1945-03-21

PRIVILEGE-MR. HANSON PROCEDURE IN DEBATE ON RESOLUTION RESPECTING SAN FRANCISCO CONFERENCE

Hon. R. B. HANSON (York-Sunbury):: Mr. Speaker, on a question of privilege, when I rose yesterday at the conclusion of the Prime Minister's speech and asked the questions which I did, I based my position on a statement which I understood the Prime Minister had made in the early part of his speech, which I shall now read and which will be found in the second column, page 20 of yesterday's Hansard. This is what the Prime Minister said:
I hope that, in the course of reading this statement, I may not be interrupted-
And may I interject that that hope was fulfilled.
-but when the statement is concluded, if there are any questions in the minds of hon. members arising out of what I have said I shall be very glad to attempt to answer them.
It was on the basis of that statement, which is there without limitation, qualification or equivocation, that I asked the questions which I did. I hope therefore, in view of the discussion that ensued after the Prime Minister had spoken and I had asked those questions, that I shall not be debarred from the privilege of taking part in this debate if I so desire.


Mr. SPEAKER:: In answer to the hon. member for York-Sunbury I was fully aware that he was under a misapprehension in regard to the procedure, and I intended-and I think

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the house would agree with me-that he should be allowed to take part in the debate if he so desired.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I thank
Your Honour for that, but I do not concur in the suggestion that I was under a misapprehension. I will let it go at that.



QUESTIONS

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

Mr. BRUCE:: 1.	When did Samuel Carr first make application for naturalization as a Canadian citizen?
2.	When were his naturalization papers granted him?
3.	What were the reasons for giving a decision in his favour and granting naturalization papers?
4.	Where was Samuel Carr born?
5.	When did he come to Canada?
6.	What name did he bear when he first came to Canada?
7.	What name or names has he assumed since then?
8.	What is his present occupation?


Mr. McLARTY:: 1.	First application made in name of Samuel Kogan in court of general sessions of the peace, Waterloo county, Ontario, 29th January, 1931. Certificate issued 23rd June, 1931, but not delivered. This certificate revoked by order of governor general in council 17th December, 1932. Second application made in court of general sessions of the peace for county of York, Uth September, 1936.
2.	Certificate issued March 2, 1945.
3.	Finding by a judge of the county court of York, that the applicant was a fit and proper person to be naturalized and possessed the required qualifications. This finding was made under date 4th February, 1937. Consideration of the case by Secretary of State.
4.	According to application, Kharkov, U.S.S.R.
5.	According to immigration report, August 29, 1924.
6.	According to immigration report, Shmil Kogan.
7.	Second application made in name of Sam Carr.
8.	According to application, secretary.


ASSISTANCE TO PROVINCES IN BUILDING OF HOSPITALS, ETC.
Mr. LALONDE:: 1.	Since September 1, 1944, has the government of the province of Quebec requested the cooperation or financial assistance of the
dominion government in the building and equipping of hospitals, insane asylums or other similar institutions?
2.	If so, (a) on what dates; (b) for what projects; (c) what was the answer of the federal authorities?


Mr. CLAXTON:: 1.	No.
2.	Answered by 1.


VETERANS' LAND SETTLEMENT-LINCOLN COUNTY, ONT.
Mr. LOCKHART:: 1.	To date, what properties have been purchased in Lincoln county to be used for the establishment of returned men on the land?
2.	From whom were such properties purchased?
3.	What was the total amount paid in each instance?
4.	What acreage was obtained from each purchase made?


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver Centre):: 1.	Pt. S.E.i Lot 19, concession 3, Grantham township; Pt. lot 21, concession 8, Grantham township; Pt. S-i lot 22, concession 8, Grantham township; Pt. lot 17, concession 4, Grantham township; Pt. lot 14, concession 5, Grantham township; Pt. lot 7, concession 2, North Grimsby township.
2.	German, William J. and Clara E.; Wel-stead, Iiatheryn L.; Welstead, G. A.; Jansen, Peter A.; Battal, Charles P.; Jarvis, T. D. and Edna Mary.
3.	84,300; $8,800; $12,500; $4,000; $3,984; $4,800; including improvements valued at S13,620.
4.	10, 25, 50, 2i, -23, -5.


R.CA.F.-ASSINIBOIA, SASK., STATION
Mr. SHAW:: 1.	Was an R.C.A.F. station opened at Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, on or about August 21, 1944? If so what was the purpose of opening this station?
2.	Was the road between the said station and the highway gravelled sometime between August and December of this year? If so, what was the purpose of the gravelling?
3.	Was a winter supply of coal delivered to the above station after August 21, 1944? If so, what quantity of coal was supplied; when was the last delivery of coal made to the station, and ivhat was the total cost of the coal?
4.	On what date was it decided to close this R.CA.F. station at Assiniboia?
5.	Was an investigation undertaken at the R.C.A.F. station at Assiniboia because of certain alleged irregularities in the equipment section?
6.	If so, (a) on what date was it commenced; (b) who was in charge of same; (c) was the R.C.M.P. notified of such investigation; (d) was
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it completed; (e) what were the findings; (f) if such investigation was not completed, -what is the reason?


Mr. GIBSON:: 1.	On the disbandment of No. 34 EFTS Assiniboia, the premises were allocated to accommodate No. 41 Pre-aircrew training school and No. 403 aircraft holding unit, effective 21 August, 1944. Effective the same day a small RCAF Station was formed at Assiniboia to provide services and maintenance for the PATS and AHU.
2.	Yes. The gravelling of this road was considered necessary to enable maintenance of the bulidings on the station to be carried out.
3.	A three months' supply of coal consisting of 947 tons of lignite stoker and 56 tons of sub-bituminous lump. The last delivery was made on November 30, 1944, and the total cost was $3,782.10.
4.	When it became apparent that sufficient aircrew had been trained No. 41 PATS was no longer required and was disbanded effective 15 November, 1944. A new and more efficient method of handling stored reserve equipment allowed of the disbandment of No. 403 AHU, effective 1 December, 1944. As RCAF Station, Assiniboia, had been formed to maintain services for these units, it was no longer required after their closing and was disbanded effective 1 December, 1944.
5.	No information is available indicating that any such investigation was ever undertaken.
6.	Not applicable.


INDIANS-MILITARY SERVICE
Mr. CASTLEDEN:: 1.	Were the Indians of Canada residing on the reserves, included in the national registration of 1940?
2.	Are Indians residing on Indian reserves in Canada subject to compulsory military call under government regulations?
3.	How many Indians, in each military district, have been compelled to take military training in Canada under existing regulations?


Mr. MARTIN:: 1.	Yes.
2.	The resident Indian Agents, located on the Indian reserves throughout Canada, at *the end of August. 1940, were appointed as deputy registrars under the national registration regulations, 1940, and authorized and instructed to register all Canadian Indians who were on the reserves at that time, whether residents or visitors, and to continue

such registrations, including those of young Indians as they attain their sixteenth birthday. Under this arrangement the majority of Canadian Indians who were on or about the reserves in September 1940 were then registered there. Most of the Indians who were then away from the reserves were registered at the reserves upon their return. Others became registered at various outlying post offices or at outlying R.C.M. Police detachment offices. In this way a very complete registration of all Canadian Indians has been effected and is being continued. It is not compulsory that the Indians must register on a reserve.
3.	It is regretted that we have no information available to divulge this fact.


QUESTION PASSED AS ORDER FOR RETURN
Mr. POULIOT:: Since the beginning of the war, how much was paid each year by the dominion government and any dominion board, commission and corporation and any other dominion agency to- 1. the law firm of Borden, Elliot, Sankey and Kelley, barristers and solicitors, of the city of Toronto;
2. The following partners of the above mentioned firm: (a) H. Borden, K.C.; (b) B. V. Elliot, K.C.;	(c) R. H. Sankey, K.C.;	(d)
W. A. G. Kelley; (e) J. T. Johnson; (f) I. G. Wahn; (g) A. D. McAlpine, and (h) Hon. C. P. McTague, K.C.?


MOTIONS FOR PAPERS
Mr. BRUCE:: For a copy of all correspondence, telegrams and other communications exchanged between Major-General G. H. Pearkes, Y.C., D.S.O., M.C., and General McNaughton, or any officer in the Department of National Defence, relating to-1. His retirement from the Pacific command.
2.	Instructions issued by the Department to General Pearkes and/or his officers in the Pacific command on methods to be employed in inducing the personnel of the home defence army to go overseas.
3.	Reports made by General Pearkes to the Department of National Defence giving the nature and result of the efforts of himself and staff in carrying out the instructions stated above?


Mr. ABBOTT:: I think that most of the
documents asked for here are confidential and probably privileged. That certainly applies to communications between General Pearkes and

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the Minister of National Defence or officers of the department. Slubject to the usual reservation I think the motion might pass, that papers which are not confidential or privileged will be produced.


