1941-02-25

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On the orders of the day:
Mr. M. J. COLDWELL (Rosetown-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to ask a question of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe), but in his absence I shall put it to the government. I have just received a telegram from the editor of the Canadian Tribune stating that he has been advised verbally by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police of the temporary suspension of his paper. Is it the policy of the department to suspend without official written notice from the department to the publisher? If that is so, we should understand the position.


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I would assume the department would give official written notice; but whether written notice would be given in the first instance, or through an officer at the time of taking action, is a point I would have to leave to the Minister of Justice to assume. I expect the minister will be here to-morrow.



NATIONAL HEALTH


Mr. G. H. CASTLEDEN (Yorkton):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. Mackenzie) if at this session it is the intention of the minister to recommend the appointment of a standing committee of the house on health?
Hon. IAN A. MACKENZIE (Minister of Pensions and National Health): No, it is not.



QUESTION AS TO PRICES AND QUANTITIES SOLD SINCE AUGUST 1

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On the orders of the day:
['This item will stand.\nItem stands.\nProgress reported.']
Mr. E. E. PERLEY (Qu'Appelle):: I wonder if the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. MacKinnon) would be prepared to give the house a statement as to the amount of wheat sold since August 1 last, to whom sold and the average price received? If he has not the information at hand to-day, perhaps he can give it to-morrow.


Hon. J. A. MacKINNON (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: I have not, of
course, the information at hand, but I shall look into the matter referred to by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle and give some answer at the earliest possible moment.

The house in committee of supply, Mr. Bradette in the chair.



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S6. Departmental administration, $220,800.
Mr. MaoNICOL:	Yesterday the Prime
Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) was asked some questions in connection with the proposed agreement between Canada and the United States in connection with the St. Lawrence waterway. I should like to make an observation or two in reference to what I understand is to be part of that agreement.

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On January 26 the Toronto Telegram contained an article entitled "Seaway Draft Includes Plan for Diversion," I should like to quote briefly from that article as follows:
Diversion of Ontario waters into the great lakes is provided for in the draft agreement reached at Ottawa between representatives of the Canadian and United States governments on development of the St. Lawrence, according to Doctor T. H. Hogg, chairman of the Ontario hydro commission.
The diversion plan would permit Ontario to flow water from the Albany river into the great lakes.
I presume that should really read "from the Albany river watershed into the great lakes." If that statement is correct, the proposed agreement will provide for the diversion of water from one watershed into another. I am very much concerned over this because I have covered the district thoroughly and am well acquainted with the situation in connection with the waterways of northern Ontario. Article 3 of the Boundary Waters treaty relating to boundary waters and questions arising between the United States and Canada, under which was set up the international joint commission, reads:
It is agreed that, in addition to the uses, obstructions, and diversions heretofore permitted or hereafter provided for by special agreement between the parties hereto, no further or other uses or obstructions or divesions, whether temporary or permanent, of boundary waters on either side of the line, affecting the natural level or flow of boundary waters on the other side of the line, shall be made except by authority of the United States or the dominion of Canada within their respective jurisdictions, and with the approval, as hereinafter provided, of a joint commission, to be known as the International Joint Commission.
When the proposed St. Lawrence treaty is passed by this house and by the United States congress, if this article states the matter correctly it will contain a clause permitting diversion of water from the Albany river watershed. The Albany is a wholly Canadian watershed; it belongs to the James and Hudson bays. In spite of what has been said to the contrary, this country will be settled at some time in the future. There may not be great numbers of farmers as there are in southern Ontario, but there is some fine arable land up there. Important mines will be developed, similar to those which are located east and west of this area. After this settlement occurs it will foe found that this water which may be diverted under the treaty is needed for the development of power to be used in the north. According to article 3 of the Boundary Waters treaty the United States congress would have to give its assent to the cessation of the flow of this water
southward once it has been diverted. In my judgment this water will be forever lost to northern Ontario as far as any future development is concerned.
I feel quite strongly on this question. I regret exceedingly that other hon. members are not denouncing this proposed diversion. In my judgment it is wholly unnecessary. I feel sorry for the Prime Minister. I do not think that he agrees wholly with this diversion, but the premier of Ontario has given him such an unpleasant time-I will go so far as to say that it is largely undeserved-that perhaps he thought he could be placated by letting him have the water from northern Ontario. I would not do that at all; I would fight him to the last ditch and not allow the diversion of any water from northern Ontario.
I have been trying to stir up northern Ontario over this question, but I have not been very successful; few people seem to be able to comprehend the significance of the loss of this water. At present the country is unsettled and people cannot appreciate its future needs. I was glad, however, to read an editorial in the Northern Tribune, which is published at Kapuskasing, a town which is represented by you, Mr. Chairman. The editor of this paper endorses the stand I have taken. I had hoped that all northern Ontario editors would rise to the defence of that section of the country. In my judgment this diversion will be nothing less than an outrageous tragedy.
I should like to quote briefly from what the editor of Northern Tribune has said. I feel he almost deserves a vote of thanks by this house for having had the courage to write this editorial. It reads:
The north has a good friend in parliament, in one respect at least. Mr. John R. MacNicol, M.P. for Davenport Toronto, has made almost a life study of the Hudson bay watersheds.
That was a nice thing for that editor to say about me, because I live at least a thousand miles away from the area I am talking about. He goes on:
In particular, Mr. MacNieol has contended that the water powers of the north belong to the north, as a pledge of her future, and he has strenuously opposed every proposed alienation of those water powers as diversion enterprises for the benefit of other areas. Unfortunately, his has been almost the only voice in parliament raised with any vigour to defend our interests; and so it is easy to understand why we can't make a successful fight.
This question is a very complex one, and its understanding requires considerable travel and study. I have been up and down these rivers, and I would that every hon. member would rise in his place and denounce the
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proposed incorporation into this international treaty of the diversion of waters from northern Ontario. The editorial continues:
This newspaper has always maintained that the north's water powers and streams belonged to us up here and should be conserved. The very politicians and other orators who paint such glowing pictures of the future of Canada's north show by their attitude on this matter of water powers that they lack the conviction which should fortify their utterances. If we are going to have prosperous industrial centres and sound agricultural development adapted to the tempering climate, in the future so raptly envisioned, why are we now alienating the potential water powers that would be a necessity to ensure that future?
Alienating. for the present? No, not if the international treaty applies. But as a matter of fact they will be alienated forever, because, as the government well knows, the United States congress would never permit the stoppage of the flow of these waters once they were diverted. Why? What effect have they on the waters of the great lakes? They have none at present because Chicago is taking so .much extra water, but if Chicago can ever be stopped from robbing the waters of the great lakes, once you have .plants established all along the great lakes, riparian rights will be established alongside the harbours of the lower lakes and rivers based on the water levels thus established and the United States could never be prevailed upon to permit the stoppage of the flow of that water.
I do hope that the Prime Minister, if he feels this is necessary for the sake of peace between the government of Ontario and the government of Canada for the duration of the war, will see to it that a clause is put into the agreement providing that when the war ceases the diversion also shall cease and the water shall thenceforth belong to northern Ontario.
Diversion is being denounced everywhere. It is being denounced in congress and throughout the United States by their leading men. At the present time Chicago is again proposing to submit a bill to congress to ask for the diversion of more water. I am thoroughly familiar with the situation in Chicago. They find it perhaps more difficult than any other great city in the world to obtain the water supply required to take care of their domestic sanitary problems. While I am wholly opposed to their diversions I cannot wholly blame them. While I oppose them, I admit that they have the right to go after more diversions.
On January 13 of this year a meeting was held in Detroit of the Great Lakes Carriers' association, which was attended by the engineers of various great cities such as Milwaukee

and others along the shores of the great lakes. The secretary of the association, Mr. R. F. Malia, said this:
The state of Illinois intends asking .the supreme court on Monday to amend the decree handed down in 1930 restricting the Chicago diversion.
The report goes on to say:
Mr. Malia stated Illinois was expected to ask the supreme court .to permit the diversion of lake Michigan water to be increased from 1,500 cubic second feet to 5,000 cubic second feet.
That is exactly the amount that is going to be poured into lake Superior and finally into lake Huron and lake Michigan, and away would go our water at once, just as I predicted it would, if these diversions were allowed to take place. I have not the slightest doubt that the United States congress will in due course accede to the request of Chicago and the state of Illinois. They have their ears tuned to the political winds just as we have here, and had the Prime Minister not happened to have his ear attuned to the political winds in Canada I do not believe he would have tolerated these diversions for one second. But he was in a tight corner. The works for one of them had already been completed before they got the necessary permission. Just fancy a provincial government committing an act like that in violation of an international treaty without the consent of this government! But the provincial government proceeded to erect works on the Kenog-ami river, fourteen miles north of Long lake, cut through the height of land and constructed a canal through the international watershed, in spite of the opposition of this government. When these works were completed and $2,000,000 had been spent on them, they finally got the consent of this government to proceed and let the water flow. I would not have given my consent. I would have let those works rot until kingdom come before I would have allowed an international agreement to be set at naught.
The very same thing is going to happen again with the Ogoki river. I only wish I had the power or strength or knew what I could do to arouse public opinion in this matter-particularly in northern Ontario, Mr. Chairman, which is going to be the great loser; for a large volume of potential power on this river will be lost forever to northern Ontario. I have been trying my best, I frankly admit, to stir up Saskatchewan and Manitoba, but I have not yet made any headway. They have some interest in the matter because they have a great port on Hudson bay, the port of Churchill. I have been there and I predict that some day it will

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be a great port. I do not know whether the diversion of water from Hudson bay will affect it or not, but the late Captain Bernier, in a letter from which I quoted last session, was of the opinion that it might. I have communicated with the engineers and the ministers of public works of Saskatchewan and Manitoba but I have not been able to get them to move yet. Manitoba and Saskatchewan should send delegations down here to protest against the inclusion in this agreement of anything that might at any time affect the levels of Hudson bay. I do not know that the levels would be affected. I have read an article that said that such a suggestion was silly. I am not engineer enough to know whether it is silly or not, but Captain Bernier was a great authority and I am prepared to take his word. He made some strong statements about the water levels of Hudson bay. He is dead and gone, but he was a very great engineer and sailor, and did a great deal for Canada. In my opinion he should have been knighted. He never received the recognition he deserved.
Now, let us review the position. Starting in the east, on the St. Croix river, at Grand Falls, or Sprague's falls, as it is sometimes called, there is a dam across the river at the international boundary, and the whole flow of the St. Croix river is now taken through the state of Maine and poured back into the river a little further down. That may be under an agreement between the province of New Brunswick and the government of the state of Maine; I do not know. But the fact which stands out is that the whole of the river goes through the state of Maine to be used for power purposes. Then, on the St. Lawrence river, the southern branch just east 'and south of Cornwall, as the Prime Minister knows,
25,000	second feet of water are diverted out of that river down to Massena, down the Grass river, and back into the St. Lawrence, in open defiance of the Ashburton-Webster treaty and our own international joint agreement. That condition was to last only until the end of the last war. The last war ended in 1918, and that water is diverted just as freely to-day as it flowed in 1918; we cannot stop it.
At the other end of the line, Chicago has taken 10,000 second feet. I do not know whether that has been reduced recently, but that is the amount they were allowed, and according to the article I read, application is to be made to take more than the 1,500 cubic second feet allowed by the supreme court.
I wish I could impress sufficiently upon the Prime Minister that when this treaty comes up again, whatever we are compelled to-day to do
for the so-called production of power, these points should be seriously examined. I do not believe the argument about power production. Just a short time ago the hydroelectric commission issued a statement that they have ample reserves of power; and surely to goodness 80,000 horse-power will not have any great effect on the production of munitions, particularly when they must have had more reserves of power than that.
Finally, to come back to where I began, if the diversion of the Kenogami river and the Ogoki river, two tributaries of the Albany, comes under the jurisdiction of the Boundary Waters treaty, the flow could never be stopped without the consent of the United States congress. That means that from lake Superior to James bay there would be a corridor right across northern Ontario over which we would have surrendered our sovereignty as far as the absolute control of our water goes, and as to which we would be subject to the consent of the government of the country to the south. I have not a word other than the kindest to say of the government of the United States. In that country we have the best neighbours in the world; we should thank God for such neighbours. But that fact would never induce me to surrender any sovereignty which this country has. It may be that water has to be poured into the great lakes, but that is not my opinion, because I believe that if the Warren report of 1921 and the report of the engineering board of review of 1920 were carried out at Niagara Falls, there would be ample water on both sides of the river. The reports state that we both can take 10,000 second feet, and the level of lake Erie would be raised as it should be, and the building of the proposed works in the Niagara river would likely not cost more than is going to be squandered in northern Ontario.
We are told that those commitments will cost $3,000,000, but having in mind what the Chippewa canal cost as compared with what we were told it would cost, and having in mind also the disparity between the estimated and the actual cost of the Kenogami works, I have not the slightest doubt that the cost of the northern Ontario works will be many millions more than we are told it will be. And that expenditure it is proposed to make in war time. Those bon. members who come from the west via the Canadian National railways passed recently the station of Ferland, north of lake Michigan. What did they see there? They saw large piles of equipment and numbers of men going up to build a railway and construction works to take material up to Wa-boose falls, on the Ogoki river; and this in war time, when men are needed in much more
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important places than in the bush, and where next summer they will encounter hordes of mosquitoes and black flies. That is where the grandfathers of the black flies come from; they are so big that they take a cube of a quarter of an inch out of one's neck, and send word back to their relations to come and get some more like it. If I were prime minister of Canada-which would be impossible-I would not allow this work to go on while men can be employed elsewhere much more effectively. While our school children are denying themselves ice cream cones and picture shows in order to buy war savings stamps, these millions should not be squandered in northern Ontario. I would not allow it; it is unnecessary. I repeat this because I want to make it as impressive as I can. If the Prime Minister is compelled to insert in that agreement that the waters shall be diverted from northern Ontario, it should be stipulated that diversion shall continue only until the war is over. The war cannot last, I hope, more than three or four years, and it would take that length of time to do the work, so that it may well be delayed until the termination of the war.
Mr. HOWE:: I should like to make a few remarks, as member for Port Arthur, in reply to the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. MacNicoI). I seldom speak in this chamber as member for Port Arthur, and I think there is a feeling in my riding that I have come to be too much of a statesman and too little a member for the constituency. Port Arthur is a great riding. It is large in area. It extends from the boundary of Fort William east past White River, and from the shores of lake Superior to the shores of James bay. In that riding is the entire development which the hon. member for Davenport has been discussing-the Ogoki and the Long Lac diversions.
My hon. friend is a great friend of the north country. He is, I believe, one of the few members who have gone as far north as Churchill to make himself familiar with northern conditions. I believe that he has toured the Ogoki country and made himself familiar with that section. But in my opinion, I am sorry to say, he looks at the north from the viewpoint of Toronto. Looking out from his home in Toronto over lake Ontario-and a most beautiful view it is-I fear that his vision is foreshortened, that he cannot appreciate the vast expanse and huge development of the northern ridings which you, Mr. Chairman, and I represent. His discussion would lead the house to believe that the Ogoki is being diverted wholly to provide water power at Niagara falls. We have no objection to supplying water for Niagara falls

provided we get the use of the water in the north; and I am happy to say in connection with this particular diversion that we do get a very material benefit from this development, in the north itself. The Ogoki water is diverted into lake Nipigon. From lake Nipigon to lake Superior, a distance of about fifty-five miles, it passes through two separate power developments, both of which, I may say, are in operation and developing power. In the course of that passage it develops, I believe, an additional 110,000 horse-power- certainly over 100,000 and possibly 125,000. Similarly, from the water that is diverted into the Long Lac-and there again we have a ready-made development-there is a potential horse-power of 35,000. My hon. friend suggests that it is far better to keep the water running into Hudson bay. I hope to see all parts of my riding equally developed. I believe we have a magnificent country there and I expect to be the member until the population along the borders of Hudson bay about equals the population along the borders of lake Superior. At the present time, however, for some reason the population has become established along the shores of lake Superior. We have two large cities there and fifteen or twenty thriving communities, all forming a part of the riding, and all adjoining lake Superior. In that area there are very considerable war industries. In Fort William we have the largest aeroplane plant in Canada, giving employment to about one-third of the entire number of persons engaged in the aeroplane industry in the whole of Canada.


Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury):: What are they making?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Hurricanes, the aeroplanes that are winning the war; and they are turning them out at the present time at the rate of fifteen a week. In Port Arthur we have a shipbuilding plant that has a splendid record in the production of corvettes for the Canadian navy. We have other war industries in these towns. We have a large mining industry which is served from the Nipigon power development. We have in the Long Lac mining fields, which obtain power wholly from the plants I am speaking of, a large production of gold which is greatly needed to provide exchange for war industry. At the head of the lakes we have four pulp and paper mills. While these are not producing gold they are producing pulp and paper which is so largely used in the United States and which is converted into gold. We are short of power in that area. In the north we believe, and my hon. friend will find it rather difficult to convince the people at the head of the lakes otherwise, that it is good business to divert

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water now flowing into Hudson bay into the more populous part of that area and to use that power at the head of the lakes.


Mr. MacNICOL:: I am not trying to convert them. I am opposed) to it.


Clarence Decatur Howe: The hon. member will have
some difficulty in proving that it is not good business. Then, as the water flows into lake Superior, I may say, speaking as member for Port Arthur, I lose interest pretty well at that point, but it has served its purpose to the people I represent, though as Minister of Munitions I retain a lively interest in it. It passes through Sault Ste. Marie and there it generates power which is badly needed for the great steel industry at that point. It then flows on to Niagara, and through the generosity of the United States government it is not necessary to wait until the water actually flows down, which will take some time. Instead we are able immediately to use this flow from Ogoki for the production of power at Niagara Falls to serve existing plants.
My hon. friend speaks lightly of the value of 125,000 horse-power at Niagara falls.


John Ritchie MacNicol: It is 80,000; that is
45,000	less.


Clarence Decatur Howe: It depends on how you look at it. I was taking the combination of two different developments which would represent 125,000.


John Ritchie MacNicol: This will be developed
beside the falls.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Well, we will compromise
between 80,000 and 125,000 and call it 100,000. My hon. friend, being a reasonable man, will not object to that, I am sure.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I state the facts, and the fact is that it is 80,000.


