Doctor Reid was another. Then there was the Hon. Mr. Boivin, who died suddenly in 1926. I believe the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Euler) was also minister for a while, and we got fair consideration. I never regretted any man's death more than I did that of Mr. Boivin, because I thought he would make a wonderful minister. I had not hoped that he would be elected, but I liked him as a man because he was fair in his dealings with the business world, just as were the others I have mentioned, as well as the Hon. Mr. Ryckman. But there have been ministers who have not been as considerate, and the time is coming when the business world will have to teach them to be fair. I am not making any threat because I am not in business now, but I am still interested in how many people the government rob. Nearly everyone capable of being robbed has already been robbed.
The hon. member for Kootenay East (Mr. Stevens) has told us of the large percentage of people in business who are dying suddenly of heart trouble. It is all too true, and this government has been responsible to some extent by continually changing conditions and making it almost impossible for business men to carry on. The government appointed a national employment commission, and it will be remembered that I fought bitterly against that move because of the extreme cost which the commission would involve. I could not see what they eould accomplish. We were informed that they would tabulate the unemployed by trades nnd so on, but what does that matter? After
(Mr. Spence.]
all, what difference does it make to what trade a man belongs so long as he is unemployed? Does it matter whether he is a carpenter, bricklayer, machinist, or anything else if he cannot get work? He is unemployed just the same. All that the commission did do was to go to the different municipalities and get a list of the unemployed. That list was in the Department of Labour at the time, so that the expenditure involved was really a waste of money.
The recommendations of the commission have not been adhered to rigidly. There is only one recommendation I wish to touch on at the moment and that is the one with respect to the training of youth. I have to give the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) some credit for that. I had the pleasure of going into a committee room one night and seeing pictures of boys training in the camps in British Columbia, and I listened to addresses from men and women from all parts of the country, telling how enthusiastically the municipalities were cooperating in the training of these young people. But the trouble is that there is no stability about it. I agree that it should be done because there is nothing else you can do, and it is better than doing nothing. It will help the boys and girls even if they get six weeks training, and it should improve them mentally, physically and morally.
I suggested at that time that instead of appointing these commissions we should restore confidence in the investing public, because I felt that this would do more to create employment than anything else. There are thousands of people in Canada with millions to invest; if we had stability in government, if investors knew that conditions would not be suddenly changed but would remain reasonably constant, investment would follow. The Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) now agrees with me that the proper thing to do is to restore confidence in the investing public. He brought out that point in a speech in Waterloo when he was trying to defeat the hon. member for Waterloo South (Mr. Homuth). I am glad that the minister took up the suggestion. I am convinced that there is enough money in the pockets of the Canadian people to put the country on its feet, but the government is making cowards of us all, driving people to buy government bonds. I have not much use for the man who does nothing but buy government bonds. The man who has not enough backbone to go into industry and try to make a living in that way is not doing much for the country. I would not give much for him if he puts his money into government bonds and keeps it in hiding.

The Address-Mr. Spence
How can confidence be restored when the government are negotiating treaties all the time, always negotiating treaties with someone? That has been the custom in the past, but this government has negotiated more than we ever did. I do not think we have been guilty of so many offences that have hurt the country so much. The man who has a vision of the future can see that the treaty now negotiated will drive some subsidiary companies back to the United States, and prevent anybody from putting his money into either business or industry. In my riding there are many industries, because when the big fire occurred down-town one time they were driven to the outskirts and we got many of the factories. Some of the people operating these industries to-day are afraid to say a word, afraid to express an opinion, about this treaty. I have not much sympathy for some of them because they did not support a government that would have given them stability, but now they are out howling on the housetops, but afraid to say a word to the government. It is not good for a man in business or industry to be afraid to talk to the government; they cannot put him in a penitentiary unless he commits a crime; in any event you can always tell them what you think of them. It is true that importers will like this treaty; but they, like the man who puts all his money in bonds, are another class for whom I have very little use. They bring stuff from any country in the world where they can get it and kill manufacturing industry in this dominion. The importer may sit in an office in a twenty-storey building and look out of the window for half his time or look at his nice stenographer, while stealing business from the Canadian manufacturer by bringing stuff from all parts of the world and particularly Europe.


An hon. MEMBER:: What about the hon. member himself?


David Spence: I was an importer for years, but I kept up a big warehouse, employing ten to twenty men as a rule, and had a big overhead. I am talking about the man who has no overhead except the rent of an office. They are the men who are helping to kill industry in this country. I was in the wholesale fruit business and I have knowledge of the difficulties of the fruit and vegetable growers to-day, competing with growers in a country in which climatic conditions are so much more favourable. There are many states in the union in which two or three crops a year can be grown; that cannot be done in Canada. Some may tell us that they do it in British Columbia, but I do not know any place in this dominion where it can be done
successfully. In Canada to-day the duty on fruit and vegetables is only 10 per cent. That should never have come about. Back in 1930 it was 30 per cent, and even then growers of fruit and vegetables had a difficult task.


William Daum Euler: Surely it is more than that now in certain seasons.


David Spence: Under the new treaty it is only 10 per cent. When the Prime Minister went to Washington and signed the former treaty the duty on fruit and vegetables was cut in half, to 15 per cent, and then by this treaty hon. gentlemen have cut it a further 5 per cent, which leaves only 10 per cent. That is no protection whatever to Canadian growers who have to compete with growers in a country in which climatic conditions permit the growing of two or three crops a year. Before the Fordney-McCumber tariff was put into effect in the United States in 1923 we had a good market in Detroit and some of the other neighbouring United States cities, particularly for Leamington melons, tomatoes and all kinds of early vegetables. But that tariff which the United States saw fit to put up against our people shut out practically everything. Then came the Hawley-Smoot tariff in 1930, which entirely closed the United States market for our dairy products as well as fruit and vegetables. How can a country get along under such treatment? It is ridiculous. True, we are now getting some advantage on potatoes, but we are giving the same advantage. Our hon. friends have allowed the Americans to set a quota on potatoes going into the United States, and as someone said, one county in this country could produce enough potatoes to supply that quota. Do not ever think that the United States are not looking after themselves; I have dealt with the business people there; they will always give you a sandwich if you give them the pig. We should never have negotiated this treaty. We were in no position to negotiate a treaty at the time when this one was negotiated, because our duties were all too low compared with theirs. And if the treaty applied only to the United States, as it purports to do, it would not be so bad; for after all the United States are good friends and we want to be friendly with them. But under the most favoured nation clause our concessions apply also to countries that are no friends of Canada. I shall not mention names, but there are several of them.
There is no one in this house who can paint a better picture with figures than the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Euler), or the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner). They are both dandies at that sort of thing. But
The Address-Mr. Spence

the hon. gentlemen have been in politics and sitting in this house so long, not associated with business, that they do -not understand the effect of the treaty and have no vision of the results which may flow from it. Canada should have retaliated when the Fordney-McCumber tariff was imposed, and the Hawley-Smoot tariff-


Mr. STEWART:: Countervailing duties.


David Spence: Oh, countervailing duties
have meant nothing. We know that congress has control; no matter how friendly the president appears to be to this country, he cannot reduce- the duty more than 50 -per cent, and he might well do that and still have -higher duties against us than we have against them. So what position were we in to negotiate a treaty with them?
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


David Spence: Mr. Speaker, just before six o'clock I had made certain references to some ministers of national revenue who at times had not given the trade with which I was associated a square deal. In justice to the present Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Ilsley) may I say that a few weeks ago I did hear that he was now getting more familiar with customs details in Toronto, and with customs transactions generally, and that a better deal was being given to everybody concerned. I have not been associated with the trade for the last two or three years, so I believe it is only fair to say that opinion seems to be that he is getting more familiar with it.
Since I have been in the house I have known only one trade treaty which has had any beneficial effects on this country, and that was the Canada-United Kingdom agreement brought about in 1932 by the Right Hon. R. B. Bennett.


An hon. MEMBER:: Oh, oh.


David Spence: Hon. members may laugh as they like, but if they are not stupid they should know that is the only beneficial trade treaty we ever had. Under it we received a preference of 4s 6d per 100 pounds on apples. A few days ago the hon. member for Queens-Lunenburg (Mr. Kinley) was trying to defend the government in its negotiation of the [DOT]present treaty. He said that Nova Scotia still had a good deal on apples. The deal they get is that in the present treaty their duty is cut *from 4s 6d to 3s per 100 pounds. That is what they lost.
And what about wheat? When any hon. minister will say that a loss of six cents a bushel on wheat does not make any difference, surely he is not familiar with the business. A loss of six cents a bushel means what? It means competition in the old country market. That preference was a profit in itself.
Let us turn our minds back to the French treaty of 1923. That was another treaty negotiated by the party now in office. I remember well that it was another knock for the fruit and vegetable business, more particularly for the fruit business. In the Toronto market we had been selling thousands of baskets of the best cherries in each cherry season to the extract men of Toronto and other parts of the dominion, for the purpose of making extracts. The French treaty killed that cherry market because it allowed Italy as well as France to ship cured cherries in here at a price less than the producer in Canada could accept. The result was that thousands of big Montmorency cherry trees were pulled out of the ground, because their fruit was worth nothing. The cherry market has not come back yet. That was another trade treaty which hurt the fruit and vegetable business.
Is it any wonder that people become alarmed when they try to do business at all? I claim there should be more cooperation between business and government. If business were consulted I am satisfied the people in it would be fair with the government. In the United States both industry and business were consulted in connection with the trade treaty we have just negotiated. But in Canada our departmental officials are supposed to know more about everything than men who have been trained in their own line of business. Such rot! It could not be possible, no matter how brilliant our young men in the departments may be, to know as much as the men who have been trained in a particular line of business. So I repeat that we did not get a fair deal.
The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) has said that unemployment is not the greatest problem. He has said that if peace were assured, we would be able to sell our wheat abroad, and that we would have a great recovery. Let me say, Mr. Speaker, that I consider that nothing but a smoke screen. The present government must be entirely out of touch with -business. They ought to know that the real issue to-day is that in the last nine years we have spent $900,000,000 on relief. Surely this indicates that unemployment is the real issue. I say again it is an indication that the government must be both deaf and dumb, and they have nothing to suggest to improve conditions. They are just drifting, along, taking the advice of commissions.

The Address-Mr. Spence
It is unfortunate that they have not more courage. I consider that the growing of wheat to-day is not as important as it was in years gone by, because countries to which we sold many years ago are now growing their own wheat. Nearly every month of the year wheat is ripening in some part of the world, so we need never hope for the same sale of wheat as we had formerly. If it were not for the fact that our Canadian wheat is superior to any other on the world market, it could not be sold at all. The people who buy it have no love for the treatment they received back in 1927 and 1928, when we killed our wheat market. That, however, is out of the question now, and has nothing to do with the present situation.
What has Canada done to help the motherland to protect the movement of our crops to large industrial centres in the British empire and, again, to protect those areas from bombing planes, which might destroy the market forever, so far as Canada is concerned? I am glad to see the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Mackenzie) is proposing to spend money now to defend our country. He will find no opposition from this party, so long as we are sure that the money is being spent to advantage. We have to trust somebody, and we might as well trust the present Minister of National Defence as anybody else while he is in power.
An lion. MEMBER: But.