CONSCRIPTION FOR OVERSEAS SERVICE- CORRESPONDENCE WITH QUEBEC PROVINCE
Mr. LALONDE:: For a copy of all letters, telegrams and other documents exchanged between the dominion government and the government of the province of Quebec, since September 1, 1939, pertaining to the putting into force of conscription for overseas military service.


EMERGENCY SHELTER REGULATIONS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. S. H. KNOWLES (Winnipeg North Centre):: Has the attention of the Minister of Finance been called to the fact that the council of the city of Winnipeg has made a second application asking that Winnipeg be brought' under the emergency shelter regulations, and that this application is supported by other public bodies in the Winnipeg area? As evidence I hold in my hand a letter from the Winnipeg council on rehabilitation and postwar reconstruction, and also a telegram from the Winnipeg branch of the Canadian Legion, urging that this request be granted. Can the minister indicate whether consideration has been given to this renewed application?


Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Minister of Finance):: I received notice of this question just before coming into the house, but I know something about the situation in a general way. I know that when we formed the intention of making an offer to congested areas for the appointment of emergency shelter administrators we felt that it was necessary to stipulate that application must be made within a certain time; otherwise it would be impossible to set up an effective organization. That time has gone past; and I know that it is the strong conviction of the wartime prices and trade board officials who are concerned with these matters that it would be impossible now to accomplish anything worthwhile in Winnipeg in the time within which it could usefully be accomplished, that is, before the period around May 1.
I saw a copy of a letter that the chairman of the wartime prices and trade board has recently written to authorities of the city of Winnipeg in which he offers to give consideration to setting up an organization with a view to the situation which may develop on the next moving date, which is October 1; but we do not think we can go into Winnipeg now with the idea of doing anything effective during the spring season.


FAMILY ALLOWANCES
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
James Lorimer Ilsley: I should like to make a brief statement in answer to some inquiries that have been made regarding family allowances. The Family Allowances Act provides for the payment, commencing in July, 1945, of monthly cash benefits in respect of children under the age of sixteen.


Mr. GRAYDON:: What date in July?


James Lorimer Ilsley: The period covered is the period on or after July 1, but the first payments are not to be made until later in the month of July.
At present an allowance is given to income tax payers for their dependent children, and it is not intended that there shall be a duplication of benefits in their case. The Income War Tax Act will be amended at the appropriate time to prevent this duplication. The exact nature of the amendment cannot as yet be announced, but it can now be said that taxpayers may be sure that their net position will not be impaired as a result of the payment of family allowances. I wished to make the last point clear in answer to inquiries that have been made.


SAN FRANCISCO CONFERENCE
[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from March 20, consideration of the motion of Mr. Mackenzie King to approve a resolution to send representatives to a conference of the united nations at San Francisco to prepare a charter for the maintenance of international peace and security.
Gordon Graydon: Mr. Speaker, in rising to take part in this very important debate, and having given some study to the Prime Minister's address of yesterday, I should like at the outset to deal with certain points which were raised by him. His reference to the meeting
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of commonwealth representatives which will take place shortly in London gave no adequate explanation as to why a minister of this government had1 not been dispatched- overseas to take part in such an important gathering. Nor was there anything in his speech to indicate what position Canada was taking with respect to close collaboration with the United Kingdom and other units of the commonwealth when the San Francisco conference is convened. This, and other points I intend to raise this afternoon, I should like to have the Prime Minister answer in due course some time before the debate ends in accordance with the arrangements made.
The Prime Minister mentioned, too, the contribution of the league of nations. In the estimates just tabled there is provision for Canada's share in the costs and' expenses of that league. With the setting up of the new world peace organization I think it is a very proper question to ask now: what will then be the status of the old league and its various collateral organizations? Will they be absorbed in the new set-up, or will the old organization and its collaterals be disbanded altogether?
The Prime Minister stated in his address that the government's views on the composition and powers of the security council and on other aspects of the proposed organization have already been communicated to the greater powers. Do we understand1, therefore, that the views expressed in his address of yesterday cover all of the government's policy as communicated to the greater powers? We should know whether this government has advanced views to the greater powers which have not been made known in parliament. It is evidently not the Prime Minister's intention to propose particular provisions or amendments in advance of the discussions of the conference, despite some rumours which have been abroad that already a Canadian amendment had been proposed. I should like the Prime Minister to indicate to the house, if he will, before the debate closes, what his government has in mind with respect to proposed amendments which may properly come before the conference and which have not been mentioned by him so far in this debate.
A close scrutiny of the Prime Minister's address would indicate that the government intends to take the Canadian delegation to San Francisco without any clear delineation of policy prior to arrival there. True, his speech contained some suggestions, and it gave obvious approval to the principles and purposes of the proposed charter, but evidently Canada's real position is to be left until the San

Francisco conference is held; and that, in my humble opinion, is not good enough in the circumstances.
In his address the Prime Minister dealt briefly with the proposed- Canadian representation and expressed the view that i-t was desirable that Canada's delegation, to the conference should be thoroughly representative. With that general statement I think perhaps everyone will agree, but I had hoped -the Prime Minister would give a more detailed account, first as to how this broad representation was to be achieved, and second, as to the status of those who will be chosen outside of the normal government ranks. At this point I should like to say that when the Prime Minister, at a press conference prior to his departure for Washington, arbitrarily ruled out as a possible delegate our -national leader, John Bracken, that was and is regarded by our party in and out of the house and by myself as an unprovoked slight, particularly in view of the fact that when the delegation goes to San Francisco there will not be any parliament in Canada at all. To rule out the possibility of choosing a prospective prime minister of Canada was going pretty far. Our party now ask that we be given by the Prime Minister the right to choose our own delegates. When this delegation goes to San Francisco, as I have said, there will be no parliament in Canada. A new parliament will have to approve the stand and actions of the delegation at San Francisco. Even the most unprejudiced observer to-day would scarcely hazard the guess that the present government is likely to be in control of the next parliament of Canada. In this respect Canada is in a vastly different position from the United States, where approval and ratification will be deal-t with by the government and congress n-ow in office. I suggest, therefore, that the delegation to San Francisco cannot be confined to representatives of parties sitting in a dying parliament. In my opinion it should be enlarged to give proper representation to agriculture, labour, veterans of the last war, service men or veterans of this war, as well as industry and business. More than that, the apparently heavy delegation of government supporters which it is rumoured will go to San Francisco will be out of balance, as far as the membership is concerned, particularly when parliament will have expired, in view of the share of public support which the government commands to-day throughout Canada.
Further in the Prime Minister's speech he states that the government itself will, of course, assume its constitutional responsibility both for the selection of the delegation and for any decisions which are agreed upon at

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San Francisco. This raises at once the question as to the status of the delegates the government will choose outside of its own supporters. Will they go as full-fledged delegates? Will they go as advisers, or what will be their capacity? Will they have the same freedom to express their views at San Francisco as is claimed by the representatives of the Republican party in the United States; and will there be any prior consultation among the delegates who will go to the conference? I raise this point because certainly in the past there has been no disposition on the part of the government to take the official opposition into its confidence with respect to external affairs.
I can find no reference in the Prime Minister's address to a very important matter which has been raised from time to time regarding the scope and field of the united nations charter. In his reply in this debate I would ask him, if he will, to make clear his interpretation with respect to the powers of the new security organization, particularly with reference to the question of the revision of any part or all of the peace treaties which may be made prior to the united nations charter going into effect. On this point, as well as others, this house would like to know if any other governments have sent in proposals or amendments relative to the Dumbarton Oaks proposals. If they have done so, has Canada received copies of them? If so, such proposals or amendments should be made public or tabled in this house.
I now come to another rather important part of the Prime Minister's address, in which he spoke of military agreements. To use his own words, at page 26 of Hansard for March 20, the Prime Minister said:
Under the present proposals, members of the organization would not be required to place forces under the control of the security council except in accordance with special agreements separately entered into, setting forth the number and types of the forces, and the facilities and assistance which they are prepared to provide.
The agreements would limit the military aid, pledged by members, to what each member was ready to give of its own volition. The agreements might include provisions governing the circumstances in which any forces could be called upon to serve abroad. These agreements would need separate approval in accordance with the constitutional processes of each country. In Canada that would mean approval by parliament before such agreements were ratified.
There is at present a good deal of obscurity about the methods by which this part of the proposals would be developed in practice. One point, however, is clear. As they stand, the acceptance of the proposals would in no way commit Canada to send forces beyond Canadian territory at the call of the security council. If any such commitment were sought, it would be 32283-5
embodied in a later agreement, freely negotiated by the government of Canada, and coming into effect only after it had been approved by parliament.
With respect to these points I should like the Prime Minister to make clear when the agreements which are mentioned in the Dumbarton Oaks proposals, and referred to in his speech yesterday, are likely to be entered into by the states subscribing to the charter, and this is what I mean by that statement. Will there be any agreements entered into at San Francisco, or will the agreements be entered into after approval and ratification of the charter have been given by the respective governments, or will the agreements be entered into only after the peace treaties have been signed?
It would appear that the extent of our contribution with respect to force will be governed by the agreements rather than by the charter itself. We should be told whether there will be one blanket agreement covering all our contributions in this regard or whether there will have to be a special agreement covering each particular operation in which the organization may require men and equipment and, if so, will each of these special agreements have to come before parliament for approval and ratification in each instance?
To my mind these agreements are going to be of vast import so far as this country is concerned, and I feel that the Prime Minister has not dealt with them and their import as fully as he should have done. There will be ample time, however, for him to do so when he replies in this debate, and I ask him now to clarify this point at that time.
World peace and world trade are inseparable partners. The success of the new international organization will depend to a very large extent upon the degree to which it is possible for world trade to expand. Conversely, we know it is equally true that world trade can flourish only when the international political climate is favourable. Too little was said by the Prime Minister and too little has been said in this debate on the question of opening the channels of trade. This nation must have trade. Without it all the internal palliatives will be ineffective to make or keep our people employed and prosperous. One of the major jobs of the economic and social council of the new united nations organization will have to be centred on methods to be applied in extending international commerce. When the Prime Minister replies I suggest he give his views with respect to the possible functions and powers of the economic and social council in this regard.