Clarence Decatur Howe: 
John Ritchie MacNicol: I cannot for the life of me understand why the minister should refer to Toronto. The diversion of water might help Toronto through the development of power and therefore, from the minister's point of view, I ought to be in favour of it. But I am looking at the broad picture. I wonder how the minister will be able to develop power on the Ogoki when it is required, or on the Kenogami. I have been on these rivers and I know there are fine falls on them. On lake Ogoki there is a suitable place for settlement by and by. Where will they get their power? From the Albany fifty miles to the north; but that water should stay there for development in that area. Port Arthur can get ample power without that. There are four magnificent falls on the Nipigon river south of the outlet of the lake. One of them, one of the most beautiful I have ever seen, is the Virgin falls. From all four, over 100,000 horse-power could be produced. If power is required at Port Arthur why are not the falls on the Nipigon river developed at once, as they can be? They have developed Cameron and Alexander falls, where I believe there are one hundred thousand horsepower, and the other falls would produce another 100,000 horse-power. I should think the minister would be up on his feet fighting for the territory he represents; there are only black flies and mosquitoes there now, but later there will be many people and they will want power.
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Mr. CHEVRIER:: I should like to discuss this problem briefly but from a point of view different from that taken by the minister and the hon. member who has just sat down (Mr. MacNicol). I wish to say a word concerning the harnessing of this energy at Cornwall. The constituency which I represent, similarly to that of the hon. member for Grenville-Dundas (Mr. Casselman) will be materially affected by the proposed development of the St. Lawrence waterway, from the point of view both of navigation and of power. If the project is proceeded with by the single-stage scheme, with a control dam, there will be built at Barnhart island a dam and power house which will affect in a substantial manner the whole face of the town of Cornwall and the countryside surrounding it. Since it is not yet known what the terms of the agreement will be and how the east end of the river will be affected, it is impossible at this moment to say just what may happen so far as Cornwall itself is concerned. What we do know, however, is that the elevation of Cornwall is much below that of the development upstream, the consequence being that certain dykes will have to be constructed to protect Cornwall.
On the other hand great advantages will be derived from this development, and in discussing this scheme with the people in that vicinity, I find that in principle they are in favour of it. Unquestionably some of the effects may be detrimental. The hon. member for Grenville-Dundas spoke of the flooding. It is true that there will be a great deal of flooding, with a single-stage development much more than with a double-stage development. He spoke of 26,000 acres as likely to be flooded; I suppose that, included both sides of the river. On this estimate a great deal of the countryside will be flooded, and, as he said last evening, much of the property of those settlers whose ancestors have been there for perhaps a hundred and fifty years or more will suffer on that account. It may be not unwise to suggest, with great respect and deference, the setting up of an arbitration court to deal with such matters. If the legal aspect of the problem alone be considered it may be that the replacement value will be the only return the owner will get if expropriation follows. Therefore I suggest the setting up of an arbitration court with reference to the flooding.
My hon. friend spoke of inability to obtain maps. I have had the same difficulty. I presume the reason is that the agreement has not yet been concluded. I have tried on more than one occasion to get such maps and each 
time have been refused. I believe, however, that there is a map in the office of one of the engineers which anyone can see if he wishes.
I should like to say a word as to the navigation aspect of the matter. The canal in connection with this scheme will be in United States territory. We know that there are good reasons for that from an engineering standpoint. I do not want to go into that now; I shall probably have an opportunity to do so later. But there is one thing concerning that canal which vitally affects the town of Cornwall. The canal follows the south channel of the river, going through United States territory and coming out at one extremity between Cornwall island and St. Regis point, thereby entirely avoiding the town of Cornwall. With very little additional expense the canal could be made to go through the island of Cornwall and come out immediately opposite the port of Cornwall, giving added advantage to the town, where unquestionably industry will follow in coming years. If that is not done, then as far as deep sea navigation is concerned Cornwall will be entirely off the map. With
2,200,000	horse-power at its door it would be unfortunate were this suggestion not to be given the careful consideration it deserves.
I also, with the hon. member for Grenville-Dundas, was a member of the delegation which waited upon the Minister of Public Works. I believe the delegation was unanimous in approving this project in principle. They may have been divided so far as the question of a one-stage or two-stage scheme is concerned. I think the people in that vicinity consider also that on the whole the agreement will be not only in the best interests of the community immediately affected but in the best interests of the people of Canada.


Mr. HARRIS (Danforth):: This morning I heard a broadcast over a C.B.C. radio station to the effect that it is the intention to go ahead with a one-stage development. Undoubtedly that development will involve a tremendous amount of property damage. But do not let that stand in our way; let us go on with the work. When the Prime Minister makes his announcement of policy respecting the export of power let him tell us, and everyone in the United Kingdom, that there is unanimity of opinion on the part of this government and the government in Ontario, so that those people overseas who are looking for places to establish big industries will look with favour on Canada and particularly on the possibilities offered by the St. Lawrence development.


Mr. ROY (Translation):: The proposed St. Lawrence development is a matter of such vital importance to the people of Quebec that we cannot view it with unconcern, especially as we are threatened with seeing it carried out without having been submitted to the approval of the electors of Quebec or of Canada.
The province of Quebec has always strongly objected to the proposed development as being contrary to its own interests as well as to the general interest of Canada. From 1930 to 1935 the head of the Quebec Liberal government, Hon. Alexandre Taschereau, unceasingly fought the proposal, which he condemned in the most unequivocal terms. From 1936 to 1939 the National Union government led by Hon. Mr. Duplessis constantly and vigorously opposed the project. And at the present session of the Quebec legislature the opposition has taken further means to obtain information respecting the position and views of the Quebec government in its relations with the dominion government on the subject. This information the premier, Hon. Mr. Godbout, refused to give.
Recently I placed on the order paper of the house a request for the tabling of all correspondence exchanged between the dominion government and the Quebec government on the subject. Hon. members are aware that the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) refused to table this correspondence, under the fallacious pretext that to do so would be to divulge information that should remain confidential between the governments of Canada and the United1 States.
It is unthinkable that we should have to face the possibility of this proposal being carried out without having been submitted to the approval of the people of Canada and especially of the provinces more directly concerned. It is unbelievable. It is inconceivable. In collusion with our provincial govern-

ment, contrary to our interests and in spite of our opposition, the government is about to alienate our chief source of wealth. Once more, I reiterate my request that the government table the correspondence exchanged with the Quebec government, in order that the people may know how our resources and interests are being dealt with, in collusion, as I have said, with the provincial government which has not submitted! the question to the people either.
Since the people of Quebec are opposed to the proposed development and have not been declared incapable of managing their own affairs, they are entitled to be kept informed regarding the tergiversations of the two governments-federal and provincial-and the means taken to carry out the plan.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The discusion on the St. Lawrence waterway opened with some remarks by the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. MaoNicol). With respect to the engineering aspect of the question I feel that what has been said by my colleague, the Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe) covers all that the committee would wish to have at this stage in the way of reply to my hon. friend. There was, however, one particular appeal which he made to me, that I be not unduly influenced by the attitude of the Ontario government. May I say to him quite frankly that with regard to this, as with all public questions, I have tried to maintain an attitude which is not influenced either by fear or favour. So far as the Ontario government or any other provincial government is concerned, that is and has been and always will be my attitude. However, when concerned with public affairs, I always greatly welcome harmony and accord as being wholly preferable to discord. I must say it has been a pleasant experience to have had the cooperation which the federal government has had from the government of Ontario in such negotiations as have recently been carried on with the province of Ontario respecting the St. Lawrence waterway.
Last evening the hon. member for Grenville-Dundas (Mr. Casselman) spoke particularly with reference to the situation of Morrisburg. He asked if it would not be possible for him to see the plans as they might affect the constituency which he represents in this house. This morning I had a word with the legal adviser of the Department of External Affairs and he informed; me that as the plans are not final, and cannot be so in the nature of things until the whole matter has been concluded between the United States and Canada, if it is, it would not be advisable to give

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publicity to them in their present stage because there may be modifications that would 'be considered 'before the final adjustments are made. There cannot, however, be any objection to my hon. friend calling at the department and asking Mr. Read, the legal adviser, to show him the plans. This, I may say, will be gladly done. May I add that Mr. Read is of the opinion that it should' be possible at an early date to have reproductions of the plans prepared and published. His memorandum to me states that the final plans for the development of the international rapids section have not 'been settled and cannot be settled finally until after the conclusion of an agreement or treaty with the United States and the setting up of an international commission which, among other things, would be charged with the duty of the preparation of the final plans. It is impossible, therefore, at the present stage to indicate with precision the limits of flooding, or even the locations of dams, power houses and other works. It is, however, possible to show in a general way the nature of the development and the limits of the flooding. He then goes on to say that a plan has been prepared, but it cannot be made available for general publication without the concurrence of the United States authorities. But it is hoped that reproductions may be made generally available in the near future.


Mr. CASSELMAN (Grenville-Dundas):: I thank the Prime Minister and I assure him that I shall be very glad to call at Mr. Read's office.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am glad it has been possible to meet my hon.'friend's wishes in that particular. May I say also that I regard it as being fortunate that this discussion should have taken place this afternoon. Important suggestions have been put forward by hon. members who have spoken, such as the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. MacNicol), the hon. member for Stormont (Mr. Chevrier), the hon. member for Danforth (Mr. Harris), and others. The hon. member for Stormont referred to an aspect of the development which would affect the port of Cornwall. I cannot say more at the moment than that I shall see that what he has said is brought to the attention of the officials who have the matter in charge with a view to having his suggestions carefully considered.
The hon. member for Danforth has asked me to make a statement as to the government's policy with regard to the export of power. I think that our policy in that regard is pretty generally known and has been clearly defined in the past. In a word, it is not to permit the
alienation of power from Canada. I would define that as being the policy of the present government with regard to the export of power. Of course, it is possible that in certain circumstances it might be advisable to have provision made, when there is a surplus of power in Canada, to permit such surplus being used temporarily to meet a special situation in an adjoining country. The use of surplus power to serve a temporary purpose and to prevent waste, while carefully securing the interests of Canada with regard to its power development in its entirety, is quite another matter than permitting export in the nature of alienation. I agree with the hon. member for Danforth that it cannot be made too clear that the government of Canada believes that there are tremendous opportunities in this country for industrial development, and that those opportunities will be vastly enhanced as additional power is developed. It is the purpose of the government to further in as rapid a way as may be possible those measures which will serve to increase the industrial development of this country.
Last night I gave offhand a statement of the situation as regards the agreement with the United States which is being made the subject of negotiation at the present time. Not having the exact information before me at that time, I feel it might be advisable for the sake of the record to make a further brief statement which will outline with greater precision the present stage of the negotiations.
The negotiations with the United States with regard to the St. Lawrence development took place in Ottawa and Washington in January, 1940. They were deferred and resumed later in September when a proposal was made, which culminated in the exchange of notes on October 14, enabling diversion of the Ogoki and Long Lac waters into lake Superior and the immediate utilization of
5,000	cubic feet per second at Niagara. The use of this water commenced at the beginning of November. Under the exchange of notes, temporary great lakes-St. Lawrence basin committees were set up by the two governments to work in cooperation and to supervise engineering investigations, with a view to facilitating work, in the event of the conclusion of an agreement. These committees have been carrying on their work at Ottawa, Washington, and Massena. General negotiations with representatives of the United States took place at the beginning of January, 1941, and a draft agreement has now been prepared and is under consideration by the governments.
Negotiations for the conclusion of an agreement with Ontario for the taking over of the power works in the St. Lawrence, in the
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event of the conclusion of an agreement with the United States, were carried out in the autumn of 1939 and resumed in April and December, 1940, and again in February of this year. The agreement has been prepared and is under consideration by the governments. Then, with respect to the province of Quebec, there are certain aspects of the St. Lawrence development which are of interest to the province of Quebec and negotiations were carried out in the autumn of 1940 and at the end of January of this year with respect thereto. They are still under consideration by the governments.
That is the position as it is at the moment, and that I think is as much information as I would be justified in giving to the committee at this stage.


Mr. HANSON (York-Suabury):: Mr. Chairman, I had not intended to take any part in this discussion of the St. Lawrence waterway because I apprehend that there will be, I hope at least there will be, ample opportunity for such discussion at a later stage before the development becomes operative, if it ever does so become.
In the first place I should like to make this general observation, that Canada should, as intimated by the member for Danforth (Mr. Harris), confine her expenditures of large sums of money at the present time to the conduct of the war, and this development in my view can by no stretch of the imagination be called a war measure.
Without at this time making any further declarations for or against the policy of entering into the construction of the St. Lawrence waterway project, I should like to revert for a moment to the statement which the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) has just made on the question of government policy. It may be of some interest if I refer to a debate that took place in this house as long ago as the 15th day of June, 1925, during my first term as a member of this house. The then member for Lambton West, Mr. LeSueur, on a motion of the minister of railways that the house go into committee of supply, moved in amendment:
That the Speaker do not now leave the chair, but that it be resolved:
That in the opinion of this house the export of hydro-electric power from Canada should be permitted only on yearly licence, and no licence should be issued beyond those at present outstanding except for off-peak power.
I had the honour to second that amendment. I cannot 'honestly say that I was able at the time to contribute very much to the sum total of the knowledge of the House of Commons, but there were those who did. Among those who participated were the then

leader of the opposition, Right Hon. Arthur Meighen, and the present Prime Minister, who was at that time also prime minister. I find upon looking up the record that my memory is substantially correct, that there was a suggested amendment which met I think with the unanimous approval of the house. That amendment was suggested by the right hon. gentleman himself, as I recall it; I have not taken the time to go through the whole record. But this is what was moved and finally agreed upon, and it will be found at page 4288 of the debates of the house for the 1925 session, if anybody is interested in looking up the discussion:
That in the opinion of this house the export of hydro-electric power from Canada should be permitted only on yearly licence, and that hereafter no licence for export of power beyond that already granted should be issued except with the concurrence of the province or provinces in which it is proposed to develop such power and of any other provinces adjacent to such development and interested therein.
It will be noted that the principle against the export of power is there stated, and no exception is made with respect to off-peak or surplus power. But a very important consideration was imported into the opinion then expressed by the house, namely, that "no licence for export of power beyond that already granted should be issued except with the concurrence of the province or provinces in which it is proposed to develop such power and of any other provinces adjacent to such development and interested therein." As I understand it, that was the policy laid down by parliament at that time and assented to by all parties represented in the house. In substance the Prime Minister's declaration of policy to-day does not depart from the principle therein stated.
The Prime Minister has used the word "alienated." I interpret that to be synonymous with non-permission to export, and if I am wrong I wish the Prime Minister would correct me. The Prime Minister, as I have understood his declaration on that point in the short address which he made, stated it was the policy of the government not to permit the alienation of power in Canada, and I have interpreted that in the sense I have endeavoured to express.
The Prime Minister did raise the question of the use of surplus power and intimated that an exception would be made in certain circumstances with respect to the alienation of surplus power. That is an exception which hon. gentlemen who think the matter through will agree has very far-reaching implications. Surplus power is in a measure a technical term. It may be synonymous with off-peak power. I am not a technician and I do not

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know the effect of all these technical terms. But I do know this, that history has taught us and the experience of this country has been that once a licence is given for the export of power, whether it be prime power, if that be the correct term to use, or surplus power, or off-peak power, that power is gone for good, once and for all, and may never be brought back. I think that is the history of the export of power in Canada.
In the past there have been two schools of thought on this subject. I remember very well a very good friend of mine in this house for many years who took the view that surplus power, power which was not at present being consumed in Canada or which might not be immediately needed for consumption in Canada, was a commodity which this country might very well sell to bring in a financial return which would redound to the benefit of the people of Canada. That I always thought was rather a short term view of the whole question. It might bring in an immediate return, which would of course be recurrent in its nature, but, taking the long view, that power would be gone, and gone for good, and would never be available for industry in Canada, something that we have been endeavouring to stimulate and build up in this country for many years.
If I interpret the Prime Minister's remarks correctly, the government are leaving the door open so that as and when circumstances warrant a substantial portion of the power developed under agreement or treaty or whatever it may be will be available for export from Ontario to the United States. I warn the Prime Minister here and now that in my view such a policy will not redound finally to the benefit of Canada.
I am intrigued by the idea which has been suggested to me that one of the fundamental considerations which has induced Ontario to go into this development is that they might be permitted to export a part of this power. It ought to be made clear to this house and to the country, if the government of Ontario in the course of these negotiations with the federal authorities have raised that question, just what the attitude of the federal government is in that regard. Is it to be in the agreement? We ought to know. In the interests of the future industrial life of Ontario this, in my view, ought not to be permitted, and I warn the Prime Minister of the danger of leaving open a loophole for export of so-called surplus power or off-peak power, or whatever you may call it. It is all a valuable commodity, something which may be required in the future of industry in this country.
So far as I know, from the point of view of Canada the only possible excuse for the development at the present moment of this project is that a shortage of power is threatened in Ontario. I am not in a position to speak about that. I should have supposed that, if that were so, there is ample opportunity to develop power at sites other than the international section of the St. Lawrence and bring it into operation months and years ahead of the production from this development now under consideration, and thus be available to supply power in case of a shortage.
Be that as it may, the point I am endeavouring to make is this. Is it a condition precedent to entering into an agreement with Ontario that the hydro electric commission of that province, a government department controlled by the province, are to have the right to export power from this development? Second, has the government gone so far as to agree to that principle? A word on these points from the Prime Minister would be reassuring. He may say that the agreement has not yet been concluded. I assume that is correct; I have no reason for thinking otherwise; and I want to warn the Prime Minister that the people of Canada, and in particular the people of Ontario, will be watching this whole thing to see whether the government of Ontario are predicating their assent to an agreement with respect to the development of the St. Lawrence waterway on the theory that they are to be able to sell this power. I would ask the Prime Minister to tell us frankly and precisely what the position is in that regard.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am in much the same position as my hon. friend has expressed himself to be. I had not expected to debate to-day the question of the St. Lawrence waterway, and am not in a position to do so in any detail. Particularly, I am not in a position to discuss negotiations which have not yet been concluded.
My hon. friend has referred to conditions precedent. I am not aware of any conditions precedent that have been laid down; if there are any such, I do not know of them. All I can say with respect to the policy which my hon. friend read a moment ago as that which was unanimously agreed to by this house, is that that policy was one I supported at the time, and that it is one which I intend to continue to support and to remain true to, regardless of any circumstances.
I do not wish this statement to be interpreted in a sense so narrow that it would make impossible some developments that, for example, might be necessary to avoid waste

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or to help to accommodate others in a time of war, in meeting a situation which is imperative.
I agree altogether with the view which has been expressed here this afternoon that the St. Lawrence waterway development as a project in time of war can be justified only on the basis of war necessity. I would not for a moment think of coming to this house and asking the house to take up its time in discussing this matter if it had not an immediate bearing upon war effort. But, as hon. members know, the war aspect of the need of additional power both in this country and in the United States is one which has been before the country for some time, also the question of the building of warships on the great lakes, and it is from that point of view that the government is proceeding with negotiations.
I have made it quite clear that no agreement should be reached which will put beyond the complete control of this parliament the export of power for any period of time, but the accommodation to which I have referred in meeting any present situation is something which, I believe, ought to be taken into account. I do not wish to be limited to a narrow view that, if more power is developed at Niagara than the province of Ontario can use at this moment, and if some of this surplus power could be of service to industries in the United States which are producing war materials, the government of Canada would take the position that they would not seek to oblige our neighbours if they felt that that power would be of service in connection with the war. Everything has to be viewed in the light of circumstances which have to be met. It is in that sense that I have stated the broad policy, making clear that whatever is done, in any phase of the matter, to meet an immediate need and to serve a temporary purpose, would also have to be considered and, I think, will be considered in the broad way in which this parliament would wish to view matters of this kind.


Mr. ROWE:: Would the Prime Minister tell the committee the approximate anticipated date of completion of the project?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I wish I could tell my hon. friend. I do not know. Until all negotiations are completed I cannot say when it will be.


William Earl Rowe: I ask that question merely in view of the project being justified only, as we might conclude from what the Prime Minister said, to meet a war emergency. Does the Prime Minister believe that this is the quickest way of securing power for that purpose?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I hope the agreement will be reached very shortly. If the government saw a more expeditious way of effecting the end which is desired, the motive which underlies the whole purpose of the agreement, it would take that more expeditious method. But having regard to all the circumstances which have to be taken into account in connection with power and the navigation of the St. Lawrence, we believe that, in proceeding as we are with the negotiations at this time, we are serving a public interest in the best way in which it can be served.


Major James William Coldwell: I wanted to get back to something which really is connected with our external affairs rather than something which concerns an international agreement but relates more or less to some other matters which will come before us later.
Last evening, when this matter came up, the Prime Minister was explaining the situation regarding our representation in France, and I am anxious to get the picture. The report of the department states, at page 11, that:
Mr. Tierre Dupuy, first secretary on the staff of the Canadian legation in Paris, remains in London to look after the interests of Canadian nationals who were unable to leave France and generally to act as liaison officer.
The Prime Minister was interrupted last evening when he was saying this about Mr. Dupuy.
Mr. Dupuy has his headquarters in London. He has been to France, keeping in touch with the government there.
What is the exact situation regarding our representation in France? We have in Ottawa a representative of the Vichy government. I am not raising that point at the moment. But is Mr. Dupuy now accredited to the Vichy government or is he in contact with the government of de Gaulle, the free French government in London? What exactly are our relationships with the two governments? That was the point I wished to raise, because I think it is of some interest.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Perhaps I can help to clear up what is in my hon. friend's mind and which may be a matter of concern also to others. The representation of one country in another is not to any particular government but to the country itself. One government may be in office at a particular moment and another government at some other time. Canada's representation to France is not to the Vichy government as such; it is to the government in France with which this government feels it is in a position to continue diplomatic relations. It is not in any

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sense representation to Vichy as against de Gaulle; it is representation to France itself. The fact that the government of unoccupied France at the present time is at Vichy and is headed by Marshal Petain is, we have felt, the strongest of reasons why we should seek to maintain as long as possible a relationship that will enable not only our government on our own behalf, but, I might say, in the interests of the whole British commonwealth to have immediate access to that government and to exchange information with it.
With regard to the circumstances that govern with respect to the legation in France, I might say that when the French government withdrew from Paris, officials of the Canadian legation followed it to Tours and finally to Bordeaux. With the approach of enemy forces within a short distance of that city, the Canadian minister as well as the British ambassador and the South African minister departed from Bordeaux late in June and took ship for England. The Canadian minister, Colonel Vanier, is at present absent on leave in Canada. In view of his military and diplomatic experience, he has been appointed to the staff of the permanent joint defence board.
It is the desire of the Canadian government to maintain with the people of France as friendly relations as possible. Whether we can reestablish a legation in France in the near future will depend on the development of relations between the government of France and the axis powers. The charge d'affaires to France, Belgium and the Netherlands is continuing to maintain an office in London. Mr. Dupuy is charge d'affaires not only with respect to France but with respect to our relations with the Netherlands and Belgium. The governments of the two latter countries are in London. The government of France is of course at Vichy at the present time.
The leader of the opposition last night asked a question which I should perhaps answer as I speak on relations with France. He asked whether the action of the Canadian government in having Mr. Dupuy as charge d'affaires representing Canada at Vichy, as he has done, had the full approval of the government of the United Kingdom. I may say that not only has Canada's action been approved by the government of Great Britain but we have been thanked very warmly by the British Prime Minister for the services which we have been able to render at this time through the association which this country has maintained with France.