David Spence: Yes, there are some "buts."


An hon. MEMBER:: Butts on the guns.


David Spence: The Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) said that third parties grew while the Conservatives were in power. I do not take any stock in that at all. He made the further statement that the treaty of 1935 was satisfactory, and that no one could criticize it. He said it made a wider market, and created employment for thousands. We all know it has done nothing of the kind. We know it has destroyed the market, and we have lost, as a result.
It takes a man with a great deal of courage to make a wild statement like that. Sometimes the Prime Minister has courage, because he has a wonderful debating power when he makes a statement of that kind. He must have courage to make it. Let us go back to the years between 1921 and 1930 when the government led by the present Prime Minister was in office. More combines developed and more mergers were created during that time than in any other period of the history of Canada-and no effort was made to stop it. Gradually money got into too few hands. We did not have as fair a distribution of wealth
as formerly obtained. Nothing was done to look after the interior business of Canada, a business which should have deserved more consideration.
Mass buying has been encouraged by the party now in office, a procedure which has driven out individual merchants by the hundreds. That is the beginning of our trouble in Canada. If the mass buying proposition had been tackled at that time we should not have had the condition where so many people have gone broke-as they are doing to-day.
Some hon. members are good at rising in their places in the house and painting pictures of distress. In the best of times there were always some who painted such gloomy pictures. I could paint such pictures in regard to my own constituency, but I do not think it is good business to advertise the country adversely on the floor of the house, when we know what is said here may go all over the world.
My advice in connection with the budget is that it should be brought down much earlier than last year, so that the wheels of industry will not stop altogether. From now on everybody knows business will be lagging, and will continue to lag until the budget is brought down. For those reasons I wish the government would give the matter special consideration and bring down the budget in a hurry. I hope and pray that there may be no lowering of the tariffs for either farm or factory. A change in tariffs, whether they be raised or lowered, always creates trouble in the business world. I do not, and never did, believe in high tariffs. But I believe we have to protect the growers on the farm and the people in industry. There is no use in growers producing stuff unless the workers in the industrial centres have money to buy the goods. That is one of the important points to remember. Then, in Canada we have spent millions of dollars in educating the youth of Canada to develop the industry of the United States. That was done in those good old days when this dominion should have been growing by leaps and bounds. For years Canada was simply an incubator for the United States. Now our people cannot go over there, and they do not want to. Those who are there were treated well in the early days, and Canadians were always welcome.
Meddling with business and tinkering with tariffs in Canada brought business to a bad condition in 1930. Some hon. members have said that fifty per cent of the farmers are broke. Let me say that over fifty per cent of people who were in business in 1930 are out of business and penniless to-day. That is a worse condition than that of the farmers.
The Address-Mr. Spence

Many of these people in business cannot even make an assignment. I heard someone say that there are fewer assignments to-day than there were a few years ago, but the only reason for that is that many of these business men are in such bad condition that the trustee or assignee will not undertake the job because he is not sure of getting his money for looking after the estate.


Walter Edward Foster: I am sorry to have to notify the hon. member that his time has expired.


David Spence: It is not often that I take up the time of the house in saying anything.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Go on.


Walter Edward Foster: With the unanimous
consent of the house.


David Spence: The hon. member for North Battleford (Mr. McIntosh), for whom I have a great deal of regard and who is a personal friend of mine, has on the order paper another motion with regard to a new Canadian flag. At a previous session he was good enough to withdraw a similar motion. This is a trivial thing to bring up to-day when world conditions are what they are, when we have so many international troubles with which to deal. The hon. member for Quebec-Mont-morency (Mr. Lacroix) also has on the order paper a resolution asking that the word "viceroy" be substituted for "governor general", and that the name of this country should be the "Kingdom of Canada" instead of the "Dominion of Canada." What a lot of nonsense taking up the time of this house with resolutions of that kind! I cannot understand why hon. members put motions like that on the order paper. It is such motions that create unrest, disunity and misunderstanding. I do not suppose the hon. members I have named intended that their resolutions should have that effect, but I think all hon. members should use better judgment in these times of trouble and tribulation. I appeal to both hon. members to withdraw their motions in the interests of this house and this country.
Some hon. members advocate reduction of taxes. They say that the sales tax should be eliminated; that the stamp tax should be discontinued and that other taxes should be wiped out. Then, before they sit down, they advocate the granting of more money to the provinces and the municipalities. How do they suppose the government is going to get money when all taxes are eliminated? You can get only what you take from the people, and no

government can be blamed for that. Personally I should like to see all- nuisance taxes abolished. I hate having to put a three or a six-cent stamp on every cheque I write.
My contention is that every effort should be made to study possible means of economizing. I have had to economize all my life. There was no other way in which I could get along. Economy should be studied in every branch of the service. The cost of administration in this House of Commons is entirely too high. A business administrator could save possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars in running this house, but he would not be very popular. It would be pretty difficult to practise economy around here.
The number of publications issued by the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Euler) and the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) should be curtailed. Thousands of publications are sent out through the country, when, I should imagine, hundreds would do. What happens to them after they are sent out? The mail men in the city of Toronto and other centres are getting humps on their backs from the loads they have to carry. Much of the stuff sent out from this house and from the different departments is simply carried in through the front-door, possibly kept about fifteen minutes, and then sent out through the back. These publications are simply a waste of good paper and good printing. I said the same thing to the hon. member for Melville (Mr. Motherwell) when he was Minister of Agriculture, but he did not agree with me. He felt that the publications sent out by his department were more important than those sent out by the Department of Trade and Commerce. Each department feels that its publications are very necessary.
Hon. members and others outside the house have been kicking about the cost of government, but no one has had the back-bone to suggest what should be done to reduce this cost. I would start with this house. If the British North America Act would allow it, I would cut the membership from 245 members to 150. The membership of the provincial legislatures should be cut in half, if not eliminated altogether. The number of county councils could be reduced, although I sometimes think these county councils are of more value to the country than the provincial legislatures. I know quite a bit about county councils.


An hon. MEMBER:: How about the
senate?


David Spence: I am not talking about the senate because it is out of my jurisdiction. I do not know whether my suggestions will

The Address-Mr. Spence
meet with approval. I notice the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) is smiling. He thinks I am jesting, but I am not.


Ernest Lapointe: I agree with most of what the hon. member says.


David Spence: The cost of government
should be cut down. The salaries paid to the members of this house do not represent all of the waste. Where economy is needed is in the money spent in the different ridings in playing the patronage game. A post office costing $50,000 is built for a town of seven or eight hundred people. This was done since this government came into power.
I think the dumping duties are absolutely wrong. The government has allowed the United States to dictate the number of commodities upon which dumping duties are to be levied as well as the amount of the duty. Four-fifths of a cent or one-half a cent a pound is not a dumping duty. Even the dumping duties that we imposed in our time did not stop stuff from coming in from the other side. There are some people in this country who will pay any price for a commodity if they want it. The dumping duties should be substantial. Another thing, no importer should know the time the dumping duty is to apply.
I have a recommendation to make which I hope the government will consider. I think this would simplify matters around the customs house. I always like to try to make things easier for the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Ilsley). Instead of having dumping duties on oranges for eight months in a year, have a duty applied for the year round. I suggest a duty of twenty-five cents a box on oranges, grapefruit, pineapples, lemons and other commodities of that kind. This would simplify matters around the customs house. Everybody would have an opportunity to compete with the other man. When it is known that the dumping duty is to be applied at a certain date, an importer with a large amount of money available can buy a greater number of oranges than another importer who has only limited funds upon which to operate. A man may have only $10,000 to $50,000, but most of his operating money will be on his books. You require a considerable amount of money to run a business. The man who can buy only one car of a commodity cannot compete with the man who can buy ten or fifteen cars before the dumping duty goes on. Such a man is able to offer cutthroat competition for the next three or four weeks. That is something for the government to consider.
The seasonal duty on oranges is around seventy-five cents a box, which is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. The duty on grapefruit is one-half cent a pound. Take a ten-car order, which is a fairly small one. The man who can buy before the duty goes on is able to save $345 a car. On a ten-car order that means $3,450. Such a man can sell below another man who is able to order only one car, and still make a big profit. These matters should be arranged so that one individual can compete fairly with another. We should not be playing into the hands of the monopolists and big interests.
It seems to me that we have allowed too many reductions on goods we buy from the United States. I do not think our negotiators had the necessary training. The United States had their specialists from the business and industrial world. They gave us reductions on those commodities which they will never buy, whereas we gave reductions on those commodities that we buy from them all the time. We have been going on reducing everything five per cent, or similar amounts.
I think you will agree with me, Mr. Speaker, that too much raw material is leaving Canada which should be processed at home, thus giving employment to probably thousands of our own people and giving the railroads plenty of business in moving the stuff backwards and forwards at a higher freight rate than that which the railways get for hauling our raw materials to the seaboard, and which is the lowest freight rate in the world. That is common sense, whether you are a free trader or not. The more people you give employment to in this country, the better.
One hon. member suggested during the debate the other day that the government should develop great mines, on the advice of engineers and geologists. I would not approve taking the advice of engineers, much less that of geologists. I have been fooled that way before. But if three or four men of good common sense have a good proposition in a mine and have a hundred thousand dollars or so of their own to put into it, it would not do any harm for the government to stick in another hundred thousand and take the profits, instead of allowing the whole enterprise to become a monopoly and make more millionaires like our good friend Wright who bought out the Globe. But I repeat, I would not take the advice of engineers or geologists.
I received a document to-day from the civil service commission, and it seems to me ridiculous. I gather from it that they want 115 men technically trained for different kinds of positions in chemistry, entomology, economic*,
The Address-Mr. Spence

and so forth. We have had enough economics in this house to do me all my life. I never heard a discussion on economics that I could agree with anyway. I have studied economy in another way altogether, and I never knew anything about economics. Let me cite a few of these positions that are to be filled by the civil service commission. Men are wanted for work along such lines, as botanical surveys, fruit diseases, dairy research, soil research, flycatchers, field husbandry, parasites.
I am one who has imported a great deal of stuff in my lifetime from Holland. I am not doing it very much now because, like everything else, somebody has stolen the business and you cannot get it back. The people of Holland are just as particular that their stuff leaves Holland in good shape as we are to receive it in good shape, and there is very little danger of any plant diseases coming from there. But the entomological branch examines every package that comes out of the box. I have no objection to that because it would be wrong to let any foreign insect that might do a lot of harm get into this country. But I certainly do not see why we need all these men at this particular time. Is business growing? Is our population growing? Is everything so good that we want to spend money? Or is this the pork-barrel? Or are these 115 people to help win the next election? Extravagance of that kind is the worst in the world and should be curtailed.
What I have said about cutting down the membership of the house and of the provincial assemblies I think should be done. Of course, I shall be told that the British North America Act will not allow it; that we can do nothing with the act there. But, Mr. Speaker, rules were made for people who do not understand very much, and we should change them all if they prevent us from doing what should be done.