San Francisco Conference

Leaving for a moment the points made by the Prime Minister, I desire to tender certain views of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition relative to the resolution before the house. At the outset I would like to make it abundantly clear that the Progressive Conservative party will support the resolution.
Abroad throughout Canada is the grim and unquenchable determination that the same power and resolve which enabled this nation to make an outstanding contribution to the winning of victory on the war fronts of the world shall be with no less vigour and resolution turned to the equally difficult task of winning the peace. That widespread view constitutes an unmistakable guide to those upon whose shoulders will rest the setting up of the machinery to keep inviolate the victory which we hope this war will presently give us.
The debate on the Prime Minister's resolution affords parliament a unique and far too infrequent opportunity of discussing Canada's position in international affairs. I do not recall at the moment a full-dress debate on our relations with other countries having taken place since I entered parliament in 1936. Our government, our parliament and our people have not been kept abreast of the developments in the fast-moving world community as they should. Think well over the fact that less than twenty-six full days of parliamentary sittings in the last ten years have been consumed in discussion of this most important branch of our national business. Ponder a moment, too, the fact that during that ten-year period the appropriate standing committee of this house has not been convened once to discuss the broad1 matters of either commonwealth or external affairs. It will not do to forget, either, that never yet in Canada have we had a separate minister of external affairs, despite the fact that the importance of that department admittedly calls loudly for something better in the way of constant attention than one can in fairness ask a busy Prime Minister to give. The plain fact is that this government has been derelict in its duty in failing to provide a full-time minister and other essential facilities properly to discuss and handle our relations with other nations. It is pretty late to start, but this house must make the best use of this opportunity to air its view on a subject which has been kept not only in the background but almost underground so far as parliament is concerned.
Having spoken on matters internal I now turn to the conference with respect to which this resolution deals. As the Prime Minister properly pointed out- yesterday, San Francisco is not a peace conference. It is a conference

to which forty-four nations are invited to create the machinery which it is hoped will perpetuate and preserve the peace that is subsequently made. As a basis of discussion the delegates to this world security conclave will have before them the Dumbarton Oaks proposals and any amendments thereto.
To the united nations there were two main avenues of approach to the problem of finding the means to make the peace stick. One was, as the celebrated columnist Walter Lippmann stated, to dissolve the wartime alliance, reassemble the separated nations and then seek to bind them by the terms of a covenant in accordance with the Wilsonian principle of 1919. The other avenue was to preserve the wartime alliance by transforming it and adapting it to the post-war world. Dumbarton Oaks represents the latter approach. Its proposals contemplate a charter drafted by the authority of an alliance which is presently in existence.
The contemplated charter is evidently to be utilized as the machinery to maintain the peace when won. What is significant is the fact that the peace is to be maintained largely by the powers that win it. Viewing the proposals with a realistic eye one must come to the inescapable conclusion that there is much to commend them, particularly on the broad basis that if the great powers stick together we will have peace. If they do not, we may have war, and in any event they have the combined power to enforce world security and avert catastrophe.
Our representatives at San Francisco must recognize this situation and face it as realistically as they can. We must not allow the desire to retain as much freedom of action as possible to prevent our playing our full part in the security pact, but must harmonize these two natural and desirable objectives.
Some analysis of the Dumbarton Oaks proposals is essential to any discussion as to Canada's possible stand at the conference, although naturally those representing us at the meeting will of necessity have to meet the specific problems with some resiliency if agreements are to be finally reached. Let us examine some of the major propositions laid down for consideration at San Francisco. I am not going to go through them all, but I want to take up four or five which I think are important.
1.	With regard to the principles and purposes set out in the Dumbarton Oaks proposals, I fancy that no comment is called for because Canada will be whole-heartedly in agreement with them.

San Francisco Conference
2.	With respect to membership in the organization, according to the Dumbarton Oaks proposals this is to be open to all peace-loving states. That definition is pretty broad. Perhaps the underlying reasons are powerful for such a breadth of language, but some clearer definition would appear to be essential if misunderstandings in the future are to be avoided.
3.	On the point of the principal organs of the organization there will be little disagreement.
4.	But with respect to the composition, functions and powers, voting and procedural provisions of the general assembly there will doubtless be considerable criticism. It appears to be headed for the post of a discussion group. It can talk but it can do little acting other than the election of non-permanent members to the security council. True, there are other functions, but I choose only the more important. Nevertheless its membership will be largely obligated to provide armed and material and financial assistance to the organization without in my opinion there being any corresponding control or direction of those contributions, and, what is more important, they are to a large extent denied the right of deciding when or how they shall be used other than through the members they elect to that security council.
The assembly debates may have a powerful effect on public opinion, but they will fall short of bearing any semblance to the relationship between a democratic legislature and ' its executive so far as its status beside the security council is concerned. Its members, however, will have protection in disputes, or where acts of aggression are committed against them, and in the final analysis perhaps that factor cannot be lightly overlooked. An assembly that hampered or delayed the actions of the powerful security council in its mission to preserve peace could not be countenanced. We revert once more to the practical equation: peace or war very largely depends upon the great powers. That is no reflection upon the part that other powers will play.
5.	The security council contemplated in the proposal constitutes the main part of the peace machinery. It is given wide powers and the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. The council as proposed has eleven members, six nonpermanent elected by the assembly and five permanent members, including the four great powers and in due course the republic of France. Agreement, as you know, was not arrived at at Dumbarton Oaks with relation
32283-5J
to the voting procedure on the security council, the issue being whether one great power should have a right of veto against action when it itself is involved in an international dispute, an issue raised primarily by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
At Yalta the big three, so-called, devised a new voting formula which was included in the invitations that last week went to the invited powers. The new voting formula may be summed up as follows: First, every member of the security council will have one vote; second, on procedural matters, that is, getting issues before the council, a vote by any seven members will suffice and, third, at the critical state, when the question of using force comes up, seven votes will be needed but they must include the great powers. This is intended, I presume, to give other nations a measure of reassurance as far as this part is concerned.
The practical effect of the voting compromise arrived at at Yalta is to make a distinction between the quasi-judicial functions of the council in promoting the specific settlement of disputes and the political functions of the council in taking action to maintain peace and security. When questions of the first kind are involved, that is, when the issue is whether any particular situation threatening peace should be investigated or what action short of recourse to force should be taken in order to deal with the situation, no nation which is a party to the dispute, whether that nation is great or small, will participate in the decisions of the council, and these decisions shall be made by a majority of seven of its eleven members, the eleven consisting of the five permanent representatives of the great powers and six representatives of the others. But when the issue goes beyond specific measures, when the question is actually one of using force to prevent or restrain aggression, then a different voting procedure will be followed, or is proposed to be followed, should I say. In this case there must be unanimous agreement among the representatives of the five great powers before action can be taken. Each of these great powers, therefore, in effect has the right to veto action against itself.
Canada stands in a different position from that of the other smaller or so-called middle nations, although I think those terms are pretty loosely used in view of the significance sometimes attached to them. Her close relations with the two great Anglo-Saxon powers give her freedom of fear unique among nations, small or large. No nation is more wedded to peace. We have not a single national objective which cannot be gratified by peaceful means. We have not a single national objective which can be gratified by war. How
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fortunate we are compared with so many nations which live under the constant dread of war.
Though so averse to war, Canada has played a big part in both world wars. For this reason, and because of her position of influence in the councils of the commonwealth-incidentally we may perhaps claim to be not entirely without influence in the councils of the United States as well because of our close proximity to that republic-Canada stands head and shoulders above all nations other than the great powers in her capacity to make a contribution to the maintenance of peace, and this must be considered when our position is placed before the conference by our delegates.
Canada's future as a free nation can best be assured as a member of the British commonwealth of nations. British and American peoples must work together in close harmony. An international organization must be created to maintain world peace and Canada must give full support to such an organization. Those three sentences are taken from the programme and platform of the Progressive Conservative party.
The principal judicial organ of the organization, the proposed international court of justice, is still in embryonic form. Perhaps I should say it is even less than that, because only proposals have been made with respect to it. The conference at San Francisco will have some guide from the Dumbarton Oaks proposals, but they are largely in alternate form. The scope and field of the court's jurisdiction will be something requiring careful study and consideration by the nations in view of the plenary powers being given to the security council with respect to all matters relating to external affairs.
One point with respect to the international court of justice which may well be mentioned will be an early codification of existing international law which can profitably form a basis at least for the initiation of the new court, providing valuable assistance by way of precedents for its operations.
In the midst of this discussion on the proposals for world security I desire to make an observation with respect to our commonwealth and empire relations as well. Nothing done by this nation at the coming conference or elsewhere must endanger our close ties with the British commonwealth and empire. These ties must be strengthened rather than relaxed in the days that lie ahead. It will be recalled that in this very chamber two years ago the