Richard Burpee Hanson: May I
revert to the St. Lawrence question. In the discussion last evening of the treaty or agreement I had not before me at that time my
files in relation to this matter, but my understanding is that the United States authorities themselves suggest that a treaty is not neces1-sary and therefore that two-thirds ratification or confirmation by the senate of the United States is not necessary. Article 13 of the boundary waters treaty, which is contained as a schedule to chapter 28 1-2 George V,. 1911, reads:
In all cases where special agreements between the high contracting parties hereto are referred to in the foregoing articles, such agreements are understood and intended to include not only-direct agreements between the high contracting parties, but also any mutual arrangement between the United States and the Dominion of Canada expressed by concurrent or reciprocal legislation on the part of congress and the parliament of the dominion.
Reading the preceding articles in connection with that article to which this one refers, I wish to make a submission to the Prime Minister.
I suggest that it never could be held as a legal proposition that there was any intention on the part of the high contracting parties in 1909 to make provision at that time for any such tremendous undertaking as the St. Lawrence waterway by mere agreement under Article 13, and I base this on the theory-bhat the pith and substance, to use the language-of the lawyer, of the whole treaty would indicate otherwise.
W-hat is the basis of the treaty? What is this pith and substance? It was to establish a means, in the form of a commission, whereby questions relating to boundary waters between Canada and the United States might be settled amicably by negotiation, and for that purpose and that purpose alone the international joint commission was created. In pith and substance the treaty cannot, in my view, be regarded as making provision for such a tremendous undertaking as the St. Lawrence waterway project.
If I am wrong in that theory, as to the proper construction of the treaty-and I ami suggesting this for consideration not only by the Prime Minister but by the law officers' of the crown-why was it necessary, for example, to conclude a convention in 1929* to deal with the diversion of water at Niagara Falls? The purpose of that convention was to provide for the maintenance of the scenic beauty of the Niagara river at the falls, and such purpose would come more clearly within the treaty of 1909 than would this proposed agreement with respect to the St. Lawrence waterway.
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I wish to make it clear that in my view the boundary waters treaty itself gives no authority to either of the high contracting parties to enter into a legal binding agreement for the construction of this waterway.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I should be paying myself too great a compliment if I attempted to debate the question with my hon. friend from the legal point of view, but I am quite pleased to have the views my hon. friend has expressed so that they may be taken into consideration by the law officers of the crown.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That was the purpose of the remarks.


Mr. EDWARDS:: I do not know whether this is the proper place to interject a relatively small matter of water diversion, but in the part of Alberta adjacent to the constituency I have the honour to represent we have a problem of water diversion which is also under the jurisdiction of the boundary waters treaty and is I believe, subject to the control and jurisdiction of the international joint commission which was set up to deal with these matters. 1 refer to the water diversion [DOT]on the St. Mary and Milk rivers, in southern Alberta.
It is hardly necessary to refer to the history of these two rivers, other than to state that they both have their origin in the United States, flow into Canada, the St. Mary river eventually finding its outlet in Hudson bay while the Milk river flows north and east along the southern margin of Alberta into Saskatchewan and then back into Montana in the United States.
The diversion of the flow of these two rivers became a matter of international negotiation, and they were eventually put under the control of this commission. In 1920 the commission, as a result of disputes between the engineers as to how the waters of the two rivers was to be measured, held a hearing and made certain recommendations to be followed by the two countries. The recommendations of the commission were unanimous. After thorough investigation they found that the areas of land in each country capable of irrigation from the waters of the St. Mary and Milk rivers and their tributaries far exceeded the capacity of the rivers, even under the most exhaustive system of conservation. And the commission went on to recommend "that every effort should be made to obtain maximum efficiency in irrigation from these waters."
I think it should be pointed out that the fundamental principle governing the use or the right to use water for irrigation purposes

is "beneficial use." Proximity or prior claims have no validity so far as the right to the use of water is concerned; it is prior beneficial use which is the determining factor. It is a matter of "use or lose."
The importance of the recommendations of this commission become immediately apparent from what follows. In 1938 the United States completed the Fresno reservoir, located a short distance below the site of the chain-of-lakes reservoir recommended by the commission on their side of the boundary. This solved the storage problem for them, and as a result they were able to use in 1939-I quote from the report of the engineer, a former employee of the irrigation branch of the dominion government-"nearly one hundred per cent of their share of the St. Mary water."
In 1939 Canada "overdrew her account" on Battle creek, which is one of the subsidiary streams. The total flow in that year on the three largest tributaries was about 144,000 acre-feet, of which our share was 72,000. Of this we used a total of only 22 per cent. In other words, by the completion of the Fresno reservoir by the United States, the whole situation is changed. They have put themselves in a position to use all their share, and more if available. This treaty is not like an act of parliament, and cannot be enforced as such. It is more in the nature of a gentleman's agreement. There is no limit to its duration; either party may repudiate the agreement and ask for a reconsideration of the whole matter if they think the terms are working against their interests.
Boiled down to its simplest terms, it means that Canada has the right under the agreement to half of the flow of water in these two rivers, if she uses it. She cannot get the beneficial use unless, as the United States government has done, she builds effective reservoirs for the conservation of the run. There is not sufficient water in the two rivers to supply all the irrigable land. The United States has put itself in a position to use its share and more. It is not unreasonble to expect, and the engineers of the United States government are alive to the situation, that an application will be made to have their allotment of this water increased, on the basis that they are making beneficial use of it, whereas Canada is not.
How does this affect Alberta and the Dominion of Canada? Southern Alberta, as most hon. members know, is arid and semiarid. A small irrigation project is in operation there. The arguments of the hon. member for Lethbridge in this house last session commended themselves to me, and I have in the interim spent considerable time in getting

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authoritative information on the subject. Here is a splendid opportunity for Canada to solve one of her major problems, namely, the wheat problem, of which we hear so much, by laying the basis for another industry which has already demonstrated its ability to survive and grow. I refer to the sugar industry in southern Alberta, which has been and is an unqualified success and is on the eve of greater expansion.
But alas, we have not in southern Alberta at the present time water storage facilities to make it possible to irrigate all the land adjacent to the present irrigation ditches. We had to "borrow" water, if you will, from the United States last season in order to save a portion of our beet crop. If Canada is to save and preserve for future use her share of this water, a solution of the problem can be found only in the building of a dam on the St. Mary river. Competent government and private engineers have thoroughly investigated this project; they recommend it as economically sound, and I am concerned lest the government may let the opportunity slip and this water be lost for all time to the agricultural interests of Canada and more particularly of southern Alberta.
To build this dam, which is the preliminary step in the conservation of this water, would involve an outlay of approximately S3,500,000. But it would establish our right to the water and provide irrigation for over 500,000 acres of land which at present, fertile as it is, is worth not more than $5, $0, $7 or $8 an acre, whereas if water were supplied it would immediately become worth, at a conservative estimate, $30, $40, $50 and in some cases even as high as $60 an acre. At the same time it would assist in giving us what we so much require in our western economy, namely, diversification of our agricultural and industrial life and resources.
I urge upon the government, if this is the proper time and place to do it, that at this time they take appropriate steps to ensure that Canada shall not lose, through lack of use, her right to the waters to which our good neighbours to the south have agreed heretofore and up to the present agree we are entitled.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The matter to which my hon. friend has been referring is one to which the government has given consideration. A short time ago a committee was set up carefully to study the project of the construction of a dam to conserve waters in Alberta. The matter is one to which we are giving careful consideration, and I hope it may be possible before very long to give a definite assurance as to what may be done.


Mr. ADAMSON:: May I return to the discussion respecting the St. Lawrence deep waterway? I should like to deal particularly with the point raised by the leader of the opposition concerning the export of power. I understand that off-peak power is being exported from the Niagara system at present* and that it is a valuable source of foreigni exchange.
Can off-peak power be exported without a licence? It will be understood that off-peak power is very different from surplus power. Surplus power is power in excess of the requirements of the peak load, or the amount of horse-power available which we can not use at all at the present time. Off-peak power is the power which is produced during slack periods of each day and for which there is no market or, at best, a secondary market. Peak load is the output of power for a period of twenty minutes during which the maximum demand is made on the generating system. As an example, may I point out that daylight saving now in force has saved Ontario about
180,000	to 190,000 horse-power in primary power, because we were able to shift the peak forward in the day for a period of an hour or so, and thus stagger the demand. For example, the street-car load and the evening meal cooking load are put forward an hour, and so do not coincide with the lighting up time, which now comes when the street-car load and the cooking load have passed. This has saved a tremendous amount of power.
The question I should like to ask the Prime Minister is: Can surplus power or off-peak power, or both, be exported without a licence?
When we make a firm commitment, even for as short a time as a year, to supply 24-hour power for export at 100 per cent power factor, it has been found that industries are built up in the country receiving the electric energy, and it has never been possible to get the power back. In this country we have not been able to do it. We are going to need all our power. I believe we are going to need every single horse-power we can develop in Ontario and on the St. Lawrence. We will require it for electrical smelting of bauxite at the aluminium plant near Kingston and electrical smelting of iron and other ores, as well as in electrical furnaces treating scrap metal. Certainly we are not going to have anj' surplus power to export. I warn the Prime Minister that entering into any negotiation for the export of surplus power, even if it be of a temporary nature, is fraught with the greatest danger.
I was deeply interested in the observations of the hon. member for Stormont respecting the single- and double-stage developments of the St. Lawrence power system. It is reported

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that the two-stage development can produce power within a period of three or four years from the commencement of construction, whereas the single-stage development would take considerably longer. It is estimated that it would take seven years, or three or four years longer than the two-stage development. As this development must be considered in the light of a war measure, the sooner we get the power the better. That, it seems to me, is one of the most important points with 'which we are confronted. How soon can we get this power? As I understand the matter, the two-stage scheme will produce power three or four years earlier than the single-stage scheme, and that factor should outweigh all but the most serious engineering difficulties connected with the project.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Licensing for the export of power for off-peak purposes comes within the jurisdiction of the Department of Trade and Commerce. I have asked my colleague, the minister of that department, to secure from his officials a statement respecting the present position. When I receive it I shall reply to the hon. member.


Mr. ROSS (St. Paul's):: Before the recess, with several other hon. members I urged the installation of a high-powered short-wave radio broadcasting station in Canada. I believe there are many reasons why it would be advantageous for Canada to have such a means of communication with south America and Mexico. The cost is not prohibitive, and I understand the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is anxious to have the installation. It would prove greatly advantageous to the Department of External Affairs in these troubled times, especially in view of the fact that German, Russian and Italian radios hammer at those people all the time. Will the Prime Minister tell us when we may expect to have a high-powered short-wave broadcasting station, and will he explain why we have not such a station to-day?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have tried to anticipate questions which might be asked, But I must confess I had not thought I would be asked to enter into a discussion respecting radio this afternoon. That is a matter which comes within the jurisdiction of my colleague the Minister of Munitions and Supply. I would say to the hon. member, however, that, as in many other matters, the consideration at the root of the question is one of expenditure of public moneys. As the hon. member is aware, a short-wave station of the kind he has suggested would occasion the expenditure of a large amount of money.
IM r. Adamson.]
I know that thought has been given to the matter by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the department. Possibly at some other time the minister will tell the hon. member why the project has not been proceeded with up to the present, and whether there is any likelihood of its being proceeded with in the near future.


Mr. GERSHAW:: 
William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I say to the hon. member for York West (Mr. Adamson) that as regards peak power and surplus power, licences are required.


Mr. GREEN:: In the annual report of the Secretary of State for External Affairs for the calendar year 1940, reference is made to the sending of children from Great Britain to Canada. On page 8, I find the following:
The total number ot applications from British parents exceeded 70,000 up to July 5, 1940, when postponement of the scheme had to be announced, due to the difficulty in securing convoyed shipping space. On September 20, 24,130 children had been approved for Canada; 1,538 had actually sailed.
Would the Prime Minister care to make a short statement with regard to that particular situation?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Here again my hon. friend is getting more or less out of my jurisdiction. The Minister of Mines and Resources (Mr. Crerar) is in charge of immigration, and one branch of his department has been giving special attention to the matter of children coming from England to Canada. Unfortunately he is not in the chamber at the moment, but I shall direct his attention to the question asked by my hon. friend and he will probably be able shortly to let him have the information he desires. I may say to my hon. friend that it has been extremely difficult to get transportation for children from Great Britain to this side for some time past. This is due, as he himself has mentioned, to the difficulty of getting space on ships. I do not think there has been an appreciable increase in the numbers, beyond what was reported to the house not very long ago.


Howard Charles Green: The report of the department refers to the establishment of a Canadian consulate in Greenland. Would the Prime Minister explain that situation?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: As my hon. friend is aware, Greenland is a dependency of Denmark. At the present time it is managing its affairs under two governors; the country is divided into two parts, and a separate governor is in charge of each. Canada has viewed with special interest anything that has taken place in Greenland that might affect the war situation. The country lies on one of the routes between the old world and the new which might be made a base for operations by the enemy. We have thought it desirable to have representation in Greenland so that we might be kept aware of possible developments.
We have also felt that we would wish to be of what assistance we could at this time to the people of Greenland. They have been
cut off from supplies in some directions and we have been able to give them certain supplies. In order to get the information we would wish to have and be able to communicate rapidly at any moment, we have thought it advisable to have a consul general stationed in Greenland. Mr. Kirkwood, who was previously on the staff of our legation in the Netherlands, has been freed from his duties there for obvious reasons. He has at the government's request taken on the duties of consul general in Greenland.
The United States is similarly concerned with and interested in what may happen in Greenland and also has a consul resident there. In respect of practically all matters that relate to Greenland in which there is a mutual interest, we have been in communication with the United States. The government of the United States and our government have felt that it was desirable we should cooperate in viewing with common care whatever might be of concern there. I believe that the cooperation which has taken place thus far has been of real advantage to both countries.


Howard Charles Green: Would the Prime Minister
explain the method by which questions that arise between Canada and Newfoundland are handled, particularly those concerning Canadian troops? There must be different problems coming up from day to day, and I should like to know what machinery there is for ironing out any difficulties that may arise.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Such matters
are the subject of negotiation between the department of government here which is immediately interested in the particular matter under consideration, and ministers and officials of the Newfoundland government. For example, matters pertaining to the air force in Newfoundland would be taken up by the Minister of National Defence for Air with some minister and officials of the Newfoundland government. Similarly those with regard to the army would be taken up by the Minister of National Defence, and those having to do with naval affairs would be taken up by the Minister of National Defence for Naval Affairs. As my hon. friend knows, the government of Newfoundland is practically under the direction of the government of the United Kingdom, and United Kingdom officials take part in the settling of any matters which are of mutual concern. The Minister of National Defence for Air made a personal visit to Newfoundland some little time ago in order to familiarize himself with the situation there. Contacts were made between the minister and leading members of the government of Newfoundland, as well as with His
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Excellency the Governor. There is almost a day-to-day exchange of communications between officials there and1 our own officials.


Howard Charles Green: What methods have we for
keeping in touch with the government of Iceland?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I would not
say that we are in daily touch with the government of Iceland. In sending our troops to Iceland we had communication with the government of Iceland through the Department of National Defence. These matters really come more under the immediate direction of the defence department, and I am therefore able to give my hon. friend only a general statement. I am informed that the British government has a minister in Iceland, and without doubt our officials are in touch through him with the authorities in Iceland.


Mr. DOUGLAS (Weyburn):: I should like to go back for a moment to the question of the Vichy government. I was very glad that the Prime Minister made his statement with reference to our diplomatic relations with the Vichy government, because I think it will clear up what, in the minds of many people, has seemed to be an anomalous situation.
If I understood the Prime Minister correctly, he said that he thought it was wise to retain our contact with the French people and also in that way to serve as a channel through which the other members of the British commonwealth could retain their contact.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I would not go so far as that. I would say that I believe our contact with France has been of assistance to other nations of the commonwealth, but I should not like it to be assumed that Australia, for example, retained contact with France through our representative.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: If I understood the Prime Minister correctly, he said that the Prime Minister of Great Britain had expressed appreciation of that contact through Mr. Dupuy. What occurred to me was this: Why, if the United Kingdom desired contact with the Vichy government, did it not maintain direct contact rather than indirect contact through the Canadian representative? If it is argued, however, as it might be, that the British government could not do that if it were going to recognize the de Gaulle movement, the corollary of that argument is that we, by maintaining contact with the Vichy government, are not giving recognition to the de Gaulle movement. I raise that point merely because there is, in some quarters in Canada, a feeling that there is, in some parts of this country, more sym-
pathy with the Vichy government than with the de Gaulle movement. I for one do not believe that such is the case. But the continued existence of the anomalous situation where the United Kingdom is severing its diplomatic relations with the Vichy government while we maintain ours, is something that ought to be clarified if we are not going to be placed in a false light in the eyes of a great many people.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I say to my hon. friend that, in these times of war, situations arise which tend to complicate matters. The relations which our government have had with France have happily escaped some of the difficulties which have arisen in connection with the immediate relations of the British government with the government of France. Undoubtedly the United Kingdom government have had reasons of their own why they should have taken the action which they did concerning the severing of their diplomatic relations with France-if the word "severed" is the correct one to apply, and I am not sure that it is correct. The representatives of the government of the United Kingdom did leave France and have returned to England, and for certain reasons which must be obvious, they have not gone back to France. But we in Canada are happily in a different relationship. There is nothing similarly strained in the relations between this country and France, and we have felt that so far as it was possible to maintain a bridge that would be a helpful one between any part of the British commonwealth of nations and France at this time, the better it would be both for the people of France and the people of Canada. We hope that, sooner or later, all the legations and embassies will be restored, but that may take some time. We should be duly thankful that we are able to be of any assistance whatever in helping to maintain a link with France in the present situation.
I would add that I do not think there is anything to be gained but much to be lost in continuing to discuss in this parliament the relations between the government of Vichy and the de Gaulle movement. The de Gaulle movement is not a government, nor is it a country. As I said a moment ago, representation to a country is made, not to any individual or group of individuals, but to the people through the government of the country. This whole question is one which I think hon. members will realize should be discussed only if we are perfectly certain that what we say here is not likely to complicate, but rather calculated to ease, a situation that is very difficult in the old world at the present

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time. My advice to the committee, if I might be permitted to offer such, would be that unless there is something to be gained by the discussion, we had better avoid it altogether.