Mr. J. S. TAYLOR (Nanaimo):: Mr. Speaker, I have been interested and intrigued by the uniformity and unanimity with which members have risen to congratulate their fellows who have deserved well of this house. It reminds me of a ceremonial Swedish banquet where, from the youngest member to the oldest, they pass in front of the dowager hostess and thank her for the meal they have enjoyed

"Tack fur mat. Tack, tack, tack fur mat. Tusend tack fur mat. Tack fur mat."
The hon. lady member for Grey-Bruce (Miss Macphail) feeling that it was becoming a little monotonous, sought to lump her congratulations together and delivered them in one great panegyric. I myself feel that at this

late stage of the debate some change should be effected and so, Mr. Speaker, I desire to say it with flowers. For that reason I propose to hand to the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Matthews) and the hon. member for Stormont (Mr. Chevrier) pansies for thoughts, and rosemary for remembrance- thoughtful remembrance of their leader to new party members.
To the hon. member for Essex West (Mr. McLarty) some violets-violets for faithfulness-and a sprig of ivy in order that he may be zealous in his desire to please in his new office.
But there is also the hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. MacKinnon), and to him more violets, for faithfulness, but also-a lily, pure and white, and, since he will never be able to keep it in a portfolio, the kindly wish that he may keep it pure and' help it to last as long as possible.
To the hon. leader of the opposition (Mr.. Manion) roses, roses, plenty of roses, with a little sprig of fennel, so that he may have the loving flattery of his own party; and if the roses turn out to be blue ones, possibly that is just the colour the hon. member wants.
To the hon. member for Kootenay East (Mr. Stevens) a sprig of rue, the herb o' grace, rue for repentance, circled round with many twigs of hazel representing the reconciliation and forgiveness of his friends.
And now, Mr. Speaker, that I have given away all my flowers, I want to record, socialist though I consider myself to be, the real sense of satisfaction which I experience from the fact that Their Majesties the King and Queen of Canada are going to see our country and to deepen by their act the symbolical significance of their place in the scheme of things. To me, sir, the evolution of a free society does not under any circumstances necessarily imply or compel the elimination of that continuing act that we call government. In this evolution government has become among democratic peoples a function of the people, entrusted by the people to representatives of the people, to act for the people. In the struggles of the peoples for freedom in the British democracies, the hereditary rulers have for all time forsworn their right personally to govern, and they have accepted a new and higher symbolical position and significance in their historical succession. As a result, to-day the soul of the people of Canada finds its living symbol in the peculiar person and functions of its king, the King of Canada, he in turn being honoured in his domestic duties by the presence and help of his gracious wife, the Queen of Canada. To-day in every part of

The Address-Mr. Taylor (Nanaimo)
the empire this same symbolism is accepted and welcomed in the hearts of the people.
I give this explanation because of the many people in our land searching for a correct interpretation of the social movement in Canada, people who find their hearts and minds struggling adequately to rebut the arguments of republicans and the arguments also of the dogmatic socialists, many of whom are vocative members of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation.
Removed as a British king is from ambitious selection by heredity; removed as he is from partisanship of every kind by the very nature of his new position and responsibilities; removed as he is from danger of failure in continuity by the very considerations which establish his functions, no citizen of Canada or of the empire need fear that majesty to-day usurps any rights or claims any privileges not entirely proper to the sublimest interests of the people or its most democratic expression, whether those expressions be of capitalism or socialism or any other ism or economy. Consequently, human nature being what it is, my conviction remains that we honour only ourselves when we elevate to his proper place our king, with his queen, as the living symbol of the soul of the people of Canada and when we respect and honour him as such.
There may be some excuse for the dogmatic socialists viewpoint, and there may be even some excuse for the Vancouver Cooperative Commonwealth Federation lady alderman who classified their majesties' intended progress through Canada as "a royal circus"; but if I still correctly estimate the hearts and minds of many Cooperative Commonwealth Federationists in British Columbia, their loyalty to the kingly conception is not the less sincere because it has kept pace with the changing social conditions of our times.
Yet, while rejoicing, my heart is sore, contemplating the condition of many if not most of the people in this amazingly rich and fertile country to which our king and queen are coming. The disposition of many hon. members to take solace and excuse in the biblical statement, "Ye have the poor always with you," is pusillanimous, and it loses its value still more when we recognize that the word in the original Greek text does not mean so much poverty of pocket as it does poverty of mind and opportunity. I well remember as a youngster, away back in my native city of Liverpool, visiting the slum districts under the guidance and expert direction of a very keen student of humanity. I saw and learned there pictures of poverty before which even
the tragic pictures of Canadian life to-day lose their luridness by comparison. In 1907, by way of rounding out my experiences in human understanding, I investigated and learned of the festering sores which suppurated Whitechapel and other districts in the east end of London. In 1937, on visiting England again, I made a point of revisiting these ok places in London, Liverpool and other parts o: the country; and though there is still a great deal to be desired in the condition of these people, my heart was rejoiced to see how here and there and everywhere, slowly but surely the submerged tenth of which that great humanitarian, General Booth, wrote, was being carefully lifted out of the waters of affliction and their feet planted on the highway which leads to opportunity and social security. And so, drawing attention to the fact that my service covers over fifty years of what I myself believe to be a keenly observant mind directed by natural inclination to the study of my fellowman, I am prepared frankly to admit that Canada has no terrors of poverty to compare in its bestial actualities with the conditions of life in the eighties in the older countries of Europe.
Some hon. MEMBERS; Hear, hear.


James Samuel Taylor: But because I have by this admission led my optimistic friends complacently on, I must rudely shatter their smugness by declaring that the tragedy of suffering to-day in Canada is as vicious to the sufferers here as it was to the sufferers in those older countries-vicious because of its utter needlessness, vicious because of its comparison with what might easily be accomplished, and vicious because its difficulties are so easily understood to-day and so easily remedied.
To-day, because of these facts, it becomes a crime against any community if the government causes such misery. Therefore I declare that if in Canada our people have not adequate food, clothing and shelter, we are committing a crime against our people in this land flowing with the milk and honey of abundance, and sooner or later we must get busy and stamp out that crime. Surely it will be agreed that, if we export wheat, no Canadian citizen should fail to have his bread; if we export milk, no Canadian child should go short of that essential food; if we export cattle, no Canadian worker should sigh hopelessly for his beef; and if we export bacon, no child of Canada should imitate that gutter urchin of the nineties in the Mile End road who went to the comer grocery store and said something like this, "Sye, mister, coupla' ounces of bacon
502	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. Taylor (Nanaimo)
cut wiv a hammy knife, and muvver says tell old red-head not to be stingy." You have all heard that before, but it draws a vivid picture.
Of course I am still new to politics; 1936 marked my first appearance in this or any other elective house, and I came green and raw to the problems of government. I have been disillusioned more times than I care to think of. I have often compared the strange political efforts of the combined membership of this house with the actions of a paunchy individual whom I knew away back in the South African Transkei many years ago. In the heat of summer he liked to wear his trousers back side to front because, he said, it gave him such a feeling of comfort and coolness. With us, we wear the garment of retrogression to escape the heat and distress of these terrible days in Canada. Hon. members, two hundred and forty-five men and women of more than ordinary intellectual capacity, able in themselves individually and collectively to run most of the professions and industries of our nation, meet here in solemn conclave to settle our affairs, but meet here after having secretly sworn, each to himself or herself, never under any circumstances to allow anything to be done in the house in a way that ordinary commercial business is done; never to use any of the principles which have so eminently succeeded in business or professional life; never to permit any interference with business ; never to permit the honesty and integrity of business and professional life to mould and fashion the policies of party government.
Of course I have overdrawn the picture; of course I have not hesitated to be caustic in my condemnation; but before I have finished my remarks, discerning members will understand exactly what I mean. It is because of this confliction of vibration that high-minded leaders utter pre-election cries and bring to the public platforms appeals which ring true in the hearts and minds of the people. But it is because of this also that the voice of opposition becomes merely the voice of opposition and turns this august forum too often into a cockpit of tykes and terriers. Because of this, earnest, thinking members again and again drag their solutions of the country's difficulties to be here reasoned about and criticized. But it is because of this also that there is no burial place so deep as the records of this house, no gravestones so heavy as the pages of Hansard. Because of this, men wonder that wrongs are not righted the moment they are declared wrongs. Because of this, we in this 
house stand fearfully at the doors of common sense and progress, afraid to raise the latch or raise a foot to cross the thresholds. I have heard men in this house, not once or twice, but many times declare that they would not stand for these things for a single moment in their own business. Why then, in God's name, do we as members of this house stand for these things?
In a picture now in Ottawa Ronald Colman enacts the part of a member addressing the House of Commons at Westminster, and in an impassioned speech declares as follows: "The only party to which we should now in these times belong and owe allegiance is all humanity. Let us get together to right these wrongs and mayhap in the doing of it we shall also save our souls." The essential differences between parties render the tasks necessarily tiresome, carping and formal. I have waited for the present government to break through its orthodoxies. I regret to say I have waited practically all the time in vain. I can hope for no better from any of the other parties. Let us forget the political advantages for which we are eternally exhibiting ourselves and let us together drive want and despair from our land; for it can be done and it must be done.
I have said I hope for little from any of the parties as such, and I repeat that until the members of the house are prepared to think in terms of our people's need rather than in terms of party, we shall continue to face a rapidly approaching disaster from which we may never recover. Having said this, I do not know whether hon. members will react with amusement or with toleration or perhaps with righteous indignation when I tell them that in that beautiful part of Vancouver island, the Nanaimo riding, our citizens have double representation. There is the sitting member who devotes all his time to the duties and cares of his office, and there is the supreme director of political patronage, the defeated Liberal candidate who approves or disapproves the efforts of the sitting member as he thinks fit, but who cleverly ensures that his own picture shall be well placed in the local papers and that he, and often he alone, shall get the credit for every advantage secured. So well has this excellent division of service and of credit been maintained that I cannot recall a single occasion when the member failed to make an effort to do his duty or the dispenser of patronage failed to secure the credit for the work done.
I have accepted these conditions amicably for nearly three years and have laughed consistently at the hollowness of the situations