United Kingdom Foreign Secretary, Right Hon. Anthony Eden, standing at the head of the clerk's table, used these words:
The relationship between the various units of the commonwealth may well form a pattern for a world peace to be followed by the nations of the world.
This is the glory and the common sense of our commonwealth, that there is nothing exclusive about it. Having been for long an international going concern, and having taught the world in past periods how even a partly international going concern could keep the world at peace, it can now fit easily into the larger security plan.
The temple of peace will have to be constructed slowly and laboriously, stone by stone. One of the chief builders will be the British commonwealth, and' it can only discharge this task if there is among its partners the fullest desire and intention that this international going concern-the British commonwealth and empire, the only international going concern in existence at the moment- shall be kept strong and vital so that it may discharge its task in peace no less effectively than in war. We of Canada at the conference and elsewhere must never let the commonwealth down.
Of major import to Canada is our relationship with the great and friendly republic to the south of us. It is of great importance that this deep and abiding international companionship and brotherhood be continued, promoted and consolidated. This nation must always see to it that the ties and bonds of friendship between Canada and our American cousins are preserved and maintained. Between the common people of both nations is a depth of understanding which is an anchor of assurance for peaceful relations for generations to come. So that in every one of our international movements our position with relation to the United States of America must be an important consideration and factor in our policy. One of the keystones in the arch of peace for us is a friendly commonwealth, friendly among ourselves and friendly with the United States of America.
We are fortunate in the knowledge that the United Kingdom and other units of the commonwealth are desirous of seeing Canada's friendly relations with the United States of America maintained, preserved and promoted. Likewise the United States of America is anxious, for obvious reasons, that this nation shall be a powerful and influential unit in the British commonwealth of nations.
In the sentiments thus expressed and in the stand this nation takes in her relations to the commonwealth and the United1 States there

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is no inconsistency with our contemplated association in the proposals for world security. Dumbarton Oaks recognizes such ties as major contributions to the peace of the world.
The people of this nation, Mr. Speaker, are determined to take every means at their disposal to prevent another war. They have made up their minds that so far as lies within their power this war must be the last. They know, too, that we have to be more realistic and less theoretical in our policy on external affairs. Pious hopes and prosaic chantings on the theories of peace and similar subjects are not only so much waste time but are definitely harmful and dangerous. Canada must be no international Pollyanna. She must face the cold hard facts as they are. A world organization without the power to enforce its decisions is like the domestic law that is never enforced-it is better off the statute book altogether.
Unless we evolve a more practical method than we have been using, I have fear of Canada drifting again into the same negative attitude which characterized her in pre-war days. We must stand for something in commonwealth and international matters. We are a virile, robust people, and we must not yield in the future to the temptation of pursuing any timid, weak-kneed, spineless or negative policy in dealing with others.
In an honest effort to prevent wars and promote peace and trade there are those of us who think that this nation should take its full share of responsibility in shaping with others the conditions which determine peace or war, instead of pursuing an ostrich-like course in' time of peace, only to pull our heads out of the sand at the last minute and find that we are in a war. Canada has to do better than that in the post-war years. We must help to prevent wars instead of helping only to win them. But we cannot do that if we pursue our pre-war policy of aimless hesitation, ineffectiveness and isolation.
The Dumbarton Oaks foundation upon which the San Francisco framework will be built envisages more than the political side of peace. The proposal for an economic and social council will be welcomed as a step in the right direction, even if its powers are not very impressive. There is more than the political side to peace. There are many opinions, all of vastly divergent character, as to the root cause of war, but it may safely be said, I think, that a happy, contented people can readily have their aims gratified by peace alone. The peoples of this globe are not all living under happy conditions. Standards of living run from the
point which they have reached in some sections of North America to starvation and death levels in many other lands. The humanitarian side projects itself into every consideration leading to permanent peace in the world. Exploitation of the weak by the strong must have no place in the international economic and financial field. The strong must succour the weak rather than dominate them if world peace is to be more than a fanciful objective in the world of to-morrow. Shakespeare put it well when in these memorable lines he wrote:
The quality of mercy is not strain'd . . .
... it is twice blessed;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. And when one couples with that the biblical quotation: "It is more blessed to give than to receive," it will be apparent in the minds of all who wish a peace of honourable dimensions in the world of to-morrow that the Christian ideals to which so many millions on the face of the earth do homage should not be forgotten in the struggle for permanent and lasting peace.
I yield to no one in my desire to see that the abuses of yesterday shall not be extended and perpetuated into the morrow. It has been said time and again that one of the threats to world peace in the past has been the ramifications of certain international combines, monopolies and cartels. There must be no interests greater than the governments whose sovereignties are being recognized in the coming conference. The people must be supreme, which means that the governments must be higher in authority and control than any powerful group within that government's jurisdiction. The world's highway must be cleared of dangerous international highwaymen of finance, industry or politics. The road must be made safe for the ordinary people of the world.
The eyes of the ordinary citizens of Canada or the world must not be dazzled and blinded and diverted from the realities of the situation by any shining sunlight that may emerge from San Frapcisco. The machinery for world security will give no irrevocable guarantee that there will never be another war. Unfortunately that statement has to be made. If we hark back to the old days of Woodrow Wilson and the birth of the league of nations, that will be sufficient to banish forever the illusion that there can be a perfect machinery operating perfectly in an imperfect world. San Francisco is another trial-and it deserves a good trial. It is another test as to whether or not the world- has returned permanently to its senses once more, but in the meantime let us not reach too many heights of fancy or
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dream too many utopian dreams. This is a world of reality and it will not be put right by people who only talk peace. If it is put right it will be by people working at the job of keeping peace and fighting, if necessary, to preserve it. There is no other royal road to peace.
I have great hopes for Canada in this postwar world of international opportunity. We have the areas; we have the resources; we are peopled with as hardy, ambitious and industrious men and women as any nation on the globe. Because of that, the challenge to this nation and to every one of us becomes the greater. There has been nothing to excel the Canadian sailor, soldier and airman in the experience of two world wars. Let us demonstrate to the world there is nothing finer than a Canadian citizen in the national, commonwealth or international field of peace.


Mr. L. P. PICARD (Bellechasse):: Mr. Speaker, I had not intended to introduce any political note into the remarks that I shall make this afternoon, but a few words of the leader of the opposition (Mr. Graydon) compel me to do so. lie referred a moment ago to the spineless policy of the government and stated that there should be a government who would take a full share of the responsibilities in the planning of the world of to-morrow.
Let me say that in the past the Liberal party has needed no lesson of that kind, because it has been the policy of that party in the early days, during the fights for the constitutional liberties of our people, to have its leaders to the fore, from Papineau and Mackenzie to Baldwin and Lafontaine. Later on under Laurier the Liberal party has been leading the fight for the recognition of Canada as a world power, and even more under the present Prime Minister (Mr. Mackinzie King) under whom Canada has made great strides in the field of international relations.
The future of our international relations. I may say, is better in the hands of the Prime Minister than it would be in the hands of the board of strategy of my hon. friend's party, and by keeping the present government in power we shall avoid the necessity of the house leader of my hon. friend's party asking for a delay of the debate in order to consult his absentee leader and permit that leader to consult his experts.
The making of a nation, as that of man himself, is a matter of time and evolution; it is a matter of toil and of struggle. No nation of the old world has reached its present status by spontaneous growth, because they have all gone through the ordeal of wars and social perturbations. They are the results of the merger of small states or the splitting up 
of vast empires. They have been enlarged by expansionist policies or have become smaller in consequence of weaknesses. Some are the outcome of wars while others are the product of compromise and of a concerted effort to prevent wars.
The nations of the new world had a somewhat simpler development; all of them are the outcome of the adventurous expeditions of the wealth-seeking nations of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; of the seafaring powers, of the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Dutch and of the French and the British. Nearly all of them have undergone some process of evolution from the condition of trading posts to that of colonies, and from the colonial status to that of sovereign states.
Of these, Canada has probably had the slowest evolution to its present state of nationhood, but its development has been the result of persistent efforts. As it has reached sovereignty and has become a contributing factor in the shaping of the fate of the world by the tremendous contribution it has made to the liberating forces of democracy, it is about to be asked to divest itself of part of its sovereign rights, as other nations will be asked to do, in order to attempt to establish, an organization devoted to the protection of world security, which the resolution now before the bouse asks us to approve.
It is therefore not irrelevant for me to dwell for a few minutes, in these remarks, on the historical development of our national status as well as on our inter-imperial and international relations. When analysing Canada's status in the world of to-day and contemplating the prospect of Canada's role in the world of to-morrow, we cannot overlook the strange pattern of the historical make-up of our country, nor can one prevent one's memory from recalling the different steps that have led us from the colonial era of the French, and early British domination, through the stages of the fight for the acquisition of legislative power on to confederation and the dawn of selfgovernment and autonomy within the framework of empire, and, finally, to full nationhood within the larger family of the league of nations.
It is consoling to see that at all stages of this evolution men of both races, whose sons shared this country, men of all political parties -and that statement is evidence of my intention not to introduce the political note into my remarks this afternoon-who have taken part in the administration of the state, have shown a common ambition to lead the nation step by step to a higher plane in the field of democratic government. In the early days of British