Mr. BLACKMORE:: May I revert for a moment to the question of water conservation on the St. Mary river. I am very glad that the bon, member for Calgary West (Mr. Edwards) and the hon. member for Medicine Hat (Mr. Gershaw) spoke in support of that project, and I appreciate greatly the attention which the committee paid to what they had to say. This is a vital project to us out in that section of Canada, as anyone who has lived there and seen the actual situation will realize.
May I commend the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) and his government for having gone so far as to manifest considerable interest in this problem by the appointment of a committee. I wish to draw the attention of the government to the danger of possible delay in proceeding with this work. As the two members speaking before me have stressed, it is extremely important that we go forward with this work at once. I am afraid that if there should be delay for a year or so, complications which we cannot now foresee might arise, which might seriously endanger the whole project. We believe that the work should be begun this spring and that the committee which has been appointed should be given instructions to cut short its work in righteousness, so to speak, and make an expeditious report on the situation so that the work may be commenced immediately.
There are several reasons why we believe our stand in this respect is sound. In the first place, it is commonly urged with reference to expenditures of this kind that in the midst of this tremendous struggle we cannot afford the money. May I point out that we shall never be able to afford it better than right now; for while we are endeavouring to raise approximately two billion dollars in 1941, an expenditure of two and a half billions is very likely for 1942, so in view of these probable expenditures one on top of the other, it would be just as easy to get the money for the St. Mary river project this year as next or the year after.
There is another aspect of the question. While perhaps a labour shortage has begun to develop in the central provinces where a large amount of munitions manufacturing is going on, that shortage is not developing in the western provinces, particularly in Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. We still have plenty of labour in that area to do all the work that is necessary in building this
project, but naturally our man-power will be gradually drained off just as it is likely to be drained off in other provinces, and a year from now we might not have available the present supply of labour or be able to obtain it at as reasonable a rate. That is a matter which needs to be taken into consideration.
Another aspect which I think should weigh with us is that this project is really a war measure. We do not know now what our needs are going to be before this war is over. At present we have access to stores of foreign sugar, for example. We can buy cane sugar and we have available the boats to bring that cane sugar to Canada. We may not always be so fortunate. Before the war is over, it may be necessary for us to manufacture our own sugar right in that area. As the hon. member for Calgary West pointed out, that area is eminently adapted for the production of beet sugar. As I have observed several times in this house, I doubt whether there is any better area to be found anywhere. When it is remembered that, once we have the water out on the land, we can put up a sugar factory which will produce probably five per cent of Canada's needs, and get it in operation in nine months, or between now and the end of this year, the matter is one which should be borne seriously in mind. We should be making provision in case we need that area as a source of food. Again, the district is admirably adapted for the production of vegetables. That cannot be said of all areas, because the climate elsewhere is not invariably as good. Therefore I would say that as a war measure the project is not entirely without value.
Again, if the area is to be used as a place of settlement of soldiers after the war, it should be borne in mind that it will take at least three and probably four or five years to construct a dam and get the water out to the land so as to prepare it for settlement. That is another reason why we should not waste any time.
Another aspect of the matter which is of importance is that of beneficial use and priority. It is pretty well recognized that those who have prior use of water, and especially those who have prior beneficial use, acquire a claim. Every year we defer the construction of this project and the bringing of that water to beneficial use, we allow the United States one year more of beneficial use and prior right-which might be an extremely important matter one of these days.
There are some who say that this whole project should be deferred until after the war. Let us remember, however, what happened during the last war. Before that

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war ended, an investigation had been made regarding the whole Lethbridge southeast water conservation project, and I believe the officials were thoroughly impressed with the importance of going forward with the project. Yet that project has been deferred until the present time. Eighteen years have been wasted-apparently because people waited for the close of the war. We can well imagine that if we continue thinking in the orthodox manner, as we think now, after the war we shall say, "Well, we surely have to retrench to the very minimum, the very last degree; we cannot spend any money now, we must get out of debt"; and the result will be the further deferment of this project. That also, I think, should be borne in mind.
There is one more consideration. I have pretty good evidence to show that United States people living in the area concerned are beginning to look forward to the gaining of some of Canada's water rights. It is well known what can happen in a democratic country when the people as a whole begin to demand that something be done. The longer the government defers this project, the more possible it is for a public opinion to develop in the United States, just across the border from Alberta, demanding that something be done. Consequently, in the interests of good feeling between us and the United States, as well as for our economic development, we ought to go forward with the dam at the earliest possible moment.
I wish once more to commend the Prime Minister and his department for taking this matter into consideration, and to add my voice to those who have already urged that we should go forward promptly with the work.


Mr. STIRLING:: Would the Prime Minister explain the relationship which exists between the high commissioner's office in London and Canadian military headquarters? Are they two quite separate entities, or do the communications which ordinarily pass between the government and either of them or of the departments in Canada, pass through the one or the other?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: They are
separate entities. But there is a liaison between the high commissioner's office and military headquarters in London, whereby the high commissioner's office is kept in touch with matters which are of concern and mutual interest. The military headquarters in London communicate direct with the Department of National Defence here, and the Minister of National Defence has his immediate contacts with its staff.


Grote Stirling: Is that liaison officer an official of the Department of External Affairs?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: He is a member of the staff of the high commissioner. It is a liaison with the high commissioner's office so that the high commissioner may be kept informed on matters with regard to which we would wish him to be informed.


Grote Stirling: One other question in
connection with the high commissioner's office. Is there on his staff a man versed in the British requirements in munitions such as Canada is preparing-knowledgeable on the subject of Britain's requirements in a scientific way?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The Department of Munitions and Supply have their own representative in London. His name is Charles Banks. He represents the department in London itself.


Grote Stirling: He is not under Mr. Massey?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: He is under the Minister of Munitions and Supply.


Grote Stirling: And consequently he is not answerable to the high commissioner, he is answerable to the minister?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes, he is
answerable to the minister. But in all these matters which relate to the London offices, an effort is made to see that the high commissioner is kept fully informed of what is happening, so that if for any reason his cooperation were needed or he thought it desirable to bring some matters to the attention of the Minister of External Affairs, he would be in a position to do so.


Mr. NICHOLSON:: I notice that the Canadian government appointed in February of last year a commissioner to New Zealand. Are there any arrangements to have New Zealand appoint a commissioner to Canada? Has the Prime Minister any announcement to make in this connection?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Up to the present the government of New Zealand has not found it possible to send a high commissioner to Canada; but we shall greatly welcome a representative from New Zealand should the New Zealand government think well of appointing a representative here. We have, of course, no control over the appointment.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
37. Representation abroad-including salaries of high commissioners, ministers plenipotentiary, consuls, secretaries and staff, notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the Civil Service Act or any of its amendments, $593,000.

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William Lyon Mackenzie King: The committee will be, I am sure, not only interested in learning but pleased to know that the government has been successful in enlisting the good offices of Mr. Leighton McCarthy at this particular time, and that Mr. McCarthy has been appointed as minister to Washington. My hon. friend the leader of the opposition mentioned last night that he thought we should have at Washington at this time an outstanding citizen of Canada, and he linked Mr. Leighton McCarthy's name to the designation which he had given, so I am happy to feel that on this occasion both sides of the house are of one view with respect to our good fortune-I call it such advisedly-in securing Mr. McCarthy's services as minister.
Perhaps I should tell the committee that some years ago I tried to get Mr. McCarthy to take the office of minister at Washington. Mr. McCarthy could not see his way at the time to sever his business connection in Canada to the extent of giving himself to the diplomatic service. He has indicated to me off and on since the war began that if he could be of service in any way he would be glad to consider any proposal that might be made to him. As soon as I found that Mr. Christie's recovery would unfortunately likely take some time, I got in touch with Mr. McCarthy and, after having considered the matter carefully, he has agreed to accept the position of minister for such time as he is able to give his services at Washington.
As hon. members know, Mr. McCarthy is a former member of this House of Commons. He took a prominent part in the discussion of public affairs when he was a member of parliament. He is head of one of the largest insurance companies in Canada and has had a great deal to do with private business. He has also an exceptionally high standing in his own profession, that of the law. He has always been interested in international affairs. With respect to his appointment to Washington there is a circumstance which I believe to be of real value to us all; it is that Mr. McCarthy and the president of the United States have been very close friends for many years and know each other intimately. I feel that no better appointment to Washington could possibly have been made.
Some little time ago the Prime Minister of Great Britain communicated with me with regard to a possible appointment to the imperial privy council and discussed the qualifications which he felt should govern in the appointment of a privy councillor. Mr. Churchill set forth the following condition and qualification which I pass on to the committee as exceptionally valuable, whether 14873-644
made applicable to the position of privy councillor in Britain or in any of the dominions. The position, Mr. Churchill said, should be regarded not as being bestowed as an honour or as a reward, but as the sworn relationship deemed necessary for the performance of highly confidential duties by persons of eminent stations. The government has felt that Mr. McCarthy's relationship with itself would be one involving the performance of highly confidential duties and he would certainly be recognized as enjoying an eminent station. The cabinet therefore recommended to his excellency the appointment of Mr. McCarthy as a member of the privy council of Canada. His excellency has been pleased to approve the recommendation. Mr. McCarthy, therefore, goes to Washington not merely as a minister but also as a member of the privy council of Canada.
Recognizing the importance of the work to be done at Washington, and in order to give Mr. McCarthy the best assistance we possibly can, the Department of External Affairs has arranged to have Mr. Hume Wrong accompany Mr. McCarthy when he goes to Washington. Hon. members will recall that Mr. Wrong was associated with the legation at Washington for ten years altogether, and he is therefore familiar with the Washington scene and has many friends in the different departments of government there. Mr. Wrong has been at the League of Nations as permanent delegate from Canada. That particular position has been abandoned for obvious reasons. Since October, 1939, he has been special economic adviser in London, dealing more particularly with matters of economic warfare and with financial questions. He is therefore familiar with many aspects of the situation in London and will bring that added knowledge to the discharge of his duties in Washington at this time.
As I mentioned on Monday a week ago, the affairs of the legation, during Mr. Christie's unfortunate illness, have been administered by Mr. Merchant Mahoney as charge d'affaires. I doubt if a more faithful, honourable or efficient officer could be found in any public service than Mr. Mahoney has been in the years he has been at Washington. In fact, if I recollect rightly, he was first appointed to Washington some time before the legation was opened. He was appointed as representative of the imperial munitions board. He has made for himself a place of exceptional confidence in Washington and he will continue, of course, as counsellor at the legation. The government feels, however, that he should be given a higher rank than he is at present enjoying. He is at present commercial counsellor, but his duties have taken him outside
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purely commercial lines into general problems of government and matters of general concern; his responsibilities have long ago outrun the limited description of his duties conveyed by the title "commercial counsellor" and he has therefore the position of counsellor of legation without qualification.
Mr. Wrong will be the senior counsellor, having had exceptional experience in international affairs in many parts of the world, but I should like the committee to realize 4hat this country owes a very great debt of gratitude to Mr. Merchant Mahoney for the way in which he has supported all ministers who have been in Washington and the very unselfish role which he has taken at all times in serving this country there.
I feel I should place on the record an exchange of correspondence which has taken place between Mr. Christie and myself, so that the committee will know exactly the position as it stands at the present time, and as it relates to the future. On February 19, Mr. Christie wrote to me from the Hospital of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, 66th street and York avenue, New York, as follows:
My dear Prime Minister:
I have now learned from my doctors that my full recovery is likely to take somewhat longer than they thought and I had hoped. My absence from Washington, particularly in these very difficult times, has been very much on my mind and I know it has caused you concern. I had expected to be able to take up my full duties at the legation before this, but I quite realize that, with a convalescence in prospect that may take some months, the vital interests of Canada in Washington cannot be adequately maintained without full and effective diplomatic representation there.
In all the circumstances I hope it may be found possible to grant me the extended leave of absence from the legation which I am told I must have in order to complete my recovery. I hope you will therefore, feel entirely free to make whatever arrangements in respect of the Canadian legation at Washington the needs of the country and the service may require.
Yours very sincerely,
Loring C. Christie.
To Mr. Christie's communication I replied on February 20 as follows:
Office of the Prime Minister Canada
Ottawa, February 20, 1941.
My dear Christie:
I am more than sorry to learn that you now feel your complete recovery may take rather longer than we had all hoped. I know that your enforced absence from your post in this critical period has been an added source of anxiety which no doubt has been impeding your recovery.
It is characteristic of your thoughtfulness in all that pertains to the public service to suggest that your present indisposition should not be allowed to impair in any way the effective representation of Canada at Washington,
{Mr. Mackenzie King.]
especially in time of war. Anticipating that such would be your attitude once you found that time would be required for a complete restoration of your health, I had, prior to the receipt of your letter, been considering what steps it might be most advisable to take for the effective carrying on of the work of the legation in the event of a prolonged absence on your part being necessary.
It is, I think, desirable that you should take an extended leave of absence so that you can enjoy the complete rest which your recovery requires, and which your services to Canada, both at home and abroad, have amply earned. It is also most important that the representative of Canada at Washington should, particularly at this time, be someone who will have the complete authority and status of a minister. This I have reason to believe can be arranged without impairing your own status as a minister in Canada's diplomatic service.
I much hope that procedure on these lines may serve to relieve your mind of all present anxieties and enable the government at a later date again to avail itself of your exceptional talents wherever they may be utilized to the best advantage.
With kindest regards to yourself and with every wish for an early and complete restoration of your health,
Believe me,
Yours very sincerely,
W. L. Mackenzie King. Loring C. Christie, Esq.,
Rockefeller Institute,
New York, N.Y.
I should have said at the outset that His Majesty the King was of course duly advised of the wishes of the government with respect to the appointment of Mr. McCarthy to Washington, and has been pleased to signify his approval of the appointment and of the course it was proposed to adopt with respect thereto. I mention this because a procedure somewhat different from that which is customary has been adopted in the case of Mr. McCarthy going to Washington. As a rule, a new minister presents the letters of recall of his predecessor and his own letter of credence. But as Mr. Christie will remain a minister, although absent, it has not been thought necessary to have Mr. McCarthy present any letters of recall or letters of credence. The President of the United States and the Secretary of State are agreed that an oral communication by Mr. McCarthy on his arrival, to the president who understands the special situation and approves of the arrangement contemplated, will suffice. Mr. Roosevelt, who, as I have already mentioned, knows Mr. McCarthy very well, has informed me that he will be only too pleased to receive Mr. McCarthy with the full authority and status of minister the moment he arrives in Washington, without any special letter of credence from His Majesty the King. The arrangements for Canadian representation at Washington I hope are of a character which

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will meet all the needs of the situation at the present time. I trust they may also prove of benefit to the health of Mr. Christie, who is an exceptionally able and faithful public servant.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The Prime Minister has made some very interesting announcements. I cannot suppose that the advance notice of the appointment of Mr. McCarthy that I gave here the other day was unknown to the Prime Minister, because it had already been announced in the Toronto newspapers, but I do think the Prime Minister has made a very good choice.
I am pleased to know that he has created Mr. McCarthy a privy councillor. I had hoped that he might give consideration to the suggestion which I made in perfect good faith, that it being the most important post in our diplomatic service, he might see his way clear to raise the new minister to the rank of ambassador, because I do think that would enhance his importance in Washington at least one degree. The Prime Minister has not seen fit to do that, and of course I make no further comment.
Since he announced the appointment of Mr. McCarthy as privy councillor, I have been wondering whether consideration has been given to the suggestion, made to me at all events, that our high commissioner in Australia, for instance, should be made a privy councillor. I am told that it not only carries something with it as a matter of dignity but carries with it certain rights of access to the Prime Minister or the cabinet in person. I just mention this in passing because I understood that it has been the practice on previous occasions to make our high commissioners, as well as some at least of our ministers abroad, privy councillors. The former Prime Minister made Mr. Howard Ferguson a privy councillor, also Mr. Herridge, and I am thinking of my friend C. J. Burchell, the high commissioner in Australia. Could he not be made a privy councillor? I am not going to carry the suggestion any further than that.
With what the Prime Minister said about Mr. Hume Wrong I concur. I have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Wrong in Washington, and from the efforts he made to assist me as a private individual, I learned of his competence as an official. I can say the same thing for Mr. Mahoney. He knows his way about in Washington; he is a valuable official of the Canadian legation there, and I am indeed pleased to see this recognition given to him. I think it is perhaps somewhat long delayed on the part of Canada to a man who has served this country so well. He was sent down there by Sir Robert Borden, if my
recollection is correct, at a time when we had1 no actual representation in Washington, and! during the last war he did useful work for Canada, as I am sure he has done since.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am glad my hon. friend has again mentioned the question of the creation of an embassy at Washington. May I say to him that I am far from being averse to a step of the kind being taken. I am only too happy to recognize the fact that our views in this particular are much the same. I unfortunately labour under this difficulty, that whatever I do is certain to be looked at from different angles, some of them quite the opposite of what I would feel was justified.
I have had to ask myself again and again what would be the reaction, in this country and overseas, if we were to create an embassy at Washington at the present time.


Richard Burpee Hanson: It would be good with me; that is all I can answer.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Now that my hon. friend is with me I shall pursue the matter further.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The Prime Minister will be able to see what the public think about it.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: What I have-been most anxious to avoid, particularly at this time of war, was any question being: raised which might give rise to general discussion as to what might lie back of any particular step. While I have never even replied to the insinuations that because I was a stalwart Canadian I therefore could not be equally staunch as a supporter of the British empire, I have carefully endeavoured to avoid taking any steps that might lead to misunderstanding and misrepresentation. I have just had to ask myself the question, how would some people in this country view a step which would create an embassy at Washington at this particular moment? Personally I feel that there are the strongest reasons why we should have an embassy at Washington. I believe in the equality of status of all the self-governing nations of the-British empire. And the fact that we have had' a legation at Washington rather than an embassy has been due not to any inferiority complex, but rather to a sense of proportion] in the beginnings of our diplomatic services.
I shall explore the matter further, but at: what time it may be best to take the step-that has been suggested1 I think will have to-be carefully considered.
As to the creation of privy councillors, incommon with my hon. friend, I should be happy to see a number of our friends recog-
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nized as members of the privy council. I feel however, that that is one particular office which should be reserved as largely as possible for those who have had immediate experience or large experience in matters of government which, as I have said, Mr. Churchill feels should be the relationship to entitle anyone to that position. I talked with Mr. Baldwin when he was in Canada about the position of privy councillors in England. He said to me that in his opinion there was no position which should be as closely guarded as that of appointment to the privy council, that it would lose its character altogether if men, simply because they were appointed to one office, should feel that because they got that office they should therefore get the other.
It is not any lack of appreciation of the fine qualities of the men who represent us as high commissioners which causes me to hesitate to do for one what I could not do for all, or probably would be called upon to do for all, were I to make a recommendation in any one direction. I feel that the position [DOT]of high commissioner in itself is a very honourable one, and I am sure that today anyone holding that office would at all times have access to the government of the country to which he might be sent.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
After Recess
The committee resumed at eight o'clock.