The Address-Mr. Taylor (Nanaimo)
it brought about. But I find myself turned definitely to anger when I contemplate its effect on the whole body politic. I have no personal ill-will against this young man. I understand that he has done good work in other directions. I have no personal ill-will against anybody, or, if I have, I try earnestly, with the intenseness of my nature, to avoid it. But that young man will have enough to do to contest his nomination for election in face of the two opposing Liberal candidates whom he will meet. His patronage activities, however, I want to declare in this house, are absolutely contemptible. I have profound personal respect for the right hon. the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) and I have wholeheartedly extended my respect to his ministers. I confess to a sense of joyous relief that the Bren gun probe so recently held left the character of the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Mackenzie) unquestioned. But I do know that official letters leave Ottawa enjoining government officials on the Pacific coast to have their submissions for new service in my constituency referred to this back-door member of the riding. I do know that last session, when this young backdoor member was in Ottawa, I was called into the private room of a minister of this government-of course, when the minister was absent-to be warned by that young man that I would be a fool if I ran against him for reelection, because he was nursing the constituency for himself and wanted the seat, while I would do nothing more than ruin his chances and fail to seize my own.
Even these things were as "water on a duck's back"; but when I have information that my efforts as member for the constituency have been cancelled or delayed until it suited this man to act, I feel that the country should know; for if these things are being done in the green tree, in heaven's name what will be done in the dry? The latest stupidity, to use a mild expression is this: Early last year, 1938, I conveyed bo the former Postmaster General (Mr. Elliott) the desire of the citizens of Duncan for two street pillar-boxes to facilitate mail posting. Approved departmentally early in May, 1938, this simple business facility was deliberately hung up by this back-door member until this month, January, 1939, eight months afterwards. The local paper, the Cowichan Leader, Duncan, B.C., under date of Thursday, January 19, 1939, writes as follows:
Two Mail Boxes to be Placed on Hospital Hill and Townsite.
Residents of Duncan's Hospital Hill and Townsite will no longer have to go to the post office to mail letters. Duncan junior chamber of commerce has won its fight to have mail
boxes placed beside the school store at the corner of Cairnsmore street and the Island highway, and beside Smith's community store at the corner of Coronation avenue and Bundock street.
With the cooperation of Mr. H. A. Collings, Duncan postmaster, Mr. Claude Green, the junior chamber's committee of one, has been trying for nearly a year to obtain official consent to the erection of the boxes.
Action finally was secured through a letter to Mr. Alan Chambers, Liberal candidate at the last dominion election. Mr. Chambers wrote this week that authority had been given.
I should like the government to look into that matter. This does not disturb me personally. It will not affect my decision to run again or not to run again. As a matter of fact, I have not yet told myself what I shall do. And I am not seeking credit for my services; they have been sought for and accepted willingly as an honourable duty. But I do earnestly warn the government that these things produce unrest and disquiet throughout the country. The country knows of them, and that disquiet is continually increasing. I declare that political knavery in the outfield is not the best way to train the cricketer to use his bat when he goes to the wicket. I hope hon. members will recognize these stupidities as some more of those things done in politics which would not be tolerated in a well conducted business. Of course it is likely that denial will follow denial. But all that I have said is absolutely true as far as my researches have been able to penetrate the zone of silence which surrounds these matters. While I have had to reflect upon the actions of an individual, I have done so quite unwillingly, my scruples overcome by the gravity of the destroying influence of political patronage in practically every aspect.
Nor unfortunately do I gain much from the contemplation of the activities of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation. The earnest representation given by the high-minded members of that party in this house does not remove the political trickery which too often activates the controlling members of the party throughout the dominion. Here the members of that party are still largely a protest group, and in consequence of my taunt that no constructive plan was placed before the house by them they have submitted many desired features of an entirely new economy, without, however, showing the constitutional path by which these desired features might be secured for the people. And that, I submit, is essential. In the country the provincial executives are becoming increasingly Marxian socialists with all that this implies of secret talks against the institution of monarchy, of apotheosizing
504	COMMONS
The Address-Mr. Taylor (Nanaimo)
Marx even beyond the halo which surrounds the Master of all time, of necessary sympathy with the Russian experiment, the human teredos of communism and the revolutionary formulae of Marx and Engels. I have already indicated that the Marxists had seized the British Columbia provincial party executive and were sedulously proselytizing the emotional and protesting adherents of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation there. Do not forget that last word in the title, " federation." In 1932, when the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis) carried his credentials to Calgary, to what was to become the birthplace of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, he carried credentials not only from the socialist party of Canada but also from the Vancouver branch of the League for Social Reconstruction, of which I was then a militant member and later became the secretary. The federation was to be farmer-labour-socialist, organizations united in social economic effort. British Columbia never did obtain the united political support of its labour organizations, while the League for Social Reconstruction, or rather its political offshoot, was ousted from its federating possibilities to become either a tool or to be pushed off the shuffleboard.
In Alberta the United Farmers of Alberta, whose untiring worker, Norman Priestley, was the first national secretary of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, have now renounced political aims, withdrawing officially and, therefore, in large measure by membership, from the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation ranks. Thus slowly passes almost unnoticed in its retrograding the Marxist-controlled Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, in its inception and in the enthusiastic hopes of its first devoted workers the finest and most promising economic movement which has demanded attention in Canadian life.
The Social Credit party have not been mentioned by me, but I should not omit them. It will be recognized that I have not hesitated during my work in this house to criticize them as well as to declare the value to the country of their formula. I have little other than sincere respect for the members of this party. I have condemned the weakness in the particular formula by which they hope to bring their hearts' desire to the people. But they are united; they are moving along one track to one goal, and I am impressed to say that because of that we shall see them here in larger numbers in future sessions of this house, battering at the orthodoxies which have our time-worn system in their grasp.

There is one final word and wish arising out of all that I have said. That is that we may get together as a house, intelligent and eager to discover a way by which, no matter what system we live under, we can assure for our people in Canada social security and health and peace and sweet content.
Mr. NORMAN J. M. LOCKHART (Lincoln) : It is not my desire to add to the repetition of congratulatory references which have been made in this house during the continuance of this debate. May I, however, be permitted to join in all those that have been expressed by hon. members who have preceded me. I do desire to add my word to the expressions of appreciation from all parts of the house on the return to public life of the hon. member for London (Mr. Manion) and his succession to the leadership of the National Conservative party. It is most gratifying to note that he has spoken all across Canada and is recognized as a man of integrity and a good Canadian. Perhaps I should also extend a special word of welcome to my colleague the hon. member for Waterloo South (Mr. Homuth) who has already so nobly acquitted himself in this house. In the brief reference he made to his victory in the recent by-election, I know it was his modesty which prevented him from referring to the fact that his majority was such that both of his opponents in the campaign lost their deposits. It is quite obvious that the citizens of central Ontario expressed themselves in a most definite way, and more especially when we remember the heavy battery of strong ministers who went there to assist the Liberal candidate. I attended one of the meetings and sat in the back seat, and I found it interesting to hear what was said.
May I be permitted to add a word of appreciation on behalf of the citizens of the Niagara peninsula, and more particularly Lincoln county, of the arrangements being made for their majesties to visit that historic peninsula, with all its wealth of orchards and vineyards. The royal party will inspect the great Welland ship canal, and spend a short time in the historic old town of Niagara-on-the-Lake, which was the seat of responsible government in Upper Canada many years before confederation. Then they will visit the sacred shrine at Queenston heights, where the name of Laura Secord is perpetuated in memory by the citizens of Canada. They will view at close hand the great power houses of the hydro-electric system of Ontario and travel along the picturesque boulevard which skirts the Niagara gorge, ending their scenic drive at Niagara falls, to rest for a few hours

The Address-Mr. Lockhart
within sight of the mighty cataract, before crossing into the United States. The citizens of the Niagara peninsula, many of whom are direct descendants of United Empire Loyalist stock will welcome the opportunity of expressing their loyalty and devotion to their majesties on their visit to Canada.
In the present debate all hon. members are given ample opportunity to express their views on the subject matter contained in the speech from the throne. When the speech from the throne is presented it is considered to contain a reflection of the policies the government is advocating to meet the problems which confront the Canadian people. It is only fair that we should compare the speech from the throne with the pledges made to the electors before the election in October, 1935, and before this government took office.
After three years I had expected to find at least some explanation of the unfulfilled promises made to the citizens of Canada at that time. Naturally it is with no surprise that we hear increasing murmurings from every part of the dominion. Evasion and inaction are terms which are being applied to the lack of policy which has been so evident during the last three years. A great fear hangs over Canada. For some time past the world has been in a state of military eruption. The crust of civilization appears to be wearing thinner and thinner. With strange suddenness that crust has been broken in spots, only to emit violence and the destructive flames of war. To a certain extent those eruptions have been more or less of a minor nature compared with what may take place at any moment.
We cannot, however, lose sight of the fact that the streets of distant cities and towns are flowing again with human blood. To listen to the speeches delivered by the Prime Minister of England and Chancellor Hitler within the last few days makes one wonder just how quickly the eruption might come again. Fear has again seized a once trusting people. Economists declare war is the result of the natural demand for new markets, aggravated by the irresistible need for raw materials. Whatever frenzy has seized a few-and a few only-of the once so-called civilized nations of the world, it is generally conceded that a more vicious form of selfishness and greed is dominating the hearts and minds of a few of the nations who were professing culture and progress, but who have cast aside all semblance of decency in their lust for power and possession. Surely it is high time, in the name of right and justice, we openly joined our limited resources with those of greater influence.
In the speech from the throne we have the proposal to spend over sixty millions on national defence. With that policy I am in hearty accord. Only a few madmen have made necessary this most drastic action. Is it not, however, all too significant that hand in hand with the proposal to spend vast millions on defence we have laid before us the report of what is called the Davis commission, appointed to inquire into the first large armament expenditure that has been made. On the streets the general comment is that evasion was evident in the report. Some call it a whitewash; some interpret it as the direct result of political influence. One has only to keep his ears open and say nothing, and he will conclude that whatever else the Bren gun can do, it is certainly going to have a double-barrelled recoil on the minds of the people of Canada.
May I extend a word of congratulation to the hon. member for Vancouver North (Mr. MacNeil) upon the able way in which he presented his views to the house, following a study of the commission's report. We heard the rumblings of the past two years concerning the way in which defence moneys had been spent on the Pacific coast. How that echo has gained volume, with the last few millions of dollars spent for Bren guns! Thousands of dollars have been spent on a commission and now parliament is to decide whether or not we have dug a dead factory from an industrial grave. Now we have a scurrying for cover behind the promise that this will not happen again, because "we are now to set up a defence purchasing board." Mention the Bren gun inquiry on the street, in the train, in a hotel corridor or, perchance, in any place where men would congregate, and if a person were to take a straw vote on what he heard or the opinions expressed, I can only say that the old saying would still hold good, namely that you cannot fool all the people all the time. Is it to be wondered that we have fear at home and abroad? In the midst of it all we stop and realize that unemployment is again on the increase.
Oh, yes, I forgot we are to have some assistance given to the struggling taxpayers at this eleventh hour. Some help is to be given to the taxpayer who has been doing his best to relieve the burdens of some of his brother-men. But in thousands of instances it is too late. The red arrow indicating a tax sale, the red arrow indicating a foreclosure, was aimed two or three years ago at the home owner who had dreaded it for years. The earnings of half a lifetime or perhaps a whole lifetime are gone. Why was
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not some help along this line given nearly four years ago? Someone who was most unkind has whispered, "Do you not know there is liable to be an election this year?" That information may be authentic, but 1 do not know.
I understand the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Mackenzie) has originated some scheme of financing our defence costs over a ten year period. This may help the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) out of some of his difficulties. Apparently we are not to get the full effect of the blow until a year or two from now. I noticed the hon. member for North Battleford (Mr. McIntosh) has again introduced legislation to change our flag. I suggest that he defer any action this year in order that we may have an opportunity to realize what the union jack means to Canada and what it has meant down through the centuries. Perhaps if we pass safely through a few more crises, we can adopt a suitable ensign for ceremonial purposes. If 200,000 of the unemployed are again called to arms-and God forbid that they should be-I do not imagine they will mind standing shoulder to shoulder with British tommies under the union jack. The history of Canada is such that every right-thinking Canadian cannot help but realize that, after all, we are a part of the British empire.
Many people in this country are tired of camouflage. They have had enough evasion. They are wondering how long it will be before we come out and tell the world where we stand. We are being asked to vote $60,000,000 or $70,000,000 for defence. So far as I am concerned, if it were necessary I would say, make it $160,000,000 or $170,000,000. But I do urge this government to make haste in taking armaments out of the political pot. Let us not have half -measures; let us be honest with these young men who are unemployed. How we shall need their services if we are forced to spend perhaps $100,000,000 or more on defence!
I plead with this government to see that in the spending of the next $10,000,000 or $12,000,000 there is no need to smear Canadian defence records with another investigation. Perhaps some hon. members will rise in their place, and say that there was no need of an investigation. But the report is being read; it is now in the hands of the public. I suggest to all members of the government and to all others who do not think in terms of Canada and the empire that they tune in on what is on the air. This is one broadcast that cannot be controlled by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation of the present government.