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occupation we see Viger and Bedard carrying their grievances to London and invoking the principles of British government to obtain a larger measure of legislative authority for the colony. Later we find united two great Canadians to whom the country is greatly indebted for their indomitable courage, William Lyon Mackenzie and Papineau, who struggled to secure for upper and lower Canada the right to manage their own affairs, and who fought against grave abuses and for the redress of serious injustices to the mass of the people of the two provinces.
This question of legislative authority was to the fore during all the period and brought together two other great Canadians who led the liberal forces of the times, Baldwin and Lafontaine, who can equally share honours for their fight for responsible government. Up to these days the only party that believed in responsible government as being essential to the progress and prosperity of Canada, and that the granting of this right of self-government would not only not weaken but strengthen our loyalty to the crown, was the Liberal party in Canada.
Then came Cartier and Macdonald, whom the former conservative party have a right to be so proud of for their part in the building of confederation. Both were great Canadians whose aim was the greatness of the country and its advancement in the path of selfgovernment. History already recognizes the part Laurier has played in the further emancipation of the country. Barely a year after his getting into power, Laurier, when in London for the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria, was consistently maintaining the position that Canada had reached the status of a nation, and he obtained recognition from the British government that such was the case. Later on his return he was able to state that he had "longed to live to see the day when Canada would no longer be a colony but would be a free nation within the empire, and he was glad to be able to say he had lived to see that day."
Laurier impressed consistently upon British statesmen during the succeeding imperial conferences this thought of Canada's emancipation. The Hon. Newton W. Rowell stated in Montreal in 1912:
This assertion of our national status was necessary for the people of Canada to develop our own national self-consciousness and our own self-respect. It w'as necessary for the people of Great Britain in order that they might realize that they were dealing not with subjects but with fellow citizens. That this is our position, and that we are now a nation, is not only recognized by the statesmen of Canada but by the statesmen of the mother country.
He concluded by saying:
I venture to suggest that when the history of our constitutional development is-written among the great things that Sir Wilfrid Laurier has done none will appear greater than his perception of the fact that the status of Canada must be changed and that this change must be brought about, not by legislative enactment, but by the demand on our part for a new status.
It must be said that at the time all the Conservative press of the country was accusing Laurier of being a separatist. But soon afterwards another great Canadian, Borden, had occasion to demonstrate that the successor of Macdonald could, when faced with the responsibilities of power, broaden his outlook on the same question of Canadian autonomy, and a further step was made during the last war in the negotiating and signing of the peace treaty, when Borden convinced the British statesmen that nobody could speak for Canada but its own Prime Minister.
When one of the treaties ending the last war was brought before this parliament for approval there was given to the country the evidence of true cooperation of great Canadians to the cause of autonomy when the present Prime Minister, then leader of the opposition said, as reported at page 472 of Hansard of March 16, 1920:
I would say frankly that Sir Robert Borden and his colleagues stood firm for the maintenance of Canada's status-they did their duty by Canada in that regard. If they had done less they would have been derelict in their duty and would have been liable to the censure of this parliament. Having done their duty, and done it well, they are entitled to the thanks of this parliament and of this country.
On the same day the Right Hon. C. J. Doherty, Minister of Justice in the Conservative cabinet, answering the leader of the opposition, had this to say of Laurier, as reported at page 474 of Hansard of March 16, 1920:
. . . that status was the result of a growth, a growth to which succeeding statesmen, one after another, contributed. Let me say at once, that I take off my hat without hesitation in respect to the memory of Sir Wilfrid Laurier for the great contribution that he made to that growth.
This exchange of honours between the Liberal leader and a prominent member of the former Conservative party took place a quarter of a century ago, nearly to the day, that is, on March 16, 1920. Since that day Canada has made great strides towards the attainment of full nationhood under the guidance of the great Liberal statesman who now leads the country. At the moment when he asks ris to approve of his participation in the momentous conference of San Francisco I consider it is appropriate to look back on the road followed since 1921 in order to deter-
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mine Canada's position to-day in the field of international affairs. In 1919, the representatives of Canada signed the peace treaty as members of the British empire delegation, and nowhere is Canada's name to be found in the treaty. The theory at the time was expressed by Mr. Doherty in 1920 in the following words as reported at page 476 of Hansard, of March 16, 1920:
The party for whom His Majesty is acting is the British empire, but His Majesty knows what it is that constitutes the empire and he therefore informed those with whom he was contracting that when he contracted for the British empire he did so on behalf of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia. India, et cetera.
And he added:
In order that the treaty shall bind the British empire it is necessary that it shall be executed with the approval of all the self-governing nations of the British empire, and Canada is one of them.
It was a new departure and a step forward for which Sir Robert Borden deserved the praise paid to him by the present Prime Minister. But since those days Canada has moved forward. In 1922 for the first time Canada was, in its own name, party to a treaty, and for the first time the treaty was signed by a Canadian, Mr. Lapointe, in the name of Canada. It was not the subject matter concerned that made the treaty important to us, but the faot'that another attribute of sovereignty, that of treaty-making, had been gained by Canada.
Then came the imperial conference of 1926. To do justice to all the enactments of this momentous gathering would necessitate more time than I can devote to it in this part of my remarks. Let it suffice to recall this most important passage of the report of the conference which paved the way for a new unwritten constitution of the British commonwealth. I quote from page 12 of the 'Summary of Proceedings" of the imperial conference of 1926:
There is, however, one most important element in it which, from a strictly constitutional point of view, has now, as regards all vital matters, reached its full development-we refer to the group of self-governing communities composed of Great Britain and the dominions. Their position and mutual relation may be readily defined. They are autonomous communities within the British empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs though united by a common allegiance to the crown, and freely associated as members of the British commonwealth of nations.
This statement is a milestone, Mr. Speaker, on the road of our evolution, and consecrates ai situation existing de facto for a certain time for the recognition of which there was needed only the demand from the interested parties.
IMr. Picard.]
If I may add a personal note, I would say I was privileged to attend many sittings at the conference of 1926, and saw at work the leaders of all the nations of the commonwealth. Allow me to state that not only did I find Canada's representatives, who were the present Prime Minister, and the then minister of justice, the late Right Hon. Ernest Lapointe, an equal match for any of the representatives of Great Britain and the other dominions, but I considered that they played a most important role in shaping there the pattern of future relations within the commonwealth. Those who know the inside of the deliberations of the conference, as well as all those, especially in Great Britain, who have commented on the conference, have recognized that the Prime Minister of Canada in acting as a mediator, may I say, 'between the ultra-imperialist views expressed at that time in the name of Australia and New Zealand and the ultra-nationalist views of Ireland and South Africa, influenced more the outcome of the conference and the drafting of the report and conclusions of its meetings than any other statesmen present. ,
As to the part played by Mr. Lapointe, the house may be interested in hearing of an incident which occurred during one of the meetings of the conference. On coming back from each meeting the minister would bring to me a portfolio with all the documents he had received that day for consideration and study during the evening. I used to sort them, file them and bring them back for his attention when the time required it. One day I found a small piece of paper, of which I have a photostatic copy, which I realized was not in the handwriting of Mr. Lapointe. The note said:
It seems to me to be working very well in the direction of a general resolution of approval by all instead of ratification by some-unless Austen feels that he can persuade them all to ratification, which I confess I doubt after Lapointe and Hertzog.
Hertzog was then the leader of the South African delegation. The next day I went to No. 10 Downing street and inquired of a secretary as to whose handwriting this was, and discovered it was the handwriting of the Right Honourable A. Balfour, one of the British delegates at the time. Evidently he had passed it to his neighbour to show him it was better to accept simply approval, on account of the strong stand taken at the conference by Mr. Hertzog and Mr. Lapointe.
But some may say there is a margin between the enunciation of a doctrine and the subsequent adoption of practical procedures needed to apply it. Let me give you another incident which occurred in 1927, during the naval disarmament conference. At that time