Richard Burpee Hanson: 
William Lyon Mackenzie King: As my hon. friend, the leader of the opposition has just said, he called on me at my office and brought to my attention the circumstances which he has just narrated to the committee and made the suggestion that the government should consider making an appropriation of $1,000,000 or some other amount to aid in relieving distress arising from air raids in Great Britain. I said to my hon. friend that I appreciated his motives and shared his feelings with respect to the desirability of relieving distress, and that from the government's point of view it was all a question of how best to effect the end which we shared in common.
Canada's war effort need not be restricted to contributions that come from the federal parliament. Contributions may come from the provincial legislatures or from municipalities, and there may be contributions from individuals. I am using the word "contribution" in a very broad sense. I told my hon. friend that I would bring the matter to the attention of my colleagues in the cabinet and see that it received careful consideration there. In a word, the view that the cabinet took of the matter was this: that under the war appropriation bill a contribution is being made from Canada's treasury of at least $1,300,000,000 which is immediately concerned with the war effort. It might seem a simple matter to add another million or so to that amount but if we were to do so we would be establishing a precedent which perhaps would lead to many requests for donations to other special objects. We would, moreover, be departing from what seems to have been the method adopted in other parts of the empire in making contributions for this particular purpose. In London,
for example, there is the Lord Mayor's Fund. In Montreal there has recently been opened a fund with which Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth has graciously consented to have her name associated. My hon. friend has referred to what has been done in Toronto. He has spoken of Australia, but has told us the contributions were made by the cities of Melbourne and Sydney.
If I am not mistaken, the city of Ottawa made a contribution a short time ago. It is a form of relief which, if given through the municipalities, appeals immediately to the citizens generally. That would seem to be an avenue through which contributions might be made to this end, which contributions in the long run would amount to as considerable a figure as anything that the federal government itself might contribute. I venture to say that if I were to announce to-night that the federal government was going to make a contribution to this particular fund, immediately it would be found that many persons in the municipalities who otherwise would have contributed to the fund would say: "Oh, well, the federal government is making a contribution, so why should we?" Similarly, municipalities which might be anxious to associate their efforts with the efforts of other municipalities might feel that the dominion government was making a large contribution and, therefore, that it was not necessary that they should do so.
I am giving to the committee the view which the members of the government took of the matter, we being just as anxious as my hon. friend and all other hon. members to contribute to every phase of the war effort to which we could justifiably make a contribution. At this time when a campaign is in progress urging the people of this country to invest in war savings certificates, I think many persons would feel that, since that campaign was gathering up small contributions to help meet the very large obligations which the federal government has assumed, we would be more justified, in relation to this particular purpose, in leaving it to the municipalities to supplement what the federal government is doing.
I do not say that the government will not consider the matter further. If I thought that the House of Commons generally took a different view from that of the government I would very gladly ask my colleagues to reconsider the decision which we have reached. I have given briefly to hon. members the point of view which we entertained. While the matter need not be regarded as finally closed, that is the present position of the administration towards the suggestion my hon. friend has made.
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Agar Rodney Adamson: This afternoon the Prime Minister quoted the qualifications for an imperial privy councillor as given by Prime Minister Churchill. He stated the qualifications which Mr. Churchill had asked that an imperial privy councillor should have. In view of the fact that the question of an imperial war cabinet has been raised, it would seem to me that conversations must have taken place or communications must have passed between the government of the United Kingdom and the Canadian government respecting the setting up of an imperial war cabinet or an imperial privy council. Would the Prime Minister be good enough to give us more information on that?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I indicated, I think on Monday, that there had been communications on the subject of an imperial war council both in Mr. Chamberlain's time and since Mr. Churchill succeeded to office, but there has been no invitation extended to the prime ministers of the dominions to come to London for such a purpose. Such communications as have been received have indicated that in the opinion of his majesty's government the time has not yet arrived for the calling of such a conference. Something of that nature may be called at a future time, but up to the present the British government have not thought it advisable to ask the dominions to send their representatives to an imperial war council.
In the statement I made in the house a week ago on Monday I was seeking to make clear why I attach, so far as my own position is concerned, particular attention to the prime minister of the country being in immediate association with his colleagues when he gives any decision that affects empire affairs, if that can possibly be arranged. I sought to make it clear that from the point of view of effective communication the agencies that we have to-day are such that we feel that, while to all appearances there is not an imperial war cabinet to-day, in reality there is such, I say this because the British government, I assume, asks our opinion on, I should say, most of the matters which they regard as important to the dominions and certainly on all of those matters on which our opinion would be asked if the head of the government were at a council table in London. As the situation is now, we are able to give a reply immediately to any communications of the kind for the simple reason that the cabinet is together in Ottawa; I can consult my colleagues in a very few minutes and we can reach our decision in no time, unless the matter be one that requires considerable discussion. In that event it is possible to 
get the consensus of view much more quickly than could be done by cabling from England to get possibly one set of views here and then trying to reconcile them, say with different opinions held by the government representative in London.


Major James William Coldwell: In the annual report
of the Secretary of State for External Affairs there is a little note on page 10 about which I am curious. It reads:
On September 6 a treaty amending in respect of Canada certain provisions of the Anglo-United States treaty for the advancement of peace of 1914 was signed by the Canadian minister and the Secretary of State.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend will recall that at the time William Jennings Bryan was Secretary of State in the United States, the treaties referred to were made. I am informed that the original treaty negotiated by him applied to Canada as part of the British empire. The present treaty is in the name of Canada.


Howard Charles Green: May I ask the Prime Minister on what basis young Canadians are selected for service in the Department of External Affairs? We seem to have recruited a number of remarkably able young men, one of the ablest perhaps being the acting under-secretary of state, Mr. Norman Robertson, who sits before the Prime Minister at the present moment, and who is a distinguished graduate of our university of British Columbia. I think it would be of interest to the committee if the Prime Minister would tell us in what manner these young men are chosen. There must be many bright young Canadians who would be only too glad to get into the service of this department. Under what conditions can young men enter this branch of the service?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The Department of External Affairs is one part of the general civil service, and admission to the department, if I may use that expression, comes about in the same way as it does in other departments of government, namely, upon examinations which are fixed by the civil service commission. The department makes known its needs by applying to the commission; those who wish to enter the department send in their applications. When the time comes for an examination they take the examination. As I understand it, the examinations are not confined merely to those which are written. There are oral examinations, and the deputy minister of the department has acted with other members of the public service as an examiner at oral examinations with

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a view of sizing up some of the qualifications of candidates which might not be apparent through the written examination.
The department does draw candidates from all parts of Canada and from all of the universities. Care has been taken, I believe, by the universities to make it known to students that there are opportunities in the government service in the Department of External Affairs.
The work of the department is pretty generally known. Those who are taking courses such as economics and political science at the universities and the young men and young women who are interested in foreign affairs send in their applications to the department. I suppose that hardly a week and never a month passes when I do not receive some communication asking how an individual can get into the department; and the same is true, of course, to a much greater extent with the deputy head. The department has a large waiting list of names of those who desire to try the examinations, also a list of those who have passed; and as opportunity arises, those who have passed the examinations are drafted into the service.
I think I ought to say, and I am sure my hon. friend would wish me to say, that the late Doctor Skelton, having held at one time the position which he did at Queens university, having taken the interest that he did at all times in students, made a point of endeavouring to discover young men in different parts of the country who would be well suited to the Canadian public service. He did what he could to encourage the best of them to try the examinations and, as far as he could, enlisted their services subsequently.
I should like to add that I agree with my hon. friend in all that he said about the acting under-secretary of state. I congratulate his university upon having sent to the public service of Canada one who lends distinction to the university as well as to himself.


Mr. CHURCH:: The Prime Minister has given an account of this famous department of his, the Department of External Affairs. I have read all the discussions in Hansard during the many years since this department was established, and in my opinion its establishment is one of the many reasons why we have the present war. Away back at the time of the treaty of Versailles the government of the day set up this department. In an address on May 26, 1938, I gave a summary of the circumstances of its origin and the functions proposed for it, and its history and the separate acts proposed under it.
Immediately after the great war the League of Nations was established as a part of the treaty of Versailles. Great Britain agreed to
this at the behest of President Wilson, and the league was established, but without obtaining the ratification of the senate of the United States, and they refused to endorse it.
The Canadian government proceeded then to make and sign treaties separately, and so signed the halibut treaty. They insisted on a separate seat at the League of Nations; they claimed the right to separate representation at Washington and a separate embassy in the United States, for what purpose? To appease Washington. I would be the last person to say anything against the government in Washington, but Washington is quite capable of looking after its own affairs; that is a primary function of good government on the part of our kinsmen there, to protect and look after their own interests, first and last. I would that Canada would look after its own affairs as successfully.
As regards these amateur ambassadors whom we send over the seven seas, I have consistently opposed that policy. Who instructs them, and what is Canada's foreign policy? I am the only member who has opposed separate embassies and the dividing of Great Britain's representation at Washington and other capitals in the seven seas; and I did so because I believed that it would inevitably lead to division and drifting away from the mother country. We have seen the results. Hitler was thus led to believe that the dominions would not back up the mother country. In 1914 a similar thing happened, in the days of the kaiser, when we were slow to see the way the great dominions were drifting away from the empire.
As I look over the items of expenditure, which have increased herein by leaps and bounds, I ask, what are the functions of these so-called diplomats and who instructs them? They are just a lot of amateurs and only learn by experience. The ablest diplomats we have had in the history of the British empire are the permanent civil servants sent out by the foreign office; I will give the committee some names. Instead of the type of politician whom we have had representing us for the past seven years, Britain had its ablest ambassadors at Washington before and after the great war, men like Lord Pauncefote, Sir Esme Howard, Sir Robert Lindsay, and the war-time ambassador, Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, who was succeeded by two British cabinet ministers and politicians with no diplomatic experience, Lord Reading and Sir Auckland Geddes. True, the papers did not write up these skilled diplomats I first named as they do the politicians appointed.
I have opposed and still oppose the principle upon which this vote is based of dividing
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Britain's representation. Are we or are we not a part of the British empire? If we are, why do we seek, as we have sought ever since this department was created, to divide Britain's representations in external affairs. That sort of thing is very largely what has caused this war. It led to trouble as soon as the department was created. We have heard much talk about "Canada a nation". Yes, it was a nation, as I said ten years ago, on the front pages of United States magazines and at five o'clock teas and ten o'clock dinners at Washington. We were a nation, all right, then, but we were a pauper in actual performance of paying for a fleet to defend our shores. What happened? We sent a whole lot of novice ambassadors down there, with the result that the politicians in the senate and house of representatives put it all over them in diplomacy. Now we are dumb, dumb as an oyster; we have been afraid, during these past three or four years, to say one word about what is going on in the senate and in congress, criticizing Britain and her dominions at the seat of government, and so have contributed something to the conditions which led to war. Canada has kept silent and not replied to all the four years' attacks there on the mother country before this war.
As I have said, one consequence of the creation of this department was to divide Britain's representation, and to lead Hitler to believe, as once the kaiser believed, that the dominions would not support the mother country any longer. It is a phase of separatism and isolation from the mother country, with the result that for a year or two prior to the present war the dominions were a drag on Great Britain. I say this advisedly. For the last three or four years, as this discussion has come up, I have given my personal opinion. A great French prime minister once said "You can never deal with Great Britain with regard to any treaty, because she has always to consult five or six overseas dominions, with the result that when the case has been studied, they can never reach any agreement." What he stated has proved to be correct.
Take the case of Japan, our old and faithful ally. I notice that part of the present vote, item 37, for these various embassies relates to Japan. What happened with Japan? To appease the United States the government has driven Japan into the German orbit by the Washington treaty of 1921. During the great war Japan looked after the whole of the Pacific ocean, enabling Britain to turn her back on the Pacific. Japan looked after China, the Indian empire, the six hundred miles of Canada's western coast, and as far east as the gulf of Aden and the entrance to the

Mediterranean, with the result that as far as Canada is concerned, our interests, including our shipping in the Pacific, were safeguarded.
In the great war to which I have referred, Germany kept the whole civilized world at bay for four and one-half years, although we had then as our devoted allies Italy and Japan, and, during part of the time, the United States and Russia.
This is going to be a long drawn out war and diplomacy will play a very important part in it. We have seen how, largely by diplomatic means, Germany has swept through the Norwegian and the Baltic countries, the Netherlands, the low countries and others. The speed of it shocked the people of the United States and Canada.
I repeat that I am and always have been opposed to the principle on which this vote is based. It divided our empire. It drove Japan, for thirty years our faithful ally, out of the alliance. Two years ago, when these estimates were up for discussion, we declared that Canada's defence and external affairs policy were based on two things: first, home defence, and, second, to protect our neutrality provided a foreign foe invaded our territory on its way to attack the United States. These were the two cardinal principles. Take Italy. As a result of our becoming a nation overnight we passed sanctions against Italy with respect to Ethiopia, and then all of a sudden, in three months' time, those sanctions were rescinded, with the result that Italy, an old ally and a loyal friend of ours, was driven into the German orbit. We did propose a few years ago to establish another embassy in Italy, but it was not consummated.
With regard to the other part of the discussion, I suggest that we have here another means of separating our representation in the action that has been taken in respect of the present French government. The British government has recognized the provisional government of General de Gaulle as an ally, and Australia followed three months ago in the recognition of de Gaulle as an ally, asking the Vichy representative to go home. Canada is divided on the question. Here we find Britain with one policy and Canada with another. Australia and New Zealand have a different policy from ours, and side with Britain. Vichy is doing Hitler's work and bidding and we should close it up in Canada.
A part of this vote is for the purpose of maintaining a sort of dominion embassy in Dublin to Eire. In my opinion, the Canadian people are opposed to this idea. We are spending $30,000 of this vote on this particular work, while our shipping is in a very precarious state owing to the actions of German

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submarines and bombers in the vicinity of Irish ports on the west and northwest coasts of Ireland. We are spending, I say, a considerable part of this vote for the maintenance of a sort of embassy in what is not a British dominion but a separate republic, and a neutral. Why should we spend money over there, while Britain has her hands tied behind her back by the loss of the use of these bases, and shipping and tonnage are being sent to the bottom of the sea? Many ships of the merchant marine have been sunk, our brave sailors drowned, and altogether our shipping faces a grave menace. We should close our embassy in Eire, in protest. It is not in the public interest that we should spend money in a neutral country which is not a British dominion, but doing Hitler's work, and the lights of Dublin and other cities enable Hitler to attack Wales and England.
Further, I believe that we should have a change here with regard to the Vichy government. Let us follow Britain in this matter. We cannot blow hot and cold in these matters. No one knows how many ships of Canadian and British register have been ruined in consequence of lack of proper protection by the right to use these ports in this war, ports which in the war with Napoleon caused damage at the back-door.
Coming to the United States, in connection with this particular vote, which is a large one, I would point out that for nearly two years we have been able to get along without a permanent representative there-almost since the war started. It was a great mistake to open that embassy, because it led to considerable friction between the mother country and the United States before and after the last war. We appreciate all that the people of the United States and their splendid president have done for us, but we must not rely to too great an extent on others. It is safer to rely on ourselves. We must not forget that a year ago we depended upon France and the Maginot line. Everyone said that the Maginot line would hold until Britain and the dominions were prepared, and it failed. We are now depending on the United States for protection this year, as on France last year. I suggest that it would be better for us to depend more on the mother country and on the dominions in the present battle of Britain, both in the old country and in the Mediterranean as help from America may come too late. Mr. Knudsen shocked congress by telling them that it would take two years to get munitions and two years to train men, and in the meantime the war is becoming a grave menace to the empire. No one knows to whom this country will belong even at the end of this year.
I have great respect and admiration for the people of the United States; my respect for them is second to that of no one in this house. At the same time I believe in the policy laid down by Sir John A. Macdonald when he said, speaking in 1844 at a nomination meeting in the city of Kingston, that the present and the future of the people of Canada should always be wrapped up in the mother country, and our maintenance of the British connection forever.
I have been opposed to the policy of giving away air bases. I fail to see why air bases should have been given away from Newfoundland all the way down to British Guiana, bases which the United States have wanted for a hundred years and only got when they found the empire in peril. This move would not have been needed had not the finest army, navy and air force been scrapped in order to please pacifists and those who believe in collective security. An armed Britain would have prevented war. The giving away of these bases has been very much opposed in Britain. Some say that it was done at the suggestion of Canada. If so, then I say that Canada acted with very poor judgment in urging that it should be done; because, after all, the Channel islands and Somaliland have been ceded, and now all the bases from Newfoundland, the key to the St. Lawrence, right down to the gulf of Mexico have been handed over under a ninety-nine year lease-practically a freehold-in exchange for fifty obsolete ships and some munitions up to now paid for on the cash-and-carry plan.
This particular policy will in the end drive Britain	out of	the	western	hemisphere	in	ahundred	years,	and	I am opposed to it	as	apolicy of handing over to the United States parts of our empire to pay for tools. It is not in the interests of the people either of Canada	or of	the	empire	at large, and	I
submit that it has come about as the result of our having separate embassies, and of scrapping the finest army, navy and air force the world ever had, to please the pacifists.
With	regard	to	Rhodes	scholars, I	have
nothing to say against them. In fact, I know most of those from the Canadian universities and I am sure they are good men. But Cecil Rhodes did not intend that the principles which some of them advocate should ever be applied to the empire or expect to see the day when such a separatist drift would start. In my opinion, some politicians sent by us as ambassadors have caused harm in connection with these foreign legations of ours. They do not understand anything about diplomacy and have had no training. A good diplomat never makes speeches but works hard. He sticks to his work like the great men I have named.
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Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: I notice the item in connection with the legation in Paris has been reduced from $75,000 to $12,000. How many are still attached to the staff of the former legation in Paris?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The minister, Colonel Vanier, is not at the present time serving the legation; he has taken on other duties at the request of the government in respect of the permanent joint defence board. Mr. Dupuy, who was next in rank, is charge d'affaires of the French legation. His headquarters are in London at the present time, but he is serving also as charge d'affaires of the legations to Holland and Belgium. He has associated with him a stenographer and a messenger. That is the extent of the legation staff at the present time.
My hon. friend will notice that the government asks for the appropriation in a lump sum. This is to make it possible to transfer members of the diplomatic service from one post to another, as occasion may arise. We are following the practice of the United Kingdom in that regard. I doubt if any year could have illustrated better the desirability of that form of appropriating money for the diplomatic service than the year which has just passed. I say that because we have had to move men rather rapidly from one part of the world to another.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Force
majeure.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Because of circumstances beyond our control. At the present time the other French legation is down to a minimum.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Could the Prime Minister give the committee any information respecting the number of Canadians in France at the time of the occupation? How many Canadians are still in German-occupied France?


Richard Burpee Hanson: That information was given us last night.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: If the hon.
member will look at my statement in committee last night, he will find all the information I am able to give under that head.
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Richard Burpee Hanson: I should
like to ask some questions respecting our representation, at Dublin. I have a special interest in our high commissioner there. He is a friend of many years' standing, and a jovial Irishman. I have, however, often wondered just where his qualifications to become a diplomatic representative at Dublin arose, and why there was any necessity for a representative at that point. Then, what were the qualifications of the former hon. member for Bow River to become secretary of that legation? Why was he appointed to that post? What is the cost of the Irish legation, and what is it doing? So far as I know, there has been no publicity respecting any of their activities, and I should like to know if at this time when, as the Prime Minister knows, there are grave misgivings respecting the attitude of the government of southern Ireland in connection with the war, they are a useful function of this government.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: One of the reasons why Canada has appointed a high commissioner to the Irish Pree State is that the Irish Free State has appointed a high commissioner to Canada. At the time of the appointment by the Irish Free State hope was expressed that Canada might reciprocate. We have felt it wise policy to have representatives in all the other dominions. I believe my hon. friend will agree that, apart from all else, it would have been somewhat invidious if in our representation within the commonwealth, we had left out any one of the dominions.
The reasons, however, for appointing the high commissioner to the Irish Free State were the same as those which prompted us to appoint high commissioners to other parts of the commonwealth, namely, to have some one at the capital of each who would be in touch with members of the government and who would be in a position to bring to the government's attention matters of Canadian concern, and to inform the government in Canada of matters of interest occurring in the country to which the high commissioner may have been sent, also to look after the interests of Canada and Canadians generally.
May I make one or two observations respecting the services rendered by the high commissioner, Mr. Hall Kelly, and the secretary of the legation, Mr. Garland. While publicity has not been given to reports received by our government, the information we have received from that source has been of value. Through the reports we have received from our high commissioner and his secretary we have been in a position to assess the situation in Ireland itself in a manner we would not have found possible had we not had the inside information given us.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Would the Prime Minister be good enough to tell us the terms of the assessment? I should like to know what Ireland is doing, and how it affects us in the war effort.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend would hardly expect me to discuss the domestic affairs of any other part of the empire. In fact he himself has indicated there are internal difficulties in Ireland with which the government of Ireland itself has to contend. We should not be helping the situation there were we, in this parliament, to begin to discuss the affairs of Ireland. That is only a general statement. It is, I believe, applicable to the affairs of any country.
Then, as regards the secretary of the legation, may I say that as hon. members well know, Mr. Garland had exceptional parliamentary experience. Those who sat in the house with him must have realized that he was one of the ablest of the members in the house of that day. The government has endeavoured to show its breadth of view in not restricting its appointments to members of one party, or of carrying on public affairs in a party spirit-a procedure of which we are sometimes accused.
Mr. Garland was not a supporter of the government; he was an opponent of the administration.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I would not say that.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Oh,	yes, he
was.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I would not say that.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: And	a very
formidable one.


Richard Burpee Hanson: A source of timely help in trouble.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: As I recall, he was the one member of his party whom we on this side of the house considered most effective in debate.