In this connection may I say that I am one who favours the reasonable regulation of broadcasting period. Wave-lengths must be controlled and distributed. The broadcasting of obscene programs must be made an indictable offence. There are many other matters that must and can be controlled as they are being controlled by other countries in the handling of radio broadcasting. Let us consider the system that has been built up in Canada, as it has been made evident in the last few weeks. This system has been financed largely by taking $2.50 from the pockets of each individual radio owner in this country. This is just another broadcast that will deal a death-blow to the government when the next election comes round. I say to the people of Canada that it will not be long now. If I am in this parliament when that time comes, I shall move to have this unfair tax taken from the statute books. All this has been described to me in a rather amusing way, which is perhaps worth repeating, as the broadcast from LPSO. When I asked for an interpretation of that station name, I was told it was the "Liberal party signing off," to return to the air, we hope, at some later date.
I desire to say just a word about unemployment. We have had this time-worn reference to unemployment in previous speeches from the throne. How we have played checkers with this problem during the last three years! Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on a commission-of course it must be by a commission-to have the underprivileged set up in new categories and classifications. I opposed the setting up of this commission, but I am quite frank to admit that I am less critical to-day. That commission did make a number of good recommendations with which I am mostly in agreement. But, I ask, how many of them have been acted upon in -the speech from the throne delivered in 1939? I expect that Mr. Purvis will have now concluded that such a report as followed the Bren gun inquiry would have served the same end as the one which he so ably submitted to this parliament.
The hon. -ministers of the government know or should know, and every hon. member of this house knows or should know, that unemployment is a burning problem in 1939 just as it was in 1936. This government said this before last election. Has it not been held up to our eyes in every speech from the throne since 1935? When no tangible solution has

The Address-Mr. Lockhart
been found I am surprised that such an extended reference to unemployment should be made in the speech from the throne this year.
Everyone knows that the farmer is harder pressed year by year. Everyone knows that the fruit and vegetable growers are sore beset by importations of fresh fruit and vegetables. Just read their protests made at their recent conventions, and I shall have more to say on that later on. I have had some resolutions sent to me already, and there are more to follow, which will be useful when we are discussing the trade agreements in this house.
Everyone knows that secondary industry is being driven to desperation to keep factories running even on part-time. Every hon. member of this house knows that. I have talked with many heads of industries in recent months, and they are making every effort to maintain the esprit de corps of their employees. Surely the hon. Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) does not imply that industry as a whole is not cooperating. I tried to follow his words, and I gathered that impression, but I hope I was wrong.
The greatest difficulty found by secondary industry to-day, when a slight increase of business, which they are striving after day by day, comes to them, is that immediately they call back some of their former employees, or perhaps call in new men to obtain temporary assistance to handle the new business they may have secured, they find that a great many of these men have been on relief and have lost the art of doing the job they used to do. Industrial leaders will tell you that, any day you wish to converse with them on the subject. That has been my experience with secondary industries, and I come from an industrial area, with a diversification of industries.
If the hon. Minister of Labour finds that industry is in some instances exploiting its workmen, surely he has the machinery to take care of that situation. But at once I hear the cry that provincial rights must not be encroached upon. I am getting a little weary of hearing that, Mr. Speaker, in this House of Commons; and how in the last three years this has grown and multiplied! There must be a reason for this. True, we experienced some of these difficulties in former years, but did we find the difficulties insurmountable? Whereas a former administration instituted old age pensions, we find the federal government now paying 75 per cent and the provincial government, 25 per cent. We had cooperation then, and by cooperation now we
extend that act, as suggested by the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green), to take in citizens who have reached sixty-five years of age. Would it not have been reasonable to expect in the speech from the throne that in the light of economic conditions to-day the government might have desired an expression on this point from parliament? We all know that men and women over sixty-five years of age are now completely out of the running when it comes to getting a job.
My conviction is that if the federal government would lead in the field of constructive social legislation, there would be no- more difficulty with the provinces than was experienced in extending the old age pensions scheme. It does appear to me that there must be something radically wrong in the approach that has been made by the federal government to the provincial governments, or we would not find the provinces resenting to the extent they do the attitude of the central government. The man on the street keeps asking why the happy family of 1935 can no longer agree. One premier came out openly for -one hundred per cent cooperation, and yet he to-day is the bitterest in his denunciation of -the policies that have been followed by the central government. There is an old saying, that water will find its own level. I suggest that there have been too many holes somewhere; that the water has formed into pools, and how stagnant some of those pools have become! Workers, farmers, and men of capital-everyone would willingly cooperate to solve the -crossword puzzle we have before us to-day, if only they were given a lead.
I shall not criticize the Minister of Labour for the effort he has made to train a small percentage of our youth, a small percentage of that immense number of young men and young women who are turned loose in Canada every year. There has been special training, youth training, as it is called, to supplement technical education. I was interested in a remark made by the Hon. Eric Cross the other day, that he wanted the federal government to list these men who are wandering the highways and byways. I shall not take trine to read his statement because hon. members have probably seen it, but I should like briefly to give a personal experience.
A young man came to my home just a few days before I left to attend this session. His clothing was in a terrible state, and he was almost barefoot, although it was a cold night. His plight enlisted my sympathy so I invited him in to have a talk, and this, briefly was his story. He was born and had
The Address-Mr. Lockhart

lived in the city of Guelph. His mother was dead; his father was on relief. He attended the technical school, and among the subjects he qualified in was welding. Leaving school with his diploma he got seven months work in one of the industries there. Then the industry told him that they had lost a great deal of business through competition, and they laid him off. He then went to Sarnia to seek a job, having been told that there was welding to be done there, but he could get no work to do, so he begged his meals and hitch-hiked back to Toronto, where one industry, which was almost shut down, told him they hoped to get some business and suggested that he come back in three weeks when they might have some welding work for him to do. Boats were being repaired at Port Dalhousie, involving considerable welding, so he thumbed his way to Port Dalhousie, and that is how he happened to come to my home, cold and hungry.
Parallel with that I received a letter just a few days ago from a young man whose family I am well acquainted with, and who is attending the central technical school in Toronto. He is specializing in welding there and expects to graduate this summer. He wrote asking me if I knew of any place to which he could direct his attention in order to get a job after he graduated. Am I to tell him the story of the young man from Guelph who tramped and hitch-hiked all over this country trying to get a job at welding? The whole difficulty is that secondary industry is throttled and cannot possibly provide jobs for these young men with special training. You do not have to leave Ottawa to find that out. I suppose quite a number of members of the house saw the article in the morning edition of the Journal of last Friday, from which I quote:
Homeless wanderers coming from the easternmost reaches of the dominion and the prairie provinces sleep with down-and-outers from Montreal and Toronto.
"We've never had a winter like it," declared the desk sergeant. Many of the men had been attracted to northern Ontario by reports of mining activity there, but found no work.
Heaviest night the police doss-house has had this winter was when twenty-nine received the privileges of the lock-up. On Sunday night last, coldest of the winter to date, nineteen were admitted.
Unemployment needs the earnest consideration of this house and this government.
May I say just a word about housing, which dovetails very closely into the unemployment situation. I would refer to the

words of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning). to be found at page 3898 of Hansard of 1938:
I know of no better means of expanding employment in Canada to-day than by stimulating building activity. The construction industry is the most important of our capital or durable goods industries. . . .
I believe that the minister knows the situation, and is fully conscious that to a large extent the unemployment problem can be solved if we can re-employ the tens of thousands who follow the construction industry. Not only is it true that labour of one kind and another constitutes approximately fifty per cent of the cost of construction, but when we follow through we find that in the production of materials which go to make up construction, labour comprises perhaps another thirty per cent. The minister outlined the situation very clearly, referring to

*-the magnitude of the dollar value of the products of the construction industry in normal times;
He went on to express in his own good language what that meant to the country, and remarked later on:
The increase of residential contracts . .	.
was very largely attributable to the stimulus provided by the Dominion Housing Act and the home improvement plan.
With that I partly agree. The minister will recall that I asked him some questions in this house last year as to what extent he believed that the lending institutions would cooperate. I drew attention to the fact that in connection with the building of workingmen's homes, the need for which is so evident at this time, and was at that time, men could not and do not consider it practicable to erect small homes on uptown streets where the assessment commissioner takes his pound of flesh. In urban centres workingmen prefer, and rightly so, to build near the outskirts of their city or town, and they often choose acre or halfacre plots along highways or improved roads, perhaps just at the very border of the city or town limits. The urgent need is to construct workingmen's homes on lots such as those to which I refer; this is apparent to those interested in the building industry. At the present moment I have in mind about ten homes which could be erected this spring if someone could influence the lending institutions to give reasonable loans in such cases. I hear an hon. member say, " hear, hear." I should like to take a straw vote of the men in this house who know something about this problem. Last year the minister informed us that he had every assurance that the

The Address-Mr. Lockhart
lending institutions would cooperate in every way. I know the minister was sincere, but if he would like me to do so I would give him the address of a man whom I consider one of the most dependable contractors in the Niagara peninsula, who has applied four times for loans on workingmen's houses on splendidly located lots of the type I have described, and who cannot obtain even consideration. I have the complete information in this case, and will supply it if the Minister of Finance still thinks the lending institutions are giving one hundred per cent cooperation.
I agree with the statement made by the minister that the legislation which was introduced has helped. I think I can prove to him that the high taxation on uptown lots in urban centres has prevented the erection of new homes and retarded house construction in this country. I leave it to hon. members whether in some of the small but thriving villages one can obtain to-day a decent loan to build a workingman's home worth around $3,000. It just cannot be done, and I know something about this because I have followed this work for some considerable time. When these same workmen conceive the idea of going out a short distance and buying a plot of ground such as I have described, and there is no possible chance to help them, what happens? They go into the urban centres and rent two or three rooms. With their limited incomes that is all they can possibly afford to live in. The children play on the street. The country is spending millions to stamp out tuberculosis, and the automobile accident goes on taking its toll, in spite of all the safety propaganda that we can enunciate in our schools or through other agencies.
I turn to a consideration of the urgent need in the larger cities across Canada. Surely the Minister of Labour must realize that it is in the larger places such as Montreal, Toronto and Winnipeg, that the unemployed are found in the largest numbers. We all know that they drift to these centres. This has resulted in the development of what are termed slum areas.
Unemployment became general all over the world at about the same time. The United States did not have this problem before we did. Have we done one thing more than just study the problem? Did England wait to deal with it? Did the United States move in regard to slum clearance? Go to many of the larger centres in the United States and what do you find? The federal authorities have taken action. Nearly a year ago I wrote the Department of Labour here at Ottawa, thinking I was right in so doing, to draw their
attention to what I found was in operation ir some centres in the United States. I received a reply that the matter was still being studied or words to that effect. Can anyone dispute that unemployment would be relieved if we had some leadership at Ottawa? In the United States thousands of poor unfortunate individuals are being, and have been, housed for the last year or two, in clean, comfortable quarters at low cost; and I repeat that along with that provision they are stamping out tuberculosis and the death toll from automobile accidents at which we shudder so often when we pick up the morning paper. Proper playground areas are provided. I have not been able to discover in the speech from the throne anything which even suggests action of this kind. Yet we know that to-day in large centres like Montreal, Winnipeg, Toronto, Vancouver and Hamilton-I know of a situation in Hamilton that could be cleaned up- nothing is advanced to meet their needs. But I see in the paper where $300,000 has been spent on an armoury in Hull.