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also I accompanied Mr. Lapointe, who was leading the Canadian delegation; and when we arrived in Geneva we discovered that there were three nations represented, the British empire, the United States and Japan. The first morning the leading delegate from Ireland, Mr. O'Higgins, who during that same conference was murdered while on a trip to Ireland, called Mr. Lapointe and asked him whether at the next meeting of the empire delegation, in the afternoon, he would take steps to have this situation rectified. That afternoon we were told all that had happened at the conference before our arrival. This information was given by the first lord of the admiralty, and dealt with complicated technical matters of naval armament and so on. When this was over and Mr. Bridgeman asked whether any dominion delegate had a question to ask, Mr. Lapointe replied, "No, I have no question, because I do not think I have been invited here. I am here with a letter from the king appointing me his representative for Canada, yet I do not see the name of Canada anywhere at this conference, so I must have come to the wrong meeting." He had barely made the statement when Lord Robert Cecil, another British delegate, said, "Mr. Lapointe is perfectly right. These gentlemen of the admiralty and the dominions office are much slower to perceive changes in imperial relations. This state of affairs will be changed by to-morrow." From the next day all the letterheads and papers concerning the conference were reprinted and redrafted to include seven nations, Australia, Canada and so on. As Lord Robert Cecil said, it takes time to have these changes understood by certain people.
I am taking more time on this portion of my remarks than I had planned. Let us come to the start of the present war. Canada's participation was the outcome of the will of the nation, as expressed by parliament. People may have different opinions as to the advisability of this or that step in the prosecution of the war, but no one can say that any decision arrived at by the government or by parliament was not the decision of a nation acting of its own free will and taking a stand approved by the majority of its people. I for one have been a strong opponent of certain measures; and since I have never been a blind follower I have expressed myself in no uncertain terms. But that does not prevent me from acknowledging the fact that our declaration of war was in no way brought about by the subjection of Canada to any other power. Rather it was brought about by the opinion of the people at large. That the relationship of a majority of our population to parent stock in the British isles was the dominant factor in the deter-32283-6


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mination of our people to declare war at a time more than actual danger to this country was evident; but it is also evident that the solidarity of the democratic nations in which Canada participated at the beginning of the war was one of the factors that made it possible to stem the onrushing tide of German domination. That our people chose the right way and acted in their own eventual interests should be clearly perceived by all except those who are deeply prejudiced. The fact is that Canada acted as a sovereign nation; and as an outcome' of the role it has willingly played it is now called upon, together with the other democratic nations of the world, to participate in the San Francisco conference and to study proposals for a world security organization.
Canada's position in international affairs has been greatly enhanced since the days of Laurier and Borden. As I pointed out in connection with the conference of 1926 the present Prime Minister, who has accomplished so much for the advancement of the country in this as in the social field, for many years had the support of a son of the other great race, Right Hon. Ernest Lapointe, who ably and faithfully assisted him over a long span of their political life. Their work in the conferences of the commonwealth; Canada's role in the present war; the Prime Minister's present activities among the leaders of the great democracies, and in particular his intimate connection with President Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill, have contributed greatly to the recognition of Canada as one of the forces to be counted upon in the shaping of a postwar organization. Year after year Canada's ministers and ambassadors have been accredited to an ever-increasing number of nations, and have helped make our coi. ntry better known abroad. Here in Ottan a a number of competent men are following and interpreting world events, helping to s tape Canada's role in the international field. Canada's representatives at the forthcoming conference will be greeted as those of a nation that has accomplished much for humanity in the last five years, after coming a long way from its colonial days to its present honoured position in the world.
When he introduced the resolution now before the house the Prime Minister has once more shown his keen devotion to democratic customs, and has followed the practi se he advocated in this house twenty-five yens ago, during his first session as leader of the 1 iberal party. At that time he said, at page 1611 of Hansard for March 16, 1920:
Mr. Speaker, let me repeat, we on this side of the house are strongly in favour of ij mo-eratic control of all these matters of fcr, eign

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policy. I think we would be willing to go so far as to say that we would like to have an expression of opinion of this house to the effect that Canada should not be bound by any treaty or agreement in matters of external relations, of which parliament has not been fully informed in a way of which all of us could take cognizance. That. would be helping along the democratic control of foreign relations, and when we have that principle carried out we shall have a sense of security which at present we do not feel in the matter of our external and inter-imperial relations.
After the complete analysis by thq Prime Minister yesterday of the Dumbarton Oaks proposals, little remains to be said. All of us should have a clear understanding of the matters upon which the four great powers who took part in those discussions were able to agree. The aims of the united nations for the after-war period, as stated recently by the Secretary of State for the United States, Mr. Stettinius, are to obtain for the world "political stability, economic and social advancement, and a wider regard for human rights." All these achievements are subject to the maintenance of lasting peace. No plans for the betterment of humanity can be undertaken unless a system is devised under which it will be possible to prevent the recurrence of world wars whose magnitude would continue to increase, with the advances of science and the improvement of weapons and the means of destruction.
The Dumbarton Oaks proposals may not constitute the perfectly ideal solution that would lead the world to general fraternity and understanding. The will of powerful nations may not yet be such as to lead to the organization on a world scale of an ideal community life. But the proposals appear to me to be the nearest approach yet advocated to a solution of the problem of world security, if carried on in a proper spirit of cooperation between the greater powers, supported by all nations of the world. It must always be remembered, as Sir Robert Borden said in 1919 in this house, as reported at page 17 of volume I of Hansard for that year, when he asked for ratification of the treaty of Versailles, and explained the provisions of the covenant of the league of nations, that-
The enthronement and enforcement of international law must rest upon the faith of the nations just as ordered liberty and justice within each state depend upon the public opinion of its people. Upon each nation is imposed a responsibility commensurate with its power and influence. Unless that responsibility is accepted and fulfilled the peace of the world cannot be maintained.
The same applies to-day, after the end of another war.

In the same line of thought, not earlier than November 30,	1944, Mr. Arthur
Woodburn speaking in the British House of Commons expressed more or less the same views, in these words:
Peace can never be quite assured if it depends solely on its enforcement by an international police force. The first essential is that people and nations must accept and be willing to observe the law. If that is to be done, we must make laws which are generally acceptable. It is easier to enforce a law which is generally just. In this matter, I would commend the Dumbarton Oaks conversations on world organization, which I think are a step forward based on the experience and failures of the League of Nations and which can take us very far toward organization for peace.
Speaking on the same day.Captain James H. Duncan expressed more or less the same views when he said:
I would just say that no form of international peace, international arrangement or international organization can be successful unless it is based on the goodwill and good faith of the nations concerned. The Dumbarton Oaks proposal suggests a security council of the great powers, but the great powers themselves have to have the will, and to continue to have the will, and, above all, the ability to enforce their will, and nothing set up in the form of an organization can succeed unless the big powers in the world have the will to peace and the will to enforce it.
Some already argue against the fact that all five great powers keep for themselves respectively the right to veto a decision of the security council and also protest against the right of the great powers to sit on the council, even if they are brought before the council. It is true that this is one of the imperfections which I had in mind when I said the proposals were not perfectly ideal; but practicability and not dreams will be the keynote of the new organization, and upon it will rest the success of the venture.
Of course the voting agreement concluded at Yalta may leave great apprehensions in the minds of many as to the dangers resulting from a rupture of friendship between the great powers. The discussion in the British parliament on Dumbarton Oaks, even before the Yalta agreement, shows that a great many British members were apprehending trouble.
To this anxiety I found a very humoristic, but at the same time practical answer in the New York Sun, written by the columnist H. I. Phillips, and which I cannot resist reading. He states:
Of course it would be swell if the rule was that in a showdown no Big Five nation that turned bully could vote when its own case was being acted on, but I guess the whole thing simmers down to the simple fact that if the