Richard Burpee Hanson: He was
a good debater; I admit that.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am sure the committee generally agrees that in the appointment of Mr. Garland as secretary an excellent choice to that office was made.
A few minutes ago the leader of the opposition heard one of his supporters from Toronto describe the qualifications a successful ambassador should have-the type of men who existed in the days of Palmerston and Canning. Among the other qualifications mentioned was that of being able to make friends. The

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leader of the opposition has just said that Mr. John Hall Kelly possesses that qualification in fine measure.


Richard Burpee Hanson: A very
jovial man.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have no
doubt Mr. Kelly's genial personality has enabled him to get information which could not have been obtained by anyone less genial and less genuinely Irish in some of his characteristics.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: It becomes
almost a truism to say that we are going to face difficult days. Speaking in the house only a short time ago, the Prime Minister himself said that experts were agreed that not only was there a possibility of an attempted invasion of Great Britain, but that synchronized with it there was the probability of attacks on Gibraltar and Singapore. No one knows just to what extent the area of the war may spread. Thoughtful people in Canada of necessity must be somewhat concerned, if the war stretches over a large enough area, as to whether or not parts of Canada may be exposed, not so much to the danger of invasion but to the danger of attack by occasional raiders of different sorts.
In view of what I have said, I should like to ask the Prime Minister two questions, knowing that the answers can be given in only a limited way. I should like to know, first, whether the plans for the proposed Alaskan highway have been completed, whether any work has been commenced, and, if so, on what financial basis between Canada and the United States it is being carried out. When will the work be completed?
My second question has reference to the plans formulated by the joint defence board. Again we cannot expect the Prime Minister to make any statement as to where there may be defence projects. I do say, however, that the House of Commons has a right to know that certain plans are being proceeded with. The joint defence board travelled across the country, midst the fanfare of trumpets, and I believe the people would be reassured if they knew the plans were being carried into operation. If they are, we should know something of what the financial arrangements are as between Canada and the United States, whether work has been started or will be commenced in the near future, and approximately what it will cost the Canadian people and the people of the United States of America. Those are twro matters in connection with which the Prime Minister might make a statement. I realize that he must use discretion in giving out information, but he
should be able to tell us enough to assure this committee and the country that adequate steps are being taken to arrange for mutual assistance on the part of Canada and the United States in the event of certain contingencies arising in the near future.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not know
whether my hon. friend was in the house last evening, but at that time I was asked a similar question and sought to reply. My statement will appear on Hansard of yesterday. I referred to the work of the permanent joint defence board and also to the government's attitude toward disclosing plans which have been recommended by that board. I did not refer specifically to air bases on the route to Alaska, but I might say to my hon. friend that the government is proceeding with the work of establishing bases in accordance with the recommendation of the joint board.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I was referring to the Alaska highway rather than to air bases.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Perhaps I
could give what information I have. Pursuant to recommendations of the permanent joint defence board, the Canadian government have arranged to provide suitable landing fields complete with lighting, radio facilities, meteoro'logical equipment and housing for personnel at Grande Prairie, Fort St. John, Fort Nelson, Watson Lake, White Horse, Prince George and Smithers. These fields will provide all the necessary ground facilities for planes travelling from the United States or Canada to Alaska. They will be valuable for commerce as well as for defence purposes.
I have given that statement because it has some bearing on the other matter. The joint board did take into consideration defence problems on the Pacific coast as well as on the Atlantic, and these bases are being established in accordance with the recommendation of the board. The board made no recommendation with respect to the Alaska highway. I believe my hon. friend knows that this matter has been referred to commissions which are inquiring into the matter at the present time.
Both the Canadian government and the United States appointed commissions to examine into this question of the proposed Alaskan highway, and an interim report was made in April, 1940. Since that time further reconnaissance surveys have been made covering possible routes in northern British Columbia and the Yukon territory. A meeting of the Canadian commission is to be held within the next few weeks, which will be followed
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by a joint meeting of the two commissions to consider further the general problem. In the meantime the Canadian government has arrived at no decision as to the advisability or otherwise of constructing the proposed highway.
The other matter raised by my hon. friend had to do with an assurance that definite action was being taken in connection with the recommendations of the permanent joint board. I can give him the most positive assurance on that point. The board has made many recommendations to the government, some of which have been referred to the Department of National Defence, and others to the Department of National Defence for Air and the Department of National Defence for Naval Services. With possibly one exception, and I am not at all sure that that has not been dealt with, all the recommendations, so far as I am able to recall, have been approved by the administration and steps taken to carry them out.
As to financial arrangements between the two countries, that question does not arise because each country makes provision for the work to be done within its own jurisdiction. The work to be done in Canada will be paid for under the War Appropriation Act, and such work as is being done in the United States will be paid for out_ of appropriations by the government of that country. I do not think I need say much more than that. My hon. friend realizes that I cannot refer to particular projects, but I can say that they are quite extensive.
As an illustration of what is being done,
I would refer hon. members to something which evidently has not been noticed by some of their number. At the present time there are United States troops in Newfoundland. They are helping to defend the United States coast if it needs defence, and they are at the very front of our own country. In the event of Newfoundland being invaded, I leave it to the committee to surmise what action they would take. I understood the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church) to say that the United States were doing nothing at the present time in connection with this war.
I give this as a concrete example of the kind of steps that are being taken in a very practical way by United States soldiers to take their place at one of the bases, which I thought I heard the hon. member for Broadview say should never have been transferred.


Howard Charles Green: When the house met eight days ago, the Prime Minister tabled the report of the special committee on orientals in British Columbia, which report was dated December, 1940. One recommendation by that committee reads as follows:

That, both for purposes of civil security and in order to deprive persons hostile to the Japanese of a constant and effective ground for complaint, there should be a registration of the Japanese population of British Columbia. (Suggestions for the procedure to be adopted are attached as appendix B.)
The method of reregistration set out in the appendix is that in addition to the information contained on the ordinary registration card for Canadian residents, the cards used for this reregistration should have a space for a small photograph of the holder, together with his description and his national status, whether Canadian born, naturalized or Japanese. It suggests also that the reregistration should be in charge of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I should like to know if that recommendation by the committee is being followed by the government and, if so, when the reregistration will be completed.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The recommendation has been approved by the government and steps have been taken to proceed with the registration immediately. Preliminary steps have already been taken and I am. not sure 'but that the actual registration has begun. If it has not, it certainly will be within the next day or two.


Howard Charles Green: The reregistration is to be completed as quickly as possible?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes.


Mr. REID:: Will this registration include children as well as other members of the family?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am under the impression that children will be included, but at the moment I cannot say positively.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: I read what the Prime Minister said last evening with reference to Canadians in German occupied France, but I could not find any reference by the Prime Minister to the conditions that prevail at the .points where these Canadians are. I have in my hand a copy of the British Hansard which contains a full statement given by Mr. Eden of the conditions under which the 4,000 British subjects in occupied France are living. It was pointed out that the British government was in touch with the United States Red Cross and the United States embassy in Paris, and apparently they had a good deal of information. Has this government obtained similar information?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think the report of Mr. Eden which my hon. friend just read will give him about all the information we have. Canadians are not concentrated in any one place as Canadians, but they are together with other British subjects, and what-

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ever Mr. Eden has said with reference to British subjects in the occupied areas in France will apply equally to Canadians who are there.


Mr. BROOKS:: Do I understand the Prime Minister to say that the registration of Japanese will apply only to British Columbia? If so, why should there not be a registration of Japanese all over Canada? Why pick out only one province?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The Japanese population in British Columbia, as my hon. friend knows, is quite large in relation to the total population of the province. The Japanese in other provinces in Canada might be looked upon more as individuals. They are pretty generally known wherever they are. I feel that the purpose of the whole inquiry in British Columbia was to meet a British Columbia problem rather than one that was of equal concern to other provinces.


Howard Charles Green: Is the reregistration to be carried out exactly in the manner recommended by the special committee?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: There is, as my hon. friend knows, a standing committee which has been appointed to follow up the work of the commission which made the inquiry. The standing committee has made one or two modifications, I am told, of some of the recommendations, and to the extent to which they have made such modifications the original plan would be modified.


Howard Charles Green: May we know what the modifications are?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am informed that one is thumb printing in connection with the registration.


Mr. FRASER (Peterborough West):: May I ask the Prime Minister whether in the event of a Canadian trade mission going to South America again it will also visit central America? The reason why I ask the question is this: the highway to Alaska has been mentioned, and central America is building a highway connecting with south America which will link up with the Alaska highway. I know that the people in central America are friendly to Canada. Is the government sending a trade mission to central America?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The original programme was for the trade mission to go to south America only, but I agree with my hon. friend that central America deserves quite as much attention as the countries of south America with respect to matters of trade, and I have no doubt it will be visited by a similar mission at some early date.


Mr. NEILL:: To go back to the Japanese for a moment, would the Prime Minister indicate what steps will be taken to ensure that all Japanese will be registered? It is alleged that a considerable number of Japanese are in British Columbia illegally. I think the number alleged is greater than the actual number. Suppose there may be a comparatively small number, say two or three hundred. A previous investigation indicated that there might be only about one hundred Japanese in British Columbia illegally, but very few steps were taken to remedy that situation. There is now to be another registration, and there will undoubtedly be a number of Japanese who have reason to fear that investigation. Is there any way by which it will be known that every Japanese will be registered? The obvious thing for those Japanese to do who are illegally in the country would be to abstain from registering. What steps will be taken in that regard?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Every Japanese will have to have a registration card to identify him. I doubt very much if any Japanese would be able to continue in any kind of work in British Columbia without having a registration card on his person. Without it he would get into difficulties in short order. The Japanese population in the province would be pretty generally known to the authorities there.
I think I ought also to say this. As my hon. friend knows, there are many of the Japanese nationals who feel very keenly about not being regarded in the same light as other nationals, and they are only too anxious themselves to lend assistance to the federal government in seeing that all Japanese are registered in order to protect their position in the community. They are rendering valuable assistance to the government at the present time in this work.


Alan Webster Neill: I can understand that those Japanese who are legally in the country, and they are a large number, will surely make it their business to register, but I cannot conceive that they will go out of their way to give information against those Japanese who have illegally entered the country, because whatever may be the opinion of the Prime Minister or of the government here, we in British Columbia are firmly convinced that "once a Jap always a Jap." The words "being naturalized" are just like a snowflake on a river. It is a mere gesture on the part of the Japanese to secure some privilege such as a fishing licence or something of that kind. The Prime Minister says that they are pretty generally known to the authorities. That might be true where there are twelve
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Japs, let us say, in a village, but it would not be true of a larger place, nearly all Japanese.
The Prime Minister also says that if they were not able to produce a registration card they would not be able to continue in business. In the last war, white men and all others had to be registered, and to make sure all were registered you had to produce your registration card when you bought a railway ticket and other things of that kind. Nothing of that sort so far as I have heard has been recommended in the report of the committee. Those who can qualify will get their registration card, which they will be proud to show as evidence of their all-rightness, but those who are illegally in the country will not go near the place to be registered. Why should they? If, subsequently, they want to purchase a railway ticket or something of that kind and cannot get one without producing a registration card, they will borrow one from a friend. That is a common trick.
There was a regulation made that any Japanese who had served in the great war and could produce his military discharge could get a fishing licence without being subjected to the quota restriction which applied to the ordinary Japanese. What did they do? Every Japanese with a military discharge goes fishing. He does not really. He may be running a cigar store, but he will farm out his fishing licence to another Japanese, who produces the borrowed discharge. They are all alike; you cannot tell one from the other. So it was the practice to peddle out his licence. Every Japanese with a military discharge obtained a fishing licence for some other Japanese. Occasionally they are detected. If it is obvious that they have obtained the licence illegally, it is taken away from them. But that peddling goes on all the time.
I had not intended to bring this subject up at all for various reasons connected with diplomacy and because of the statement which the Prime Minister made earlier in the session, that anyone who made any suggestions dealing with the subject of Japanese in British Columbia was more or less disloyal or at any rate would be regarded as doing it solely for political effect-a thing which some of us in British Columbia do not appreciate.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I wish my hon. friend would quote any statement I made to that effect. He surely has misunderstood the statement I made if he interpreted it as meaning that any member of parliament could not say what he pleased without being regarded as disloyal. I have made no statement of the kind.
fMr. Neill.]


Alan Webster Neill: I was not prepared to speak on this subject to-night, and I rose only because the subject came up. The Prime Minister's statement will be found in Hansard No. 3, I think, reporting the proceedings on the third day of this session, which began on the 7th of November. The Prime Minister most distinctly stated that he would regard it as highly undesirable if any members made any remarks to excite in any way displeasure with the Japanese. He said he wanted the house to understand it was not just a casual or careless remark which some man might make, because that was not so harmful, as the rest of us knew that such statements were born only of a desire for political effect-it was that remark which I did not like-but that when it went to Japan it was represented as a statement, not of some careless, reckless, unworthy-of-con-fidence man here, but as the decided opinion of the Canadian parliament; and that was what he did not like.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I say to my hon. friend that that is quite different from saying that any hon. member was disloyal. I made no reflection on the loyalty of anyone.


Alan Webster Neill: Neither did I.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I say further that I believe events which have occurred since I made the statement I did in this chamber show how wise was the statement to which my hon. friend alluded. He knows, as every hon. member knows, the critical nature of the situation which exists to-day between the British commonwealth of nations and Japan. I am sure that any word of counsel which I venture to express in the interest of the empire as a whole is quite different from an endeavour to restrict any hon. member from making statements which in his judgment are in the public interest.


Alan Webster Neill: I am quite willing to leave it until I look up Hansard to see exactly what was said, but naturally, being more directly interested than the Prime Minister, I have an exact recollection of it. I was wrong, however, in saying that it was suggested I was disloyal. What was indicated was that the statement was highly undesirable because it gave the wrong impression; that we here understood it was merely the claptrap, for political purposes, of an individual, whereas in Japan it gave a different impression.
There is one other thing-I would not ask, it is useless; but I would protest. We are dealing with the composition of a committee of four, one of whom is known to be so violently pro-Japanese that it is a matter almost of

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common scandal in British Columbia. I notice that two people wrote to the newspaper asking how it was that we in British Columbia allowed a man who expressed openly the views that this man does, who is so particularly onesided, to be employed in one of our public institutions. His remarks and his attitude at all times are so absolutely pro-Japanese that I suggest it was as unwise, undesirable and unfair to put him on a committee which would deal with anything of this kind as, to be quite frank, it would be to put on that committee one who holds such strong views on the other side as I do. I did not seek that position, nor was I put on the committee; but it seems to me that to give twenty-five per cent of the representation to one so entirely biased that his attitude has become almost a scandal, was a most unfortunate proceeding.
With regard to the Prime Minister's remark as to what has occurred since the views which were expressed in the early part of the session, I cannot recall anything which happened since then which would lead me to change my opinion. I have seen things happen. I have seen the opening of the Burma road, which certainly was not a friendly action towards Japan; yet I have not noticed any particular reaction on that account against the interests of the empire on the part of Japan. We have seen the United States take a drastic stand in a certain matter, but it also has not met with any undesirable repercussions; in fact, it seems to have had a good effect in the east, because it showed that the white man was going to be on the job.


William Earl Rowe: And what happened in the British house to-day.


Alan Webster Neill: We see the same thing going on in Great Britain. Britain's action in opening the Burma road is about as good an illustration as one can have on that point. I am firmly of opinion-it is only my poor opinion, but it is founded on long experience-that, in the words of Kipling:
You cannot breed a white man in a brown or yellow hide.
And you cannot let the brown man boss you. The white man must be dominant; his word should go. If you adopt an attitude of complaisance or anything which is suggestive of subservience 'to the brown man, he thinks you are afraid of him. The countries of the world have not been won for the white race by adopting an attitude like that. I still think that we should have taken a firm hand with the Japanese and all the native races, and, as a consequence, they respect you.


Mr. MacINNIS:: I rise for two purposes. First, I would not like the committee to suppose that the hon. member for ComoxnAlberni is expressing the attitude of the whole of British Columbia in connection with the matter under discussion. Second, I want to say that I listened to the statement referred to which was made by the Prime Minister earlier in the session, and it is not often I have heard him say anything which has pleased me so much.
In my opinion, the .attitude which a few- a very few-people in British Columbia have adopted towards orientals is a disgrace to Canada. I have said that this attitude is that of only a very few; maybe I am wrong, but if many hold it, I have not met them.
About two years ago the city of Vancouver, because of the same kind of agitation, which has been going on for quite a number of years, and particularly since the war with China began, asked the provincial legislature for amendments to the city's charter to allow the city to discriminate against orientals in the matter of trade licences. When these proposals came before the municipal committee, Mr. Perry, the provincial member for Prince George, told the Vancouver city delegation that if they would substitute "Jew" for "Japanese" or "oriental", there would be no difference between what they were asking for and what the nazis had already done in Germany and were doing in the various countries over which she had got control.
There is one thing of which we lose sight. The Japanese and the other orientals are here. They are in British Columbia, and it is impossible to deport them. They are no longer Japanese or foreigners; they are Canadians, and we cannot ship them off somewhere else; whether we like it or not, they are here. The obvious thing to do, in my opinion, is to seek ways to make loyal Canadians out of them. The hon. member for Comox-Alberni says "Once a Japanese always a Japanese". My friend and I are of Scottish descent, and I may say with equal truth, "Once a Scotsman always a Scotsman". The Japanese are no different from ourselves in their reaction to life and to the things around them.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: The hon. member is an optimist.


Angus MacInnis: If we are to have harmonious and friendly relations between the oriental population and the rest of our British Columbia citizens, we must stop discriminating against and abusing the orientals. We must find some common ground on which we can work, and I think it can be found. Is there any reason, if we should get into difficulties with Japan on the Pacific coast, why the Japanese in British Columbia should be interested in helping Canada, after the way
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in which we are treating them? I am satisfied that if we treat the Japanese and our other oriental citizens aright, we shall get their loyalty, because they are no longer orientals in the accepted sense of that term. They would feel as much out of place in Japan as we would. I know them, speak to them; I visit them and have them in my home, and I have not the slightest doubt that what I say is correct. If we are to avoid the troubles that other countries have had with racial minorities, then we must take a realistic view of the situation in British Columbia and attempt to make these people feel at home among us. We will secure their loyalty by fairness and kindness and by the practice of those other attributes which we exercise in our relations with other people. Otherwise we shall have trouble. I appreciate most sincerely what the Prime Minister said on the occasion to which reference was made.


Thomas Reid: In view of the turn the discussion has taken, I think I should express my views on the question, because it agitates the minds of the people of British Columbia. I do not altogether agree with the last speaker when he places those of Japanese origin in the same category as other nationals who have come to Canada or whose children were born here. I differ from the Japanese in that my first allegiance is to Canada. Therein lies the crux of the entire question, because no person can owe allegiance to two countries at the same time. I warned the house of this, before the committee that sat here dealing with the Japanese vote. In answer to a question of mine it was admitted by Japanese that they owed allegiance first to Japan, and so long as every Japanese born here is registered in Japan and is looked upon as a Japanese national he cannot be truly a Canadian. Hence my objection to them as a class. They are not an assimilable race and are different in their outlook from any other nationals in Canada.


Howard Charles Green: I do not wish to take up the time of the committee discussing this question, but I would point out to the Prime Minister in all seriousness that the quickest and the only way in which he will ever get the Japanese problem in British Columbia started on its way to a solution will be to prevent further immigration. I hear the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis) say "Hear, hear". He agrees with me, and every member from British Columbia knows that the moment further immigration is stopped we can begin to solve the question. Not only would that benefit the white people in British Columbia but it would also be to the advantage of the Japan-

ese who are living there. I suggest to the Prime Minister that under war conditions such as we have at the present time no nation could object to an order in council being put through under the Immigration Act to stop further immigration. Immigration is not extensive at the moment anyway. I make that suggestion as the quickest way to get this problem started on the way to a solution. Furthermore, the present is the time to do it. If the Prime Minister will take that step, I think he will find there will be a rapid abatement of the ill feeling between the white population and the Japanese in British Columbia.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: What my hon. friend proposes is an exclusion act.