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER:: I regret to interrupt the hon. member, but I must remind him that he has spoken for forty minutes.


Mr. LOCKHART:: May I have just a
minute or two to finish?


Frederick George Sanderson: With the unanimous consent of the house.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Go on.


Norman James Macdonald Lockhart: I say that $300,000 has been expended on the armoury in Hull, which someone has described as a glorified club room. I was not there, but I have been talking to men who were present at the opening on Saturday last. Well, I suppose there will be no relief in Hull now, but I suggest that it would have been a great deal better to build one thousand working men's homes in Canada at $3,000 each than to put all the eggs in one basket. It creates an overhead when you erect buildings of that kind.


Mr. MACDONALD (Brantford):: What
about the armouries in Calgary?


Norman James Macdonald Lockhart: There are some armoury buildings on the way, I understand.


William Ross Macdonald: What
about the old British flag-waving?


Norman James Macdonald Lockhart: That is all right; some of my hon. friends may be waving it yet.


William Ross Macdonald: We shall be glad to wave it.
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Norman James Macdonald Lockhart: The hon. member for
Brantford City (Mr. Macdonald) would be wise if he did wave the flag because he comes from a very patriotic city.


William Ross Macdonald: I say we shall be glad to wave it.


Norman James Macdonald Lockhart: I suggest to the Minister of Finance that he think this matter over seriously when he confers with the other ministers in the preparation of the estimates, because the erection of these buildings does create an overhead which the people will have to pay for in perpetuity. We shall have more to say about these matters when we get the list of public works which is still in the background. Cannot the Minister of Finance persuade the Minister of Labour to stop studying the question and get together with him with a view to finding some means of building, or of assisting in building, five or ten thousand workingmen's homes across Canada in connection with which there would be no overhead and which would produce far more peace and prosperity than buildings such as I have been discussing, and which, we know, are being considered in many places.
I had wanted to make one or two special references but I shall bring my remarks to a close. I wish, however, to refer briefly to what the Hon. Mr. Cross has said. He expects that by the end of the month unemployment will increase from approximately 250,000 to
283,000.	This is a clear indication that something definite must be done. I wish to read from an article along this line which has appeared since we have had the proposed legislation to assist the municipalities. One editor, writing about it, says:
That will help a great deal in securing a lower tax rate for this city. A reduction of at least two mills is already planned; it is possible that it can be made better than that. The only fly in the ointment is that while the city's share of the total may be less, the total itself may be much greater because of the increased unemployment demands.
I will have more to say later with regard to the question of a balanced budget and touching some of the remarks of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Euler).
We have now entered upon the fourth session of this parliament under this administration, and if I interpret aright the minds of the Canadian people, we shall before long hear the gong sounded and the curtain rung down on one of the greatest four-act dramas depicting inertia and incompetence which we have seen in this country since confederation.


Mr. J. L. DOUGLAS (Queens):: Mr. Speaker, at the outset of my remarks, which will be brief, I wish to congratulate the mover, the newly elected member for Brandon (Mr. Matthews), and the seconder, the hon. member for Stormont (Mr. Chevrier), upon their addresses in reply to the speech from the throne. It was a matter of personal pride to me to listen to my good friend the mover, who is a native of my own province, whom I have known for many years, and who has many warm friends in the city of Charlottetown and throughout Prince Edward Island. Last summer I had the pleasure of spending part of a day with the hon. member for Stormont when he visited our province, and I wish to congratulate him also. We are always glad to have members and others from other parts of Canada visit us, and we have always much pleasure in showing them our beautiful island.
I wish also to congratulate the leader of the opposition (Mr. Manion), who has been chosen leader of the National Conservative party. I had the pleasure of meeting and listening to him when he made an afterdinner speech at a banquet in Ottawa in 1934 at a produce dealers' convention which I attended. With his experience as a doctor, a soldier and a parliamentarian, I am hoping that he will be able to make a further contribution to Canada.
May I also congratulate the hon. member for Essex West (Mr. McLarty) and the hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. MacKinnon) upon their appointments as members of the cabinet. I am sure they will do their part in the interests of our Canadian people.
It is a p'easure to see my colleague, the hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning), back in this house, much improved in health. All our people were pleased when they heard that he had selected the north shore of the province of Prince Edward Island to seek rest and health, where one can enjoy the sea breeze from the salt water, and also where one can lie in the hot sand and enjoy the glow of the sun to one's heart's content; and I well believe the minister will agree with me that he owes much to those few weeks which he spent on the island and which helped materially in his rapid recovery. I wish to say, to any other hon. members who are tired and weary, and who wish a quiet peaceful vacation, that there is no other place in this wide dominion to equal Prince Edward Island. I have travelled across Canada twice, and lived three years at the Pacific coast where there are many of our own island people, all of whom some day hope to return

The Address-Mr. Douglas (Queens)
to the land of their birth. This reminds me of a story we are told about a certain man who visited heaven where he was shown round the different mansions-as the good book says, there are many. Pointing to a group of men and women who seemed anxious and discontented, and who were separated from the others by great doors, the guard said, "Those are from Prince Edward Island, and if we don't keep them shut up they will go back home."
Just a word about the new trade treaty. The potato growers of Prince Edward Island will, I believe, fully appreciate the great benefit to be derived from the Canada-United States trade agreement, which came into effect this year. The trade treaties of 1935 and 1938 taken together mean a reduction in duty of 224 cents a bushel on 1,500,000 bushels of seed potatoes, and 1,000,000 bushels of table stock potatoes, and a reduction of 61 cents a bushel on all turnips shipped from Canada to the United States. On the potatoes this amounts to a saving in duty of $562,500. On turnips the duty annually saved depends on the quantity shipped, but a modest estimate would be about 2,500,000 bushels. The saving on this quantity would be $156,250, or a total on potatoes and turnips of $718,750. From these figures Prince Edward Island stands to profit to the extent of 80 per cent of the seed shipped and 50 per cent of the table stock and the turnips, or about $475,000. This benefit is realised through a better market outlet for our potatoes and turnips. As hon. members know, Prince Edward Island is about 85 per cent agricultural, and since our potatoes and turnips are a cash crop they make funds available in the months of October and November when the farmers have bills to pay.
We should appreciate it if the West Indies trade treaty, which I believe is to be considered again this year, could be arranged so as to provide for potatoes an outlet to Cuba such as we enjoyed in the years before 1930. That market was a great boon to the maritime provinces. I well remember that Prince Edward Island in 1926 exported over 2,000,000 bushels of potatoes to that market alone. Hon. members will realise what this would mean to the railways, shipping companies and longshoremen, to say nothing of the benefit to the farmers.
I would mention also the benefit derived from the reduction in the duty on fish, cattle, lumber and fox pelts, the latter of which are raised in large quantities in our province. I attended a fox pelt show last month, and at the banquet the chairman asked me to thank

the Minister of Finance for his action in sending Mr. Forbes to England to help this industry. What we need is trade and more trade. I agree with the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) in what he has said on many occasions, that we are willing to trade with any country which is willing to trade with us on a fair basis.
In December last a heavy storm swept the north shore of Prince Edward Island, doing much damage to wharves and breakwaters, and also carrying away or destroying a large quantity of the fishermen's property. I believe that the government has agreed to reimburse the fishermen for this loss, which action they will appreciate, as they did the assistance given through the fishermen's loan board last year. This government has dealt generously with our province in the way of public works and relief projects. An up-to-date airport was undertaken last fall, thanks to the Minister of Transport (Mr. Howe), in cooperation with the provincial government and the city, and I am in hopes that it will be completed this year. Our new national park and Wood island ferry, when completed, will be an added attraction to the tourist trade. In the 1938 season 21,615 cars were ferried to and from the mainland, compared with 18,935 in 1937, or an increase of 2,680. This shows that the tourist trade is improving from year to year.
Our province, together with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, has given many of our best men to other parts of Canada, especially to the great west, and not the least among these is our friend the hon. member for Brandon. I was pleased the other day to hear the hon. member for Royal (Mr. Brooks) remind the house that Canada does not begin at Montreal, and while I may not agree with him on all matters I was glad to hear that, because I believe that no educational tour in Canada is complete without a visit to the maritime provinces.
Our people are looking forward to the visit of Their Majesties King George VI and Queen Elizabeth this summer. Nowhere in Canada will their majesties receive a -more loyal welcome than in Prince Edward Island and especially in the city of Charlottetown, the cradle of confederation.