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big powers don't hang together for keeps and get along without having to put their troubles up to the small nations, no voting arrangement is ever going to make much difference.
Any time the Big Five let's things go that far it will be too late for anything but jet planes and rockets and they will be flying through the air before anybody starts balloting on the question. "Is you is or is you ain't a world nuisance?"
Only the Big Five will have the wallop, the dough and the draft lists to fight another war. Ecuador, Iceland, or Guatemala ain't going to start the next global shindig. And if the Big Five can't keep the peace among themselves without no Gallup polls, then it can't be kept.
An appropriate answer to those who fear granting too much authority to the great powers can readily be found in the fact that if they are not given that power the peace of the world would be as much in the danger as after Versailles. This idea was supported in the British House of Commons by Mr. Daniel Chater, in the following terms:
.If fj168® proposals are to mature it seems likely that a great deal of criticism will centre °J>
the enormous power that is to be placed in the hands of the security council. But I accept the giving of that power as a logical necessity we are to have effective means of preventing world aggression.
Let us remember that these four nations will have the power to prevent another world war inasmuch as they will have to bear the great burden of preventing or punishing aggression, rt it should be found impossible to obtain agreement among the members of the united nations * . . then these four powers could constitute the nucleus of an instrument which will be strong enough to prevent or punish aggression, there is no reason why other nations should not congregate aound that nucleus.
As to the composition of the security council I think the Dumbarton Oaks proposals have failed to take into account the role played by certain nations in this war, and their importance for the maintenance of peace.
I think the Prime Minister had the right approach to the question when he said in this house on July 9, 1943:
In the view of the government, effective representation on these bodies should neither be restricted to the largest states nor necessarily extended m all states. Representation should be determined on a functional basis which will admit to full membership those countries, large or small, which have the greatest contribution to make to the particular object in question.
And on August 4, 1944, still before the Dumbarton Oaks proposals were made knerwn, the Prime Minister said this:
In determining what states should be represented on the council with the great powers, it is 1 believe, necessary to apply the functional idea. those countries which have most to contribute to the maintenance of the peace of the world should be most frequently selected.
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I am sure that in the forthcoming conference efforts will be made by Canada to have a readjustment of chapter VI, section A. A country that has contributed as much as Canada has done during the crisis, not only in men serving in her armed forces, but in supplying to other nations such vast quantities of weapons of war and in feeding our allies by our enormous shipments of food, has the right to expect that in any organization devoted to the maintenance of peace it will have a place proportionate to its efforts in time of war.
No consideration, Mr. Speaker, of a world security system will be complete by establishing a machinery intended to make an aggressive war impossible, because the peace of the world is hinged to the economic security of nations. In a recent interview Mr. Stettinius, United States Secretary of State, declared:
"Unless there is economic security in the world, we are bound to have trouble; but in order for a nation to have economic security it must be able to produce and trade profitably with other nations. Each nation can help the others, and in so doing it will increase its own prosperity. All of them need more production and more trade if each is to maintain employment and increase the living standards of its people. There are many ways in which this can be done.
"Above all, we must try to facilitate the means by which nations can trade and carry on financial operations among themselves for their mutual benefit. Obstacles that stand in the way of this react on the country establishing them."
Among these obstacles Mr. Stettinius listed excessive tariffs, quotas, exchange controls, discriminations and many others, all of which, he believes, can be remedied or removed by international agreements. Through such agreements we can also obtain for our own business men reasonable conditions for the conduct of their affairs in other countries.
"In that connection, we have learned that industry can no longer restrict its objectives to commercial objectives. In managing its affairs it must be kept in mind the whole field of human relations-labour, capital, consumer and public must be considered. This is as true in international affairs as it is in national ones."
With this expressio-n of opinion, and with the recent joint statement of President Roosevelt and the Prime Minister I am fully in agreement as should be the house.
I should like here to make clear that in economic matters Canada's future policies should be based on our economic interests, and not on sentimental impulsion.
Canada should envision its interests in regard to world economic policies and not base them solely on regional or imperial bases. Great Britain has given us examples of the course
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[Stage Direction]
to be followed by us. I have on a previous occasion given impressive figures on British trade as orientated' by British financial interests and the opportunity of maintaining its spheres of influence in foreign countries. I need not repeat them to-day. But it may be advisable to notice that when our grain elevators were overflowing with wheat and we could not market it, Great Britain was buying large quantities from Argentina. When our pulp and paper industry was operating at only twenty-five per cent of its capacity, Great Britain was buying heavily from Norway, Sweden and Russia. These transactions were motivated only by questions of financial return and political expediency and not by sentiments of imperial relations and friendship. Such sentiments should not be invoked only to help Great Britain. Canada's policies should be dictated by Canadian interests, and any curtailment of its rights or any sacrifices she may be called upon to make economically should be on a basis of world relationship on a par with any other nation of the world.
Canada should be ready to participate on an equal footing with the other states in any system of tariff adjustment or, if needed, in the abolition of trade barriers, but I repeat that subject to the same restrictions or readjustments as would be consented to by other nations, Canada should follow its own course in the orientation of its economic life.
Of equal importance to the economic security of a nation is the social security of its inhabitants. This government has already put on the statute books a number of measures that will give a larger degree of welfare and security to the masses than was heretofore contemplated. Its plans for the readjustment of Canadian industry and agriculture to after war conditions and the passing from a war economy to a peace economy are in the process of elaboration.
If we are ready to devote our efforts to the maintenance of peace and the attainment of economic security we must also have in turn the energy to tackle social security and to prevent as much as possible the economic aftermath of the war. A country that has been able to muster the industrial and agricultural strength this country has developed has no reason to return to an economy of poverty when during the war it has found the resources to carry on.
In conclusion I wish to say that this war has been a struggle between two ideologies, between two systems of government for the *world. Had nazi Germany and Japan been able to extend their own forms of government to most peoples of the earth, a so-called
	I
master race would have kept in slavery those they claimed to be subject races. Any life within that new order would have been the negation of human dignity and human rights. Any life outside the sphere of German domination would have been so influenced economically and otherwise as to bring about a considerable reduction of the standards of living for nations that hitherto had known a better fate.
Now that victory for the allied nations appears certain and within sight, it is of prime importance that the last touch be put to the charters that will be the guiding beacons in the world of to-morrow. For the maintenance of peace the Dumbarton Oaks proposals constitute a promising basis for discussion. It is in my mind a plan vastly superior to the league, because it has more effective power than the league. If, as I stated previously, it meets with the effective approval and receives the support of all nations it may prove to be a barrier against the ambitions and drunken nightmares of barbarians.
Although imperfect and although it demands from all nations sacrifices and the submission to a higher super-state in the matter of international1 relations, it should be considered a worthy attempt at world reorganization
Before taking my seat I should like to quote an excerpt from a statement by Senator Norris, that famous United States liberal, in which be defined a liberal. I would like' this to be applied in connection with the somewhat startling departure from usual international practice that we find in the Dumbarton Oaks proposals. Senator Norris said:
I should say a Liberal is a man with an open mind who sees the changes that are taking place in the world about him and realizes that our system of government must keep pace with those changes. He realizes the value of precedents, but lie also realizes that we are inclined too often to follow those precedents which were established under conditions entirely different from those existing at the time the precedents are employed.
Let us all be liberals, then, in so far as the security proposals are concerned. Let us all face the necessity of providing radical measures in the hope of preventing another world catastrophy. No sacrifice of sovereign rights is too high, no expense is too extravagant, if it should have as a reward the maintenance of peace and security in the w'orld.
Mr. VICTOR QUELCH (Acadia):: Mr. Speaker, I think we have every reason to rejoice at the fine spirit of cooperation that exists to-day between the great nations of the world, Great Britain, the Soviet Union