Howard Charles Green: No.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That is what it is. My hon. friend knows that there is possibly nothing in this world that the Japanese as a nation would resent more strongly than that. If he wanted to precipitate serious difficulty with Japan, the thing to do would be to introduce an exclusion act and try to have it passed. I agree about limiting the numbers, and the fact is that they have been limited to something under one hundted a year.


Howard Charles Green: One hundred and fifty.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The specified possible total may be one hundred and fifty, but the actual numbers that- have been coming in have been under one hundred. The number has been down to something like sixty. It is due to the Japanese to say frankly that they have lived up to the undertaking which they gave with respect to limiting the number. It will be said, "How do we know that some men have not got in surreptitiously?" No one can say definitely that some people have not come in surreptitiously, but the purpose of the registration is to discover persons of that kind.
The hon. member for Comox-Alberni (Mr. Neill) asks how we can make perfectly sure that we have discovered every man. It seems to me, really without giving substantial reasons for the statement, it is like chasing one's self round a tree to look for some means of creating the impression that there are many Japanese in the country whom no one can discover. I may be wrong, but I cannot see how the standing committee supplementing the work of the commission who have already inquired into the matter, and who are free to make any suggestions they like, should not be able to follow up effectively the purpose for which the commission was created. My

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hon. friend made one practical suggestion, namely, that when a man goes to buy a ticket he should be asked to show his registration card. I will pass that on to the committee and they can consider the suggestion that every Japanese who goes to buy a ticket shall be asked to show his card. That can be done, if necessary. There are many ways in which registration can be established.


Mr. CRUICKSHANK:: I do not want the committee to labour under the impression that the hon. member for Vancouver East represents in any respect the views of the people of British Columbia so far as the Japanese situation is concerned.


Angus MacInnis: So much the worse for
them.


George Alexander Cruickshank: He voted to give them the franchise, putting them on an equality with any white man. No one in my riding is in favour of that. I am as friendly to them as he is, and I may say as a matter of fact that when I came to this house the first time the Japanese gave me a wedding present. But no man can rise in his place here and say that he represents the opinion of British Columbia on the Japanese situation when he is in favour of giving them the vote even though it be used against Canada's participation in the war. That is nonsense. This problem can be solved. I am not worried about the exclusion of the Japanese or anyone else, but we can solve the problem in a very simple manner so far as British Columbia is concerned: Ship them all to Toronto.


Alan Webster Neill: The Prime Minister was
quite right when he said that he had been instrumental in cutting down immigration to 150 including men, women and children in any one year, and I give him credit for that. I know the number was reduced from something as high as 1,700. There was a thing called a gentleman's agreement that stank to high heaven, which was in force previously, and the Prime Minister was the means of reducing it to sensible and interpretable proportions. Before that, a Jap would come along and tell the agent that he was under the gentleman's agreement and the immigration man would say, "Go on." When I asked why no check had been made the answer I got was, "I never saw the gentleman's agreement."
The Prime Minister reduced the whole thing to terms of law, written agreement, which was put under the Immigration Act. I know that the number is much below 150 owing to conditions in Japan, and I believe that since the question has been made the subject of law, in that act, immigration is less than what
it used to be. It used to be an open door and I admit that there are not very many coming in now. But as one member from Vancouver said, if we had stopped them from coming in at all, it would have done a great deal to soothe the popular ill feeling against them. We have enough to contend against now in their birth rate, which is thirty-eight per thousand as against eighteen or nineteen per thousand in the white races.
As the hon. member for Vancouver East says, all they want is to be left alone and they will take care of themselves. Yes, they will, as they did in Hawaii where they dominate the legislature, because there they have votes. The principles which the hon. member for Vancouver East entertains, and those of the party to which he belongs, are the very reason why there is only one representative of that party in this house to-day from British Columbia. It is simply because they let it be known that they were in favour of giving votes to the orientals, and they would vote to let more Japs in and take the quota off fishing, et cetera.
I think the hon. member for New Westminster mentioned that there was a committee of this house, called the industrial and foreign relations committee, that met here some years ago, and we received a delegation from the Japanese in British Columbia. It consisted of one lady and three men, highly educated college people, far better educated than I am or ever can possibly be, and they made a very fine impression. They were picked of course. They explained how terribly they felt; they said their heart felt bad, and they put their hand on their belly, they said it grieved them so much to feel that they could not vote. At that very time we were contemplating passing a law to compel the white people to vote because they were not voting in sufficient numbers. These Japanese talked along those lines and made a good showing. They had it all prepared of course; the brief was prepared by a clever white lawyer in Vancouver- more shame to him-and it was full of holes. But they went over big.
Then we had the privilege of asking them some questions. There is a peculiarity about a Jap when he is pulling off a gag like that; while he sticks to his text and what he is coached to say, he gets along fine, but there is a sort of innate naivete about them, and when you ask a Jap a straight question, he is very likely to tell the truth. One man was a college professor from some place in the United States, and we asked him about a question which is known to everyone in British Columbia, the system of having two schools. They come out of our white schools at about three
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o'clock and cross the road to a Japanese school where they learn the language, and the culture they call it, but they mean loyalty to the Japanese emperor whom, as you know, they worship as their god. We asked this man about this thing. Some of the younger Japanese there had rather soft pedalled on- it, said there was not much of that schooling going on now, and I asked this older man, who had been out of the country for some time, what he thought about it. He said there had been a suggestion made among some of the older men to do away with this dual school business because they felt that it excited indignation among the whites, and he said- it is on record-that "we the older ones thought of doing away with it, but the younger ones, the second generation, were against it; they wanted to keep on their association with the old country
Then I asked him about this system of two nationalities at once. They can get naturalized here, and at that time, some years ago, they still remained Japanese. Those who were born here in Canada had to register with the Japanese consul and they could go back to Japan and still be Japanese. We made so much talk about it that they introduced a rule that under certaia conditions and by getting the consent of the Japanese government a Jap could actually get naturalized here and really alienate himself from Japan, but it was on one or two conditions. One was that he had done his military service

and when they have done that they have pretty well got him. Also, if he went back to Japan for a certain period, it may have been three months-no, it was less than that-if he stayed there for that period he actually became a Jap again. I said, "This is kind of convenient, isn't it, having two nationalities?" He said, "Yes, it is quite handy."
I have here an extract from the House of Commons debates in the old country. It is always held up to us that we must not take any definite stand against the Japanese for fear they might not like it and it might cause embarrassment to the old country. But this is what took place in the British house on October 10, 1940. A man named Mander asked the under-secretary of state for foreign affairs-
-whether, in view of the approval recently given by the United States government for the export of cargoes up to one million barrels of oil to Japan he will consider the advisability of making representations to the American government for concurrent action between the British and American governments to prevent the further supply of oil to Japan.
The under-secretary of state for foreign affairs, Mr. Butler, said:

His majesty's government understand that the prohibition placed by the United States government on the export of oil relates only to certain grades. They are and have been in touch with the United States government on this matter.
Mr. Mander: May I take it that both governments are determined to refrain from supplying to Japan everything that they possibly can which is of a warlike nature?
And someone else said:
Can my right hon. friend assure us that the same sentimental policy which was adopted towards Italy wild not be repeated in the case of Japan?
And Mr. Butler replied:
His majesty's government can be relied upon to adopt the best policy as each circumstance arises.
There was more of the same thing. But they have no hesitation in speaking quite frankly in the British house regarding the Japanese situation, and I do not think we should be so afraid of doing it here. It is generally found, when we have spoken up, so to speak, that it has had a favourable repercussion.
I must join with the other members from British Columbia, with the single exception of the hon. member for Vancouver East, and say that I am absolutely convinced that those hon. members have voiced the sentiments of the great bulk of the people of British Columbia. That is what we are here for. They talk about its being a political question; the Japs have no votes, but the white people are absolutely opposed to giving further concessions. We are all pledged to that. Take a bold stand and it will stand us in good stead not only with the Japanese but with every native race in the world.


Angus MacInnis: I do not wish to prolong this discussion. The last part of it is a sad commentary on itself. I am wondering what we are fighting for in Europe to-day. The hon. member for Eraser valley and the hon. member for Comox-Alberni stated that the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation lost votes in British Columbia because of the position we took with regard to orientals. I never asked anyone to vote for me because of my racial prejudices. I would not appeal to anyone for his franchise on his racial prejudices. I have not the least doubt that before Hitler got his people into the reichstag, many of them got there by demonstrating their hatred of the Jews on the public platform. Our friends from British Columbia are doing that to-day. They say that we are losing and have lost ground. As a matter of fact, at the last federal elections in British Columbia we polled more votes than ever we did before. Let me tell my hon. friends this, that after I brought the oriental situa-

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tion before this house in the session of 1936 there was not much said about the oriental question in the last election, and there will not be in the future. This is not a political issue at the present time. It is first of all a question of social justice, and in the second place a question of dealing in a statesmanlike way with a problem which we cannot shift from ourselves to somebody else.
Let me repeat we are not going to solve the problem by discriminating against the Japanese. It has been proved time and again that the more you discriminate against a race, the more that race multiplies.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Angus MacInnis: It is a well known fact
that people with a low standard of living increase much faster than people with a good standard of living. That is definitely the case. Every discrimination practised against the orientals among us will in turn reflect itself in a harder struggle to exist among the lower-paid white workers in our society. That is the situation with which we are confronted. Do not let us think we are going to get away from it by making fun of it. I say again that this discussion, conducted in so light a manner at this time, is a reflection on this chamber.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I should like to
make a correction, because neither the hon. member for Fraser Valley, nor any other member from British Columbia, said he hated the Japanese. The hon. member for Fraser Valley did not say that the hon. member for Vancouver East lost votes because of his stand. I frankly admit that when the hon. member for Vancouver East is elected, it is a reflection on us, because we have lost the votes.
I have often heard that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, but I have never heard that making a political speech in any way increased the birthrate.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
J/2. A compromise payment in discharge of claim submitted by the government of the United States of America on behalf of the late Robert Fulton Cutting, executor of the estate of McEvers Bayard Brown, $3,836.68.
Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Will the Prime Minister explain this item?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Yes. The
Cutting case is a claim by the executor of the estate of McEvers Bayard Brown against the province of Quebec. The late Robert Fulton Cutting was executor of the estate. Claim was maintained in the superior court, the court of king's bench and the Supreme Court of Canada, and ultimately carried to the judicial committee of the privy council.
It was for the repayment of succession duties illegally exacted by the province of Quebec. The trial court gave judgment for the repayment of the principal sum with interest. This decision was upheld by the court of king's bench and by the Supreme Court of Canada, and the judicial committee refused leave to appeal. The province paid the principal, but has refused to pay the interest. The refusal to pay was originally made by the Taschereau government, and its position has been followed in turn by the Duplessis government and the Godbout government.
The United States government supported this claim and ultimately maintained that there was a proper claim against the Canadian government by reason of denial of justice. Negotiations were under way with a view to the submission of the United States claim to arbitration. By reason of the following facts: (a) That the expenses of arbitration, even if successful, would far exceed the amount involved, (b) that there was not much prospect of success, (c) that, in the event of failure, the expenditure would be much heavier and would establish a dangerous precedent, the government agreed to a compromise arrangement.
Under the compromise, it was understood that payment by the Canadian government would not be construed as a concession that the circumstances were of such a nature as to create an international obligation. The government undertook to include in the estimates an item of $3,836.68.
This item should have been included in the estimates for the last session of parliament, but action was deferred by reason of negotiations with Quebec, in which it was thought that there might be some prospect of this claim being dealt with.
I am sure my hon. friend will forgive my reading the particulars I have given. I did not have them all in mind.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Where is the international obligation? Certainly the Prime Minister has not shown any international obligation. If anything was proved, it was proved that it is the province of Quebec which ought to be carrying this obligation. There is no basis in the statement made by the Prime Minister for the statement that there is an international obligation. There is, of course, evidence of a compromise and evidence of expediency, but there is no legal justification, on the basis of a legal obligation, in the statement the Prime Minister has made. It is a compromise as to the amount, and the Prime Minister has stated quite clearly that it is
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being paid in the first instance as a matter of expediency. He has indicated that it would be cheaper to pay than to fight.
I have often met clients like that. I have never encouraged them, but I have had to give them the option. That is not a good basis upon which to make a payment. If there is a bona fide legal obligation, then let us by all means pay it. If there is no legal obligation, then let that obligation rest where it belongs. The province of Quebec which received and kept the money, had to return it, under the authority of a judicial decision, and refused to pay the interest. I believe that is the point in the Prime Minister's statement. But to say that the other taxpayers in Canada must repay the obligation of one of the provinces is too thick altogether, so far as I am concerned.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend knows that the United States cannot look to the province of Quebec.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I quite
agree.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: It has to look to the dominion. This is an obligation the dominion did not wish to have hanging over its head in its relations with the United States.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is expediency, too.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: No. The decision has been reached as a result of very careful examination by the legal authorities.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Will the Prime Minister give me an opinion from the Department of Justice stating that there is a legal obligation on the Dominion of Canada to pay this sum of money? If he will do so, and if it is based on any decent principle at all, then I will certainly withdraw any opposition I may have. But until he does that, as a matter of principle I do not see how we can agree to the payment of this sum.
Certainly, if the statement by the Prime Minister as to the facts is correct-and I assume it is absolutely correct-then the obligation is that of the province of Quebec, and that province should be made to pay it. If we pay it, it should be with the understanding that we have the right of redress against the province. We should take an assignment of the claim. I suggest to the Prime Minister that if the government pays this sum, it has a chose in action against the province of Quebec. It should take an assignment of the claim and test out in the courts to ascertain whether or not the province should pay us. The government has the right of redress, and 
can withhold the money from the province of Quebec out of the grants made by the dominion to that province.
Do not let anyone say that I make this statement because it applies to the province of Quebec. I would take exactly the same position if it affected any other province, and I believe in taking that position I am on safe ground. I offer this suggestion in good faith, as a way out for the government. Let us take an assignment of this claim from the public executor of the estate, and then let us proceed in the courts of the country to decide whether or not we must pay the amount.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The full amount involved is only $3,836.68.


Richard Burpee Hanson: But I
suggest there is a principle involved.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think by the time we proceeded to take action in the courts the expenses would be greater than the amount recovered.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I put it to the Prime Minister: Is there not a principle
at stake?


Thomas Langton Church: Notwithstanding the fact that we are spending all this money, the United States are breaking their bargain and we are still in the appeasement market. I hope no more of these items will appear in the estimates.
With the consent of the committee, I should like to revert to item Jfi for a moment. With the critical financial situation facing us at the present time, I cannot understand why we should be spending $3,000 for publications of the League of Nations and a grant to the League of Nations Society in Canada. This latter society is patterned upon the League of Nations Union in the old country. It was started in November, 1920, as a non-party organization to make the work of the league known throughout Canada and the empire and to win popular support for the work of the league. But it gradually passed under the control of pacifists, high-brow internationalists, prosperous socialists, cosmopolitans and high-brows, with the result that from 1931 on in England it became increasingly anti-government. It became a great supporter of pacifism and collective security and attempted to convince the people of Britain that they did1 not need a navy, an army or an air force. I object to our spending all this money upon literature which mostly finds its way to waste-paper baskets. It is an insult to the soldiers who are serving over-

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seas to have an item like this in the estimates. Surely we can have a holiday from league meetings until the war is over.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Will the Prime Minister give some undertaking in connection with the matter I raised? There is a principle at stake. I did not raise this question just for fun.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I give my hon. friend the undertaking that I shall direct the attention of the Minister of Justice to his remarks and ask the minister to take such action as he thinks is advisable.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Canada's contributions to maintenance of external organizations.
Jf3. The expenses of the League of Nations for 1941, including secretariat, international labour organization and permanent court of international justice, $120,330.
Mr. ROSS (Souris):: I do not understated why we should be expending this amount of money upon the League of Nations. Would the Prime Minister make a statement?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Possibly I can save time by giving my hon. friend at once such particulars as I have about the present situation. This item covers not only the work carried on by the league, but also matters connected with the international labour office and the permanent court of international justice. All of these bodies have suffered a certain amount of restriction in their work. The league itself has fallen on evil-days, but some of its services and other organizations still have their place in the world, and we believe that by making our contribution to its continued existence and the carrying on of that part of its work which is being done on this continent we shall be serving to some extent the purpose for which the league was intended, helping at any rate to keep that agency alive for better days.
The vote provides for Canada's contribution for the league as assessed in the league budget for 1941. This is about 80 per cent of the amount voted in 1940. The total league budget, however, has been reduced to approximately one-half of the budget of 1940 and one-third of that for 1939. This substantial reduction is not proportionately reflected by a reduction in Canada's contribution, but this is explained by the fact that it was not possible to assess any contribution for 1941 from nine member states whose territories have been occupied by Germany or the soviet union since the outbreak of the war. The proportionate contribution assessed against other member states which have suffered
greatly by war, including France, China and Finland, have been cut in half for 1941. In addition, three other states, Spain, Hungary and Peru, have given notice of withdrawal from the league, which will take effect this year.
In consequence of this, the total budget of the league organizations have been greatly reduced and a larger proportion of the total has had to be met by Canada. Since conditions prevented a meeting of the league assembly during 1940, the budget for 1941 was prepared by the supervisory commission of the league which met in Portugal last September. This committee was appointed by the assembly to supervise the administration of the league. Special powers were given to the supervisory commission at the last assembly because of the difficulty of holding international meetings in war time.
The vote includes the Canadian contribution to all the international organizations of the league. Nearly one-third of it will go towards the expenses of the international labour office, which at the invitation of the Canadian government has temporarily transferred its operations from Geneva to Montreal. Slightly over one-third will go towards meeting the expenses of the league secretariat. At present a very small staff, under the acting secretary general, Mr. Lester, remains in Geneva. A group of financial and economic experts, under Mr. Loveday, has moved with the approval of the Canadian government from Geneva to Princeton, New Jersey, where they are carrying on their valuable activities at the institute of advanced studies. The total strength of the secretariat in Geneva, Princeton and elsewhere has been reduced to 100 of all ranks in 1941 from 688 in 1939. A small proportion of the Canadian contribution, about one-twentieth, goes to the permanent court of international justice which normally sits at the Hague. The court has not been able, for obvious reasons, to act during the last year, and the sum provided for it in the league budget represents the irreducible minimum to maintain it in existence. Virtually all the remainder of the league budget, nearly one-third of the total, is devoted to the contractual obligations of the league pension fund and to meeting a deficit incurred in 1939.
The number of states listed as members of the League of Nations is 48, of which three will cease to be members during 1941. Several states, however, which are not members of the league are active members of the international labour organization, including the United States, Brazil, Chile and Venezuela.

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Richard Burpee Hanson: How many countries are not contributing at the present time which would be contributing under special
circumstances?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: As stated previously, it was not possible to assess any contribution for 1941 from nine member states whose territories have been occupied by Germany or the soviet union. The proportionate contribution assessed against other member states which have suffered greatly by the war, including France, China and Finland, have been cut in half for 1941. In addition, three other states, Spain, Hungary and Peru, have given notice of withdrawal from the league, which will take effect this year.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: What services are now being performed by the permanent court of international justice, and where are its headquarters?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Just sufficient to keep the court in existence at the Hague. The members of the court have been scattered, but the physical court is still at the Hague.


Mr. JAQUES:: I agree with the remarks of the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church) with regard to the League of Nations. So far as my studies have carried me, it seems to me beyond question that in the past the league has been fundamentally anti-democratic. The league failed because it was a league of governments and therefore a league of central banks. We have heard a great deal about foreign relations; we have heard of the diplomats on the world stage, but we have not heard anything about the forces which control the strings by which these diplomats are made to dance.
It is said that we are fighting for democracy which has been defined as government according to the will of the people. In the last twenty-five years we have had two major wars and twenty years of economic depression, bankruptcy, unemployment and so forth. It is fantastic to believe that those conditions have been according to the will of the people either of this country or of any other. I could fill Hansard with quotations from various authorities to prove what has been behind the power of all governments for the past twenty-five years, but I shall content myself with a few quotations at random. I remember a former deputy governor of the Bank of Canada saying this a few years ago-I forget the year but I put it on Hansard. He said that in some countries the policy of the central bank agrees with that of the government, but no self-respecting central bank would accept from its government a policy with which it did not agree. Is that democracy?