Mr. J. A. GLEN (Marquette):: I noticed the other day that one of the most highly respected members of this house made mention of the fact that he was tired of the continuous praise being given to the mover (Mr. Matthews) and the seconder (Mr. Chevrier) of the address in reply to the speech from the throne. While I have some degree
The Address-Mr. Glen

of sympathy with that remark, yet I must take the opportunity of saying a few words of commendation of both the mover and the seconder. I was one of those who assisted in bringing about the return to this house of a Liberal from Brandon. During the course of that campaign I had many opportunities of knowing the kind of man the hon. member for Brandon is, and I know that he fulfilled well a difficult task. I know that the constituency of Brandon expects much of him, and I am sure they will not be disappointed by the manner in which he moved the address. As for the seconder of the address, I confess that my feeling towards him is one of envy. When I heard the faultless English of part of his speech, and was told afterwards by those competent to judge that his French was equally faultless, I could not help regretting that out of a somewhat busy life I had not taken time to acquire at least a working knowledge of French. I must add that the ideas so beautifully expressed in both languages by the hon. member agree with my own, and I predict for him a larger field of activity in the public life of Canada at no distant date.
The leader of the opposition (Mr. Manion), in the course of his three hour speech, jumped into the fray like the debonair Irishman that he is. He saw an opportunity to join in a free-for-all fight, and he advanced his foot, twisted his shillelah and was proposing to crack any crown that appeared on the opposing side. Unfortunately for him he invited a duel with a brawny highlandman in the person of the leader of the government. It was daring in the extreme, for this opponent is a man in the very zenith of his powers, a veteran of many wars, yet unscarred, formidable in peace and much more so in war; so that the result of that contest was no surprise, more especially when we remember that his opponent came back to this house at the opening of this session with his following intact, and in fact larger than after the big battle of 1935 fought on Protectionist Mountain. There were sad hearts that night on parliament hill when the leader of the Tories was routed, all his armaments exposed and found wanting, having to retire to his tent with his head bowed and bloody, while his opponent received one of the most spontaneous demonstrations of loyalty and affection from his supporters.
What was the theme which the leader of the opposition set before his followers and which they have religiously followed ever since? Even to-night the hon. member for Lincoln (Mr. Lockhart) followed the same theme, which was that there is disunity in the Liberal

party. I can understand the glee .of political opponents who see dissension in the ranks of their opponents, to foster which dissension is only political strategy. Dissension may weaken-but I cannot understand why anyone should assume, so far as this house is concerned, that there is any dissension in the Liberal ranks here. Surely the country and the House of Commons know of a certainty that there is no disaffection here any more than there always will be in the Liberal party. It contains, as it always has, men who are somewhat rebellious in nature, men who are hasty and impatient. But I think everyone will agree that the Liberal party is broad enough and wide enough to carry all the rebels. Despite these differences, I think I can say with a great deal of confidence that the supporters of the government are convinced that only in Liberalism, in the broad sense of that word, can that measure of peace and prosperity be obtained which we all so ardently desire.
I recall that in the Brandon by-election, the first election held in Manitoba since 1935, the then Liberal candidate, the present Liberal member, and I with him, on many platforms from which I spoke on his behalf, dealt extensively and exclusively with the record of this government. We rested our arguments upon its achievements. We did not deal with the Canada-United States agreement or the Canada-United Kingdom agreement, which were then about to be completed, although we might well have done so, in the certain knowledge that any agreement with other countries which would take away some or any of the barriers of trade would be bound to have beneficial effects, so far as the economic life of Manitoba is concerned.
The leader of the opposition was in Brandon, and, if I may say so without offence, his speech there was very helpful to us. He did not attack the government on its trade policy. I do not think he would have dared to do so, if he expected to win the seat. What the result was, the country knows. I will say, with due appreciation of all that took place in the contest, that the voice of Manitoba was heard in the constituency of Brandon, and that Manitoba has full and entire confidence in the government now in office. They confidently rely upon it to follow the policies it has pursued since 1935.
That election was won without the aid of that $50,000 which the hon. member for Rose-town-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) said the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) would spend to win the seat. I should like to think that the hon. member's remark was made in the heat of an election, when statements are made in moments of excitement, and regretted as soon

The Address-Mr. Glen
as made. But I have been told that during the campaign the statement w.as repeated, and for that reason I am bound to think the hon. member must.have believed what he said.


Mr. COLD WELL:: I did.


James Allison Glen: All his remark did was to
evoke the keenest resentment throughout the whole constituency, and I can tell the hon. member now it would have been better left unsaid. I do not believe there is a constituency in the whole of Canada with a higher sense of public morality than the constituency of Brandon. And to link the name of the Minister of Agriculture with that canard, or one such as that, was a procedure viewed by the Brandon constituents as a gratuitous insult. I have not lost my respect for the hon. member; I know he can make a good argument, but I do suggest he might have made one better than the one I have just indicated.
To come to a wider field; it is evident that the whole stock-in-trade of the Tories in an early election will be, not the platform they recently formed and to which they seldom refer, but the need of leadership in public affairs. Most of this cry-not all-comes largely from what is now generally called the eastern interests, and in particular that organ known as the Financial Post has become its most notorious exponent. Would I be wrong if I were to call that paper a Tory organ? I have been reading the issue of January 28, and if it is not a Tory paper-well, I do not know what a Tory is.
In that paper they headline this cry for leadership, and they refer with considerable unction to statements of prominent gentlemen. First they instance the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe), and his speech which was delivered in the house on Thursday, January 19. Of course the hon. member was singled out because he paid the paper the compliment of quoting from one of its editorials. Then the president of the Manufacturers Life Insurance Company speaks his piece, to be followed by the president of the North American Life Assurance Company. Then the editor of the Globe and Mail is quoted with approval and, to keep the pot boiling, Mr. Howard Ferguson, speaking as president of the Crown Life Insurance Company, dots the I's and crosses the T's of those other gentlemen. Last of all, Mr. Charles S. Macdonald of the Confederation Life Association is mentioned. Hon. members will notice that almost wholly it is the insurance companies which are represented in the article. May I observe that this is an outstanding example of that form of selfish 71492-33
thought which makes large companies anathema to the general public. No greater disservice to the life insurance business could have been given than by giving prominence to the statements of these gentlemen.
If any unit of business in Canada should be grateful to the government, surely it must be the life insurance business. In season and out of season this government has steadfastly refused and set its face against any process of inflation. Every hon. member knows that had a process of inflation come about in Canada, the first casualty would have been the life insurance companies, with all that that would mean to the vast body of men and women who have invested in life insurance.
It is plainly evident that Mr. McCullagh is one of those who has the solution right to hand. The Financial Post quotes Mr. McCullagh in its issue of January 28, and I shall place the quotation on Hansard:
We do not need great brilliancy in the administration of public affairs. We require rugged honesty, clear purpose, tireless energy and unswerving loyalty to principles which we, citizens of average intelligence, can appraise fairly.
If we want to see the government we have we have only to look into any mirror, for government is a reflection of ourselves. If we awaken and lead, our politicians must follow and we shall have honesty instead of expediency, action rather than procrastination.
What does that mean? To my mind, if it means anything it means that this body of men and women in this house, representing all sections of Canada, are lacking in those qualities of "rugged honesty, clear purpose, tireless energy and unswerving loyalty to the principles which we as citizens of average intelligence can appraise fairly." One can speak with any degree of certainty only from one's own observations. My observations lead me to believe that in this parliament are to be found men and women who have just those qualities of mind and heart which Mr. McCullagh refers to in his statement. I would say that in many instances their intelligence will rate just as high as the intelligence of the editor of the Globe and Mail. I think that gentleman should cultivate a sense of humour. He treats himself altogether too seriously. I only hope that none of us here will lose our perspective because of what has been said by this juvenile mind.
To be fair to these gentlemen, I assume that when they were making these statements they were referring to the differences that have occurred in provincial and dominion fields. I say, however, to them: Have you forgotten that a commission has been appointed for the

The Address-Mr. Glen

purpose of finding out the facts upon which legislation can be based? Do they not know that the Rowell commission was appointed for that very purpose? I assume that the leading life insurance companies submitted briefs to that commission. I do hope that in those briefs their views were from the Canadian standpoint, and not wholly from what I would call the eastern standpoint. I hope that they took cognizance of the problems of the citizens of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, I hope that they noted the conditions that obtain in Ontario and Quebec.
I hope that in their leisure moments they gave passing thought to those of us who live on the prairies, and that they went on to consider British Columbia and the Yukon.
Just as an illustration of the difference of thought, I ask the house to take note of the viewpoint of men who come from the prairies. I attended the marketing conference called in Manitoba last month by Premier Bracken. While there I had the pleasure of listening to the Hon. Mr. Taggart, Minister of Agriculture of Saskatchewan. In making his address Mr. Taggart stressed most emphatically that any scheme for dealing with our problem by way of a reduction of grain acreage, any suggestion to go more largely into dairy production, must be taken only after due regard had been given to the eastern dairy producer. He contended that any scheme which was formulated must recognize the fact that no industry in one section of the country should be encouraged to the detriment of the same industry in another section. That was the spirit of the west as it was acclaimed at that meeting. That is altogether different from the spirit manifested in the statements made by these men prominent in the insurance world. I suggest that this should be the attitude of those gentlemen and others similarly minded.
That brings me to this: Do they actually believe that this government is composed .of fools; that it would legislate without knowing the facts? Por what purpose other than the finding of facts was the Rowell commission apopinted? Nothing that this government has done will have a greater effect upon the economic, and, if you like, upon the political life of this dominion than the report of that commission. Instead of seeking political advantage for their party, it should behoove them to exercise a little patience and restraint.


Mr. WALSH:: Can the hon. gentleman
suggest when that report may be anticipated?


James Allison Glen: That question should not be addressed to me. I should like to have it now and I hope we have it soon. Whither

are these gentlemen headed? Mr. McCullagh is now lecturing us over the radio? I realize it is dangerous to prophesy with regard to anyone, and it is particularly dangerous to prophesy about him. If his addresses mean anything, he is about to suggest a business government or, as he would call it, a union government in which he and his confreres would take a leading part. We had experience with a Union government in this country, and they had experience with a Business government in Britain. I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that the experience of both these countries was not any too good. I suppose if these gentlemen had the power they would settle our railroad problem as Mr. McCullagh seems to desire, by amalgamating both railways into one system. I want to say that the continued expression of such views on government as have been expressed in the Financial Post do not tend to allay the fears of western Canada. They tend to create panic and dismay.
I would direct the attention of these Canadians to the viewpoint of others who are in opposition. The hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Douglas) was evidently instructed to lay down the platform of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation when he spoke on January 24, as reported on pages 275 and following of Hansard. The president of the Confederation Life spoke of the burden of taxation on private industry and referred to how it discouraged private industry. What does he think of the program of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation? The hon. member for Weyburn had submitted the proposals advocated by that group. Out of curiosity I began to wonder what it would cost to put all these into operation. Perhaps at some later date the hon. member will amplify his remarks and give an estimate of the cost. I submit that the question of cost must enter into the consideration of these proposals. One of the proposals suggested by the hon. member, as reported on page 275 of Hansard, was:
1.	The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation have asked for fixed guaranteed prices to the primary producers under a properly planned marketing system.
I suppose when the hon. member refers to the primary producers he includes the farmers, the fishermen, the miners and the lumbermen. The hon. gentleman does not state whether prices are to be fixed for the products of all these industries, or whether the fixed price is to apply only to the farmer. He does not state at what level the prices are to be fixed or the extent to which the

The Address-Mr. Glen
government will be called upon to pay subsidies to the various groups. The gross value of agricultural production in Canada for 1937, the latest year for which the dominion bureau of statistics has published figures, is
SI,051,698,000.	If the government had subsidized our farmers to the extent that they received ten per cent more gross return on their farm production, it would have cost about $100,000,000 in 1937.
Then the hon. member states his second suggestion:
2.	Members of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation consistently advocated a crop insurance scheme which would enable farmers to manage in those years in which, through no fault of their own, they are deprived of a crop.
Insurance on a purely actuarial basis would mean that the farmers themselves would contribute the premiums necessary to provide for benefits during years of crop failure. Merely to provide the administrative machinery for such a scheme would not cost much, but the hon. member does not state whether it is contemplated that the government should make any contribution to the insurance fund out of which benefits would be paid, and consequently no estimate can be given of the cost.
Next he gives this suggestion:
3.	The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation group have advocated consistently a work and wages program which would utilize the unemployed in the city and farmers of the drought stricken areas.
That proposal surely needs amplification. It might be noted that in their annual review of the unemployment situation the dominion bureau of statistics bulletin shows that the average number of wage-earners unemployed in the first eleven months of 1938 was 401,000. Merely as an indication of the size of the problem, it might be noted that to supply
401,000	workers with incomes of $1,000 each a year would cost $401,000,000. His next suggestion is:
4.	Members of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation have advocated the lowering of the age for old age pensions and increasing the amount of the pension.
The hon. member mentioned in his speech the age of sixty-five. It is estimated that the additional cost to the dominion for the fiscal year 1939-40 through lowering the pensionable age to sixty-five would be between $18,000,000 and $19,000,000. The next proposal is:
5.	Members of this group have consistently advocated an unemployment insurance scheme.
What does that mean?