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and the United States of America. Our recent victories could not have been achieved without that type of cooperation. Had this existed back in the nineteen-thirties very likely this war would never have been fought. If peace is to be maintained after the war this cooperation will have to continue, because no international organization, at least not of the type now visualized, can maintain peace unless the major powers can agree.
I am prepared to support the government's action in respect to the invitation to send representatives to San Francisco. Furthermore I am in general accord with sections 1, 2, 4 and 5 of the resolution. On the other hand, I am not quite certain what the approval of section 3 really implies. For instance, does it imply an endorsation of the final act of the Bretton Woods agreement? I say that for this reason: certain statements have been made recently by President Roosevelt and Mr. Edward Stettinius which would indicate that Bretton Woods is an integral part of the international organization that is to be set up. I should like to quote what these two gentlemen have said. I quote first from the Lethbridge Herald of February 13, in which I find this statement attributed to President Roosevelt:
The Bretton Woods plan is the cornerstone for international economic cooperation.
Then in the February issue of the Readers Digest I find an article by Mr. Edward Stettinius. Referring to the monetary stabilization fund, the international bank for reconstruction and various other international organizations that have been set up, he says:
All these organizations clearly are but so many spokes to the international wheel. They need a hub. The Dumbarton Oaks plan authorizes the assembly to act as the hub with the economic and social council as its principal operating mechanism.
It must be quite plain that if any of the spokes of the wheel are unsound, that wheel may collapse and the hub with it. Therefore I say that if the final act of Bretton Woods is a declaration of unsound policy it is bound greatly to endanger the success of any international organization that is set up to try to maintain peace in the world in the future.
I believe the Dumbarton Oaks proposals would form a basis for the discussion of an international peace organization, but there is one thing we must keep in mind at all times: you cannot build a temple of peace upon a foundation of economic war. Unfortunately this government, along with certain other governments, has already sponsored or played a leading part in sponsoring economic war, even before the European war has ceased.
When I say that I have in mind the Bretton Woods agreement. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) in his speech reminded us that two or three years ago he stated that a new social order would have to be brought in and be well on its way before the end of the war or we might look for it in vain, and he referred to the fact that certain steps had been taken to that end already-UNRRA, mutual aid and lend-lease. I think we all agree that those were fine measures in the interests of peace, but I sometimes wonder why it is proposed that after the end of the war mutual aid and lend-lease shall be supplanted by the final act of the Bretton Woods agreement. Lend-lease and mutual aid undoubtedly help to maintain peace, just as the final act of the Bretton Woods agreement is bound to cause international friction throughout the world.
I think the Prime Minister is to be congratulated upon the speech that he delivered to both houses of parliament at Westminster on May 11, 1944. I took that speech to mean that he stood against international centralized control and in favour of international co-operation on policies discussed and approved by each country. And I agree that while it is desirable to have close cooperation between members of the British commonwealth of nations, it is equally important to extend that cooperation to other nations of the world that desire peace. The declaration of the principles of the Atlantic charter laid the foundations for such cooperation. To my mind the greatest danger in the way of implementing that declaration is first of all the post-war fight for foreign markets, and secondly the attitude of certain people and certain organizations towards the Soviet Union. You often hear people say that it is no use trying to have cooperation with the Soviet Union because they cannot be trusted. I say that we have no more reason to distrust the Soviet Union than the Soviet Union have to distrust us, on the basis of what happened from 1930 to the outbreak of war.
I believe that world peace will be greatly endangered if the decisions reached at Bretton Woods and embodied in the final act are put into operation, because to my mind that final act means four specific things. First it means a declaration of economic war; second, it means the restoration of a gold standard of an even more vicious character than that of 1925; third, it is bound to be a menace to the good will that exists between the members of the British commonwealth of nations, and lastly it means loss of national sovereignty. I agree with the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) when he said it would
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be necessary to surrender a certain degree of sovereignty. You do that every time you sign an agreement or cooperate. But unfortunately the Bretton Woods agreement goes far beyond that. It means loss of sovereignty to the extent that an international authority would1 control your national budget.
The Prime Minister I know has stated that Canada is not committed to the fiinal act of the Bretton Woods agreement. But let us remember this. Canada sent experts, so-called, to the London conference, to the Washington conference and to Bretton Woods, and these experts took with them a Canadian plan. Three plans were considered: the White plan, the Keynes plan and the Canadian plan, and we were told over the air that the final plan that was adopted resembled more closely the Canadian plan than either of the other two. Is it likely that any government would send experts to a conference with a plan if they fundamentally disagreed with the plan their experts were presenting. So undoubtedly we may say that the government, when it sent its experts with the Canadian plan, must have been in accord with its general principles, and there is no fundamental difference between the Canadian plan and the final act of the Bretton Woods agreement.
I used the term "so-called experts" advisedly, because I judge whether a man is expert by his record and by his actions. I remember that these men who are advising the government to-day on financial affairs are generally speaking, the same men who were advising the government in the nineteen-thirties, in the depression years, during which period our production was down to less than fifty per cent of its capacity. I ask the members of this house, if you hired an expert to run your plant, and over a period of days, weeks, months or years that expert failed' to develop the capacity of your plant to more than fifty per cent, would you be willing to call that man an expert? I am satisfied that long bef ore the end of a year, perhaps at the end of a month, you would fire him because you would consider he was thoroughly discredited. Yet these very men whose policies were so thoroughly discredited in the depression years are the ones who are now advising the government on the financial policy of the future, and they have started over the same route -that we were taking between the two wars; they are already leading us back to the gold standard.
Agreement and cooperation among the nations of the world on a basis of mutual advantage is essential if we are to have a lasting peace. I think we are all agreed on that. International trade should be a bond of friendship, not a cause of international friction. To

hope to maintain peace through some form of international organization while at the same time carrying on a policy of economic war is in my opinion simply to live in a fool's paradise. Let me recall what President Wilson said shortly before his death:
The seeds of war are sown in hot, successful commercial rivalry.
I doubt whether at any time in the history of this world that was going on to a greater extent than it is now in preparation for a fight for the markets of the world.
The failure of the league of nations has already been attributed by some members of this house to the fact that it did not have at its disposal an armed force. To my mind that was not the cause of the failure of the league. Its failure was rather due to the fact that the nations represented on the league lacked either the will or the desire to impose any policy that might interfere with the profitable trade of their own nation, and that was especially evident in regard to Japan, Italy and Germany. Unless we are really sincere in our desire to do everything in our power to maintain peace, if we, on the other hand, seek advantage for ourselves at another nation's expense, we make a mere farce of the Dumbarton Oaks proposals.
I want to deal briefly with my main criticism of the final act of the Bretton Woods proposal. I made four charges against that final act, and I want to deal with each one.
In regard to international trade, it has been customary to regard default as arising from a nation's buying more than it can pay for. Today, however, it is realized that the blame often rests with the creditor nation because the creditor nation takes steps to prevent the debtor nation from balancing its payments. In the past, nations threatened with an unfavourable balance of payments were able to institute exchange restrictions as a protection. But under article 14 of the final act of Bretton Woods that power has been removed under threat of expulsion from the organization, unless permission can be obtained from the international board. Then a debtor nation unable to meet its obligations is severely penalized under article 5, section 8. So it may be charged that whilst the final act gives no protection to nations in default, it at the same time removes one of their main defences and then severely penalizes them for being unable to meet their obligations.
Now I ask, is a policy of that kind, distinctly detrimental to the debtor and to the advantage of the creditor, likely to bring about good feeling throughout the world. It will be argued, of course, that the creditor countries will be willing to make long-term loans to the

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debtor nations in order that the latter shall not continue to default. But surely it must be evident that while long-term loans may be necessary in the development of new countries they cannot be looked upon as an alternative to the acceptance of payment in goods on current account. The result would merely mean the expansion of debt, thereby increasing the difficulty of the debtor nation in balancing its future payments. And, in so far as the creditor nation is concerned, it would mean a continuation of pre-war imperialistic policies -true, not carried out by force of arms but carried out by monetary penetration, backed up, no doubt, by force of the international organization which it is proposed to set up.
On former occasions I have dealt at some length with this question and I will not take up much time now, but we have heard different officials of the Department of Finance, as well as other prominent individuals, state that the prosperity of Canada in the future will depend on her making large-scale foreign investments. That policy is being preached in all the creditor countries, and therefore we see the stage being set for keen competition in order to try to maintain large-scale foreign investments and large favourable balances of trade.
Surely, however, it is obvious that the prosperity of a nation cannot depend upon maintaining large-scale foreign investments, because when you export more than you import you are actually reducing the standard of living of the people to that extent; and when you remember that from 1935 to 1939 we maintained on an average a favourable balance of payments to the extent of over $218,000,000 annually, while at the same time we had a million people on relief, I think you will be prepared to admit the absurdity of the contention about maintaining foreign investments and a favourable balance of trade as a means of bringing about the prosperity of people.
My next criticism of the final act of Bretton Woods is that it means the return to the gold standard of an even more vicious character than that of 1925. I recall that about three years ago I stated1 that we were getting ready to bring about reconstruction on a gold basis and were getting ready to go back to the gold standard, and the then Minister of Pensions (Mr. Mackenzie) at that time most emphatically denied that statement and said that we would certainly not go back to the gold standard. I wonder if he would1 be prepared to-day to say that we are not getting ready to return to the gold standard. I do not think anyone would dare to deny that assertion in view of the part that Canada
has already played in bringing about the final act of Bretton Woods. Paul Einzig has this to say regarding Bretton Woods:
On the basis of the above facts, nobody could honestly deny that the proposed system is the most vicious form of the gold standard, far worse than this country was fortunate enough to abandon in 1931.
What he refers to is a series of statements regarding the use of gold as a basis in the new set-up. The reason I say it is more vicious than that of 1925 is this. Under the old gold standard, if any nation had an unfavourable balance of trade and was unable to balance its international payments, it had the power to devaluate its currency without appealing to anyone. Under the new set-up that is limited to a ten per cent devaluation, unless the country first obtains permission of the international board, upon which will be sitting its trade rivals, and it is questionable whether it would receive permission to bring about that devaluation.
Before leaving that question I might perhaps briefly review the history of the gold standard in the past. You will recall that we were on the gold standard in 1914 and then war was declared, whereupon it became necessary to expand our resources to the maximum, and we went off gold. Production steadily expanded from 1914 to 1918. Before 1918 was reached, we were making ready to go back to the gold standard after the war and credit restrictions were instituted in order to bring about a certain relationship between our gold reserves and the money in circulation. We went on gold in 1925, but we were forced off in the depression years, in 1931, and at that time Churchill bitterly denounced the gold standard. We went off the gold standard, but in Canada we maintained the gold basis and we maintained it