Let me read a statement made by Sir Josiah Stamp. He said:
Never in the history of the world has so much power been vested in a small body of men as in the federal reserve board (of the United States). These men have the welfare of the world in their hands, and they could upset the rest of us either deliberately or by some unconscious action.
Is that democracy?
Mr. Ludwell Denny, an American banking authority, in his book "America Conquers Britain", published in 1930, says:
All nations must tremble before our federal reserve board. High money rates in the United States of America early in 1929, for instance, forced an increase in the official bank rates at once in England, ten European countries, in two Latin-American countries, and two in the far east; and in almost every case that action restricted business and brought suffering to millions of foreign workers. That blow hit Britain hardest of all.
Is that democracy?
Speaking in the congress of the United States in 1931, Mr. L. T. McFadden, who at that time had been chairman of the committee on banking and currency of congress for the fourteenth year, said:
I wish to emphasize the fact that international finance is almost exclusively German. The federal reserve board and the federal reserve banks have pumped so many billions of dollars into Germany that they dare not name the total.
He continues:
Do you know that Germany has been lending our money to soviet Russia as fast as she could get it out of this country from the federal reserve board banks? Do you know that she is the author of Russia's five year plan, that she has armed and supplied soviet Russia with our money? Do you know that Germany and soviet Russia are one in military and industrial matters ?
I mention that because up to the time that Russia more or less joined up with Germany and partitioned Poland, our socialist friends were under the delusion that there was a distinction between Germany and Russia. But, as I said last session, I think it was, the only difference between Germany and Italy and Russia is the difference between three eggs. You may say that Germany is a hard-boiled egg, Italy a scrambled egg, and Russia, if you like, a fried egg. I would add a fourth egg, and that is finance, which is a rotten egg. But they are all eggs and nothing but eggs. You will get nothing but eggs out of any of them. There is no difference between them as history has now proved.
Mr. McFadden, again speaking in congress in 1932, and speaking of his own country- remember, I am quoting a member of the United States congress-said:
We have in this country (the United States) one of the most corrupt institutions the world

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has ever known. I refer to the federal reserve hoard and the federal reserve banks. This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the people of the United States.
Is that democracy?
Again, Arthur Kitson, an English economist, writing in the English National Review in March of 1925, said:
In the November issue of the National Review I outlined the plot conceived by certain German-American Jewish financiers for dominating the *world under the currency system known as the "gold standard", which is being carried to a successful issue with the aid of certain of our London bankers at an astonishing rate of speed.
In a footnote to the article Mr. Kitson added:
It is worth noting how unanimous our anglicized German financiers are in desiring the reestablishment of gold in this country.
And he named Sir Felix Schuster, Baron Schroder, Mr. Otto Kahn, Fruhling Goschen, Kleinworth & Co., and so on.
I could continue these quotations from authorities which no one in this chamber can deny, but I think I have given enough. I do not want to take up too much of the time of the committee.
I should like now to quote something as to the causes of the war which hon. members will not get from any publication of the League of Nations. Addressing the Alberta legislature in 1934, Major Douglas said:
Just as I told them in Ottawa in 1923 exactly what was going to happen in 1928, so I tell you now in 1934 that before 1940, if you have not changed the financial system, it will change and probably eliminate you.
And further, in the same address to the legislature, he said this:
There is no doubt whatever that the perfectly easily understood economic urge towards war comes primarily from the working of the financial system at the present time because of this necessity for overseas markets in order to provide purchasing power from these overseas markets. There is practically no room for discussion that the next war will almost inevitably destroy what we know as civilization. And there is very little doubt that the next war is only two or three years ahead unless something is done to prevent it.
The failure of the League of Nations has not been lost sight of by this unseen power which I have briefly quoted. There is a general movement throughout the civilized world towards centralization. We see it in Germany and we see it in the so-called democracies. Everywhere there is an idea of centralization of power, of government, of business. Democracy surely entails decentralization. A democratic government, since it is a government according to the will of the people, must rest on the broadest possible basis, and therefore any movement toward
centralization is not democracy, it is making for dictatorship. I believe it is true to-day to say that there are but two political philosophies: democracy, which entails decentralization, and totalitarianism, which means centralization. Totalitarianism includes, of course, all brands of socialism, nazism, communism and fascism; all are of the same breed, and all intend the same thing-the centralization of power away from the control of the people.
As I say, there is a movement everywhere towards centralization. One development of it in Canada and in Great Britain at the present time is what is called federal union or "union now." Under this scheme the democracies, sovereign nations, would surrender their sovereign power over their armed forces, finance, fiscal policy and the judiciary. If that were done, what would be the status of this House of Commons? It would be reduced to less than a parish council.
That this is no pipe dream, or any figment of my imagination, or even anything new since the war, is evident from this quotation from one of the pioneers of the idea of federal union. I refer to Professor Arnold Toynbee,, who has been closely identified with the Royal Institute of International Affairs. Speaking at the fourth annual conference of Institutions for the Scientific Study of International Relations, held at Copenhagen in June, 1931, he said:
In plain terms, we have to re-transfer the prestige and the prerogatives of sovereignty from the fifty or sixty fragments of contemporary society to the whole of contemporary society-from the local national states by which sovereignty has been usurped, with disastrous consequences, for half a millennium, to some institution embodying our society as a whole.
In the world as it is to-day, this institution can hardly be a universal church. It is more-likely to be something like a league of nations. I will not prophesy. I will merely repeat that we are at present working discreetly but with all our might, to wrest this mysterious political force called sovereignty out of the clutches of the local national states of our world. And all the time we are denying with our lips what we. are doing with our hands.
I might add that one of the fundamentals of this idea of "union now" is a world currency based on gold. I will go further and say that that is, if not the whole, certainly the main purpose of this idea of "union now." I would ask, after the very fine words of the Minister of Justice last evening with reference to the people of Great Britain and the sacrifices they are making to preserve their liberties, is the price of their physical liberty to be economic slavery? Because that is what the gold standard means and always has meant.
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It is international slavery and nothing else, and I say that is the main purpose of this idea of federal union or "union now."
I can speak for this group and for social crediters all over the world, that we stand absolutely on the sovereignty of the British commonwealth of nations, because we know that the crown is the symbol of individual liberty and justice. Instead of surrendering bur sovereignty to international racketeers, international money-lenders, we should strengthen the sovereignty not only of Canada but of every nation comprising the British empire, by restoring to it the absolute control of the issue of currency and credit, so that it shall be impossible in future to make the statements as to the real control which I read when I started my address.
Finally, I should like to quote from a speech made by His Highness the Aga Khan. I do not think anybody could put it better, or improve on the time and place in which he made his remarks. Speaking at the Nelson Day dinner of the navy league in London, England, in 1934, the Aga Khan said, in regard to the question of arming the League of Nations with a police force:
There are innumerable technical objections to the creation of an international force under the orders of the League of Nations, with which I need not weary you to-night. But behind all these, I see two fundamental difficulties. One is, that the league itself includes too many wolves ill sheep's clothing-or, shall I say, watch-dogs with an occasional hankering after a bit of mutton for themselves-to be likely ever to show an effective unanimity in suppression of the meat-eating habit. The other difficulty, and that to my mind goes even deeper, is that no mechanical scheme, even if [DOT]constructed for such a desirable object as maintaining the peace of the world, can command those deep-rooted instinctive loyalties for which nations are prepared to risk their fate, or individuals their lives. These loyalties are, for us, centred not in Geneva, but in that British crown which is the symbol of our ordered freedom and of those institutions and traditions which are of the very essence of our being. More than that, our loyalty to the Crown is no narrow local or racial emotion; it has grown with the expansion of England to be the common and mutual loyalty of a worldwide empire which is, in fact, a league of nations, but one that has grown and not been artificially put together. It is a league based on the enlargement, not on the suppression of patriotism. It is a league that in the hour of danger showed that it could summon a million men from the ends of the earth with the appeal: 'Who dies if England lives?' It is a league, in Tact, that is capable of action.


Major James William Coldwell: I do not intend to
[DOT]wander far from the item under discussion, but I do feel that, as one who has always believed and believes more firmly to-day than ever, that the only form of security for a nation like Canada, and for other nations small or great, will ultimately be found to

be in the realm of collective security, I could not sit here to-night and hear the hon. member for Broadview and the hon. member who has just taken his seat express the opinions they have expressed without rising in my place and saying something on the other side.
We are witnessing to-day as a matter of fact the results of the break-down of collective security, and ever since the Polish boundaries were guaranteed in March, 1939, feverish attempts have been made by our own great commonwealth to rebuild some form of collective security. We have sought allies and have failed to find them. One by one we have seen nations who, had they stuck together, might have withstood Hitler ere he rose to power, fall under his domination.
It is all very well to say that we must get more decentralization. I listened to the hon. member for Wetaskiwin. He said that we needed more decentralization, and then he spoke of the sovereign power of the British Commonwealth and the sovereign power of Canada. I am wondering just what he means by decentralization. Where is the decentralization to lie? In the nation?


Norman Jaques: No, in the people.


Major James William Coldwell: In the province? In
the town, in the village, or, as he suggests, in the people?


Norman Jaques: Yes.


Major James William Coldwell: What does he mean
by the people?


Norman Jaques: The individuals.


Major James William Coldwell: Then I say that we
shall go back to the days when duelling and murder were rampant, because the individual has achieved security in his community by reason of the fact that he has achieved a measure of collective security through the community of individuals. It seems to me that in this war which we are fighting we are learning the lesson that, had we been able to maintain a league of nations backed by the proper authority and the proper amount of power to enforce its will, we might not today be where we are. I want to say to my hon. friend and others who think like him that, when this war is over, we shall again attempt to build some form of collective security, otherwise we shall witness recurrent wars in the days to come.
I should like to ask these gentlemen who talk about decentralization and who oppose the idea of collective security, what is their alternative? What alternative do they offer? None whatever. I quite agree that behind

102&
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some of these moves there have been great capitalist institutions, great financial powers and all the rest of it. But I think that at this time we do an ill service to our democracies in belittling the amount of democracy we have; for, after all, though we have not complete democracy in the country in which we live or in the commonwealth of which we are a part, or in the nations which to-day are fighting the totalitarian powers, yet to my mind we have at least an amount of democracy that is worth preserving, an amount that is worth struggling for and fighting for. Therefore I do not like to hear men in this chamber and across the country denouncing the democracies and comparing them to a degree with Hitler. The hon. gentleman who has just spoken is a member of the social credit group. I have read the advice which was given the social credit party in the province of Alberta by the gentleman to whom they pay $6,000 a year, a gentleman by the name of Byrne. What does he say about society? He says that society is like a pyramid. The people on the outside are the circumference, and at the top there must be one directing mind. That one mind must give orders and all must take instructions right down to the outer fringe.


Norman Jaques: He never advocated that.


Major James William Coldwell: My hon. friend says that is not so. I will tell the committee what I will do. At the first opportunity I get I will read into the record the report of that gentleman's address and that will settle the question. I will read just a few paragraphs to illustrate what I have said. May I say this, that there is not a province in Canada where there is greater control from the top than in Alberta, where one man controls the thinking of a great mass of people.


Mr. JOHNSTON (Bow River):: He is a
great man.


Major James William Coldwell: He certainly fills a great amount of space, if that is what the hon.
member means.


Mr. HANSELL:: That is not funny at all.


Major James William Coldwell: It may not be funny
but you asked for it.


John Horne Blackmore: It is not true.


Major James William Coldwell: I saw him here.


Ernest George Hansell: He does not control thinking; he leads.


Major James William Coldwell: If we are going to struggle for our democratic institutions, then let us place before us something that is better
than the kind of thing we have been and are enduring at the present time. I am persuaded that we shall never achieve peace in this world until the common people of the earth, through organizations that will arise out of their own agony, their own blood and their own toil, set up some form of international organization that will be able to control the international buccaneer and international aggressor, and that is what the League of Nations was formed to do. The League of Nations failed, they say. The League of Nations did not fail; it was the statesmen of the world who failed the idea behind the League of Nations. That is the tragedy of to-day, and the sooner we learn that lesson the sooner perhaps in the days to come will our people build something that will protect them from these recurrent wars.


Norman Jaques: Mr. Chairman-


The CHAIRMAN:: I wish to point out to hon. members that I have given a great deal of latitude. A great deal was said which was not pertinent to the item before the committee. A line must be drawn somewhere.


Norman Jaques: I have tried to follow the line since this debate started, but it seems to me that that line is a complete circle; it has boxed the compass.


Thomas Vien: We must try to break the vicious circle.


Norman Jaques: I do not expect to convert with regard to his political views the hon. member who has just taken his seat, but I cannot let pass his remarks about an old and very valued friend, Mr. L. D. Byrne, who has been the victim of so many sneers because he happens to receive this $6,000 a year. The remarks attributed to Mr. Byrne by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar are exactly the opposite of the views that Mr. Byrne holds. I know Mr. Byrne intimately.


John Horne Blackmore: So do I.


Norman Jaques: And we share common
knowledge and common loyalty to the ideals of social credit. The very basis of the philosophy of social credit is the freedom of the individual.


Thomas Vien: Order. The rules do
not permit the discussion of the merits or demerits of social credit at this time. The hon. member was just addressing himself to the principles underlying social credit. That has no connection with the item under discussion.


Norman Jaques: Then let me rebut a statement made publicly. casting a reflection on a valued civil servant of the Alberta government.
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Thomas Vien: I am afraid the remarks by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar arose from the great latitude that was given to the hon. member who now has the floor. I must ask hon. members to stick to the rule, which says that we must address ourselves to the item before the committee.


John Horne Blackmore: Then I submit, Mr. Chairman, that you drew the line at the
wrong time. You should have stopped the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar.


Thomas Vien: I would wish to adhere
to the rules at all times, but by the unanimous consent of the committee on many occasions some latitude must be given. But the chairman must draw the line somewhere.


Norman Jaques: Well, Mr. Chairman, this
item deals with the League of Nations, and surely the League of Nations deals with political philosophy. If it does not, it does not deal with anything. I only want to make a remark on a certain political philosophy, and it is this, that the views that Mr. L. D. Byrne holds are the opposite of those attributed to him by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar. He has never said and never written that he believed that power must be from the top down. The exact opposite is true. We hold and preach, and have preached for years, that it is the privilege of the people to decide policy, to demand results; it is the duty of their government to obtain those results for them, if that government is a democratic government. It should obtain those results by instructing the necessary experts to bring them about. That I say is the exact opposite of the ideas attributed to Mr. Byrne by the hon. member who has just taken his seat.


John Horne Blackmore: Just a word regarding this collective security. I think we could find in Hansard several occasions on which I have taken strong issue with those who were dreaming of the impossible ideal of collective security. In 1936 and 1937 we trusted ourselves to collective security, and the result is that we fell into a state of unpreparedness which allowed aggression to raise its frightful head and put us in danger of being swept from the earth. Right in the presence of disaster we have men rise in this house and talk of collective security. I am amazed. If the British empire and individual members of the British commonwealth of nations and the United States had depended upon themselves and made their walls strong and not bothered about collective security, depending upon people who were utterly undependable, we should not to-day be in grave danger of being destroyed as an empire. I say, what has been throbbing in my being ever since I came to
{Mr. Jaques.]
this house, that we as Anglo-Saxon people and the peoples associated with us in our government must look to ourselves and the God who guides us for our defence and strength in this world; we must not depend on other nations; we cannot depend on them; they will fail us in our hour of need. It is well enough to be ready to cooperate with other nations, well enough to get all the help we can from them. But we have failed, dreadfully once; let us never in the long history which awaits us fail again.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Canada's contribution to maintenance of existing organizations.
H. Portion of expenditure _ of the imperial economic committee and the imperial shipping committee, $4,675.
George Hugh Castleden: I should like an explanation as to the division of that amount between the imperial economic committee and the imperial shipping committee.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: 
George Hugh Castleden: Has the imperial shipping committee to do with the registry of ships under British or Canadian registry? What is its function?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: This is an advisory committee on questions of shipping policy; it has not to do with registration.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.

Passports and Visas
[Stage Direction]
Administration service.
1.	Departmental administration, $121,925.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: This item is not to be carried. As I said last night, we wish to call items in one or two departments, so that on Thursday or Friday, if we so desire, we may take up the estimates of those departments.
Item stands.


[Stage Direction]
87. Departmental administration, $154,440.
Richard Burpee Hanson: This item will stand.
Item stands.
Progress reported.



PASSPORTS AND VISAS


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, before the house adjourns, I should like to give certain information with respect to the revision of Canadian passport regulations, involving the closing of certain offices.
In view of the heavy falling off in applications for passports it has been decided to close the branch offices at Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal and St. Stephen, New Brunswick, which were opened in July of last year to relieve the congestion due to the avalanche of applications which suddenly descended on the Ottawa office. These branch offices will be closed on March 15. A considerable financial saving will thus be effected without inconvenience to the public.
Unless there is a further drop in applications the branch passport offices at Vancouver and Windsor will be kept open for a further period and an office opened at Moncton to replace the office at St. Stephen which was less conveniently situated to deal with applications from the various parts of the maritime provinces.
All applications for passports made after March 15 should be addressed to the Canadian passport officer, Ottawa, or if the applicant resides in the Windsor district, - in British Columbia or in the maritime provinces, to the acting passport Officer at Windsor, Vancouver or Moncton.
New Canadian passport regulations will come into force on April 1, abolishing the present special passport valid for travel to the United States and making certain changes in the
regular passport which will thereafter be the only passport issued.
The special passport for travel to the United States only was issued last summer when it was thought the requirement might prove to be a temporary one. As, however, there is no present prospect of a relaxation of the regulations and as under war-time conditions the strictest care must be taken in the issue of passports to avoid them being granted to improper persons, it has been considered advisable to discontinue issuing the special passport for travel to the United States. Other factors leading to the decision to discontinue the special passport were that the system of issuing two passports-a regular passport and a special passport for the United States only-gave rise to considerable confusion in the public mind and complicated considerably the keeping of records. Moreover, it represented a departure from the recognized international practice, Canada being the only country to issue two passports.
The changes in the regular passport cover two points-the period for which the passport is issued and the fee. The unsettled conditions and stricter supervision of international travel arising out of the war have made it advisable to reduce the period for which passports are issued, thus enabling more frequent checks to be made. It has been decided to make the initial period of validity two years instead of five years as at present. Passports will be renewable for four periods of two>
years each instead of for five years as at present. The passport fee will be reduced from $5 to S3. The fee for each renewal will be $1.
It will be noted that these modifications do not change the maximum duration of the passport or the maximum fee that is paid, maximum duration remaining at ten years and the maximum fee at $7.
The new passport will be valid for travel to the United States and any other country or countries to which the applicant desires to travel, except, of course, countries with which Canada is at war.
Passports already issued will, of course, remain valid until the date on which they expire.
A day or two ago the leader of the opposition asked me if I would hold up my announcement respecting passports, in order that consideration might be given to the proposed closing of the office at St. Stephen. The hon. member for Charlotte (Mr. Hill) is similarly interested in that particular office, and would like to see it continued.
May I say the business there hardly justifies keeping it open. These are days
Passports and Visas

when we have to seek economies. My colleagues and I have considered the matter to which the hon. members have directed our attention, and after giving it the best possible thought we feel that we must do as I have announced.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The matter of expense is not important. The work is done by the collector of customs, at no additional expense. I believe the only extra expense involved is that of the services of a stenographer. I am sorry the Prime Minister has not. considered favourably the request made. It is not a matter of local pride. It is one of convenience, because this point is a funnel for motor traffic entering the United States. People come there without passports, and have been able to obtain them at that point. Otherwise they would have to travel right back to Moncton.


Grote Stirling: Will there now be no
local facilities for those people living close to the border in various parts of Canada, whose custom it has been for shopping and entertainment purposes, to slip across the line and back again the same evening?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am informed this will not affect the position of those persons to whom the hon. member has referred. Since mention has been made of tourist traffic, I would remind hon. members that passports are not required of people entering Canada from the United States. United States citizens have a distinct advantage when visiting our country. The freedom from passport requirements saves them considerable trouble.


Richard Burpee Hanson: It has a curiously adverse effect on the tourist traffic.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Wednesday, February 26, 1941.