Mr. HEAPS:: So has the government.
71492-33J


James Allison Glen: Just a minute. What does
that mean? Does the hon. member suggest insurance on an actuarial basis, with workers and employers together contributing the full amount of the premiums necessary so that it would cost the government nothing other than administrative expenses? Generally such schemes contemplate some government contribution, but in the absence of any specific suggestions with respect to government contributions to such a scheme, any estimate of cost is impossible. For the benefit of the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Heaps), I may say that I am giving some indication of the cost of these various schemes.
Proposals Nos. 6 and 7 speak of federal grants to education and national scholarships, and the cooperative handling of farm machinery. I do not know what the hon. member means by that; he has not explained it.
Then in No. 8 he speaks of a comprehensive scheme of slum clearance, as advocated by the hon. member for Vancouver North (Mr. MacNeil); and in No. 9, of an extension of the principle of the Farmers' Creditors Arrangement Act. Then No. 10 states:
10. Members of this group have suggested that such a program could be financed without increasing the burden of taxation which now rests too heavily upon the people least able to bear it, not by an eight per cent sales tax to which we are violently opposed, but by (a) an increased income tax in the higher brackets; (b) a surplus profits tax, and (c) by deriving revenues from some of the great monopolies such as the tobacco industry, the meat packing industry, and the gasoline industry.
It is interesting to note that the total amount of income tax collected from individuals and corporations in the fiscal year ended March 31, 1938, was about $120,000,000. Even doubling income tax rates all across the board would not have produced more than $120,000,000 for these proposals, which is a small amount as compared with the proposed additional cost.


Thomas Miller Bell: May I ask what the
hon. member proposes to do about these problems?


James Allison Glen: I stated at the beginning
that I was dealing with the proposals and the platform of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, and I am asking for their explanation of their own platform. I am not sure they can give it, but I shall be very glad to hear it if they would.


Mr. COLDWELL:: I think the hon.
gentleman has heard the explanation of these proposals in the house from time to time.


William Allen Walsh: May I ask the hon. member a question?
The Address-Mr. Glen


Frederick George Sanderson: Order. The
hon. member may ask a question only with the permission of the hon. gentleman who has the floor.


James Allison Glen: What is the question?


William Allen Walsh: I would ask the hon. member if he subscribes to any one or to all of the suggestions he has just read.


James Allison Glen: My viewpoint is very well
known, but I am dealing now with the platform of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, and asking the members of that party to explain their program as they have laid it down.
The total cost of these proposals cannot be computed, of course, because a great many of them would be estimates only; but I think I am within the mark in saying that at least $500,000,000 more would have to be ingathered by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) in order to meet these proposals; and if the revenue of to-day is not great enough to carry the country's expenditures, what possible hope is there that these things can be carried out by the government of the day?


Mr. POOLE:: Could these proposals not
be financed by the method suggested by the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Mackenzie) in Vancouver, by the issuance of $500,000,000 in currency?


William Daum Euler: You could not do that every year, could you?


James Allison Glen: Unless the hon. member for Weybum (Mr. Douglas) obtains the fountain pen of Mr. Aberhart in order to create the money, I do not know where it is to come from.


Thomas Miller Bell: The pen of the Minister of National Defence, or the Prime Minister's.


James Allison Glen: I find one very serious omission, Mr. Speaker, in this program of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation. I do not find in it anything with regard to the socialization of land. I know that is rather a delicate question so far as the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation are concerned, but with such high minds and pure motives they will surely let the country know, as it is entitled to know, definitely and concretely, where the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation do stand on the question of the socialization of land.


Major James William Coldwell: If the hon. gentleman wants an answer, I shall give it to him. We do not believe in the socialization of land because it is not a monopoly.


Mr. BOTHWELL:: When did you strike it out of your platform?


Major James William Coldwell: It never was in.


James Allison Glen: I understand that the leader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation would call himself a socialist. I do not think he would deny that, and as I understand socialism one of the fundamental and integral parts of the program of socialism is the socialization of land. It has been said that there are only two sources of wealth, land and labour, and some would add capital; but I know this, that from the land all things come and to the land all things must go. I have asked on the platform in the Brandon by-election, and on many platforms in Manitoba, for the reason why the socialist party in this House of Commons have not in their platform the socialization of land.


Major James William Coldwell: I have answered the
question now.


James Allison Glen: Is it because there is a disunity of thought within the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation party?


Major James William Coldwell: No.


James Allison Glen: I do recall this, that when the platform of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation was being drawn at Regina, the hon. member for Grey-Bruce (Miss Macphail) was present with her delegates from Ontario; and it is commonly said and alleged that when the question of the socialization of land was being proposed to be incorporated in the platform, she indicated that if it was incorporated she would retire with the delegation from Ontario. I know that in other and subsequent conferences of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation the same proposition has been put forward and they took the excuse, as given a moment ago by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Cold-well), that because it was not a monopoly they did not include it in their platform.


Major James William Coldwell: Not an excuse-the
reason.


James Allison Glen: May I suggest this, that
there is so much disunity within the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation party with regard to this particular question, that from the political standpoint they dare not put it there or they would lose the votes of the farmers.


Major James William Coldwell: May I ask the hon.
member a question? Does he not think it inadvisable- .


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Frederick George Sanderson: I cannot allow this unless the hon. member who is now speaking gives permission.

The Address-Mr. Weir


James Allison Glen: 
Mr. W. G. WEIR (Macdonald):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Glen) will not expect me to follow him in the line he has taken in this debate. Many words of congratulation have already been extended to those who moved and seconded the address in reply to the speech from the throne. Even so, I desire also to offer a word of congratulation to those two hon. gentlemen upon the admirable way in which they performed that task. We from the province of Manitoba are particularly pleased that our contingent has been increased by one and that he should have been selected to move the address in reply to the speech from the throne-which he did in a very capable manner at the opening of this debate. As the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Glen), has already pointed out, the result of the by-election in Manitoba was the return of one more Liberal member from that province, making Manitoba solidly Libera! except for two constituencies in the city of Winnipeg. I believe, along with the hon. member for Marquette, that the voice of Brandon on that occasion was the voice of western Canada in its general attitude towards the present government.
May I also extend a word of congratulation to my hon. friend the leader of the opposition (Mr. Manion) upon his re-entry into this chamber. We are glad that he has returned. We hope that he will be long spared to enjoy good health and to occupy his present seat in this house.
I desire along with other hon. members to extend my congratulations to the two very worthy gentlemen who have recently been promoted to cabinet positions. We are delighted that they have been selected, and we wish them well.
I desire to express my pleasure at the coming visit to Canada of the king and queen. This visit should further strengthen that little thread of human sentiment and bind more closely together than anything else can the far-flung sections of the British commonwealth of nations.
We are also pleased that this country had the privilege of enjoying a visit during the past summer from the President of the United States. This is a further indication, very dear
The Address-Mr. Weir

to us, of the friendship and good relations that exist between these two countries lying side ' by side.
Nor can I fail at this time to express my gratitude to the Prime Minister of Great Britain for his heroic efforts to save the world from a major catastrophe last fall. I have no hesitation in saying -that I could not see any particular pleasure in the prospect of being called to Ottawa last fall to take a stand as to what Canada should or should not do in the event of war breaking out, as seemed hourly possible at that time. Many of us down in the depths of our hearts cannot fail to feel our appreciation and to realize that a responsibility was taken off our shoulders in the performance of a task which we might easily have been called upon to undertake.
The speech from the throne offers an opportunity for members to express themselves on a wide range of matters and to tell of conditions in their various constituencies. So far the criticism of the government has not been too severe; and even what criticism there has been, has been effectively answered by others, including cabinet ministers, who have taken part in this debate. The government is human, and, of course, it may not be perfect. Even so, during its term of office I think it must be admitted that it has done pretty well; and I believe that when its record is calmly considered, it will compare favourably with that of any government in the past. It has a great many achievements to its credit.
Even in this vexed matter of tariff reductions, which we from the west have done our best to urge upon the government, it has not done too badly. We should have liked to see it go further and we hope that it will. Nevertheless it must be admitted that we have had a more far-reaching tariff reduction since this government has been in office than has ever taken place in the history of any one parliament heretofore. This has been accomplished, first, through the trade agreement with the United States, and now we are to have another reduction in the further trade agreements between Great Britain, the United States and Canada. These reductions should mean much to Canada. They should extend her trading opportunities and give the primary producers of this country an opportunity to secure their goods at a more reasonable cost, or at any rate at competitive cost.
The record of the government is also commendable in other ways. A good deal has been said about the finances of the dominion and what the government has been doing in that regard. It is only fair to point out that through the government's policy of refunding
fMr. Weir.]
maturities we have experienced a creditable reduction in interest rates. The figure given me is a reduction of 29 per cent in interest rates on dominion government borrowings. We do not hear our hon. friends opposite saying very much about that. That can be looked upon as a most commendable achievement. One thing further can be said in connection with our trade agreements. The new agreement which is to be introduced shortly extends to other countries with which we have trade agreements the most-favoured nation clause, so that in that respect we shall secure a further tariff reduction which does not appear on the surface of the agreement with which we are to deal. On top of that, the consumers of the country will be interested in the fact that the three per cent excise tax will be eliminated. All this should be of particular interest to Canadian consumers.
I must say, however, that I am a little disappointed as regards the encouragement which the government attempted to give to the building trade. My observations lead me to believe that so far as the home improvement scheme is concerned, it has accomplished fairly satisfactory results; but I am bound to say that as regards the housing schemes in rural sections I have to express some disappointment. I had occasion to attempt to assist some people in getting accommodations from this source; but they happened to be living in rural areas and I am afraid I shall have to say that the approved lending institutions did not offer the service which the government expected them to give. Perhaps we can assist in having something more done in that regard another year, because I believe that the building industry would be one of the greatest instruments in the hands of the government and of the country to utilize more people and to create greater employment.
A good many people complain about and continue to bring forward the problem of unemployment. They criticize the administration of relief. Viewing the matter from the standpoint of Manitoba, I do not think we have so much to complain about. True, we have a relief problem, largely in our cities; but I do not think anyone has suffered for want of food, clothing or shelter in that province, and I doubt whether that has happened anywhere in the whole dominion where people got into touch with the proper authorities responsible for handling relief. Even with all these things, I am bound to say that we are still, even in western Canada, enjoying a reasonable standard of living.
I have further remarks to make, Mr. Speaker, but with your permission and with

Bren Gun-Privilege-Mr. MacNeil
the consent of the house I should like to break off at this point. If I may do so, I move the adjournment of the debate.
Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Lapointe (Quebec East) the house adjourned at 10.50 p.m.
Wednesday, February 1, 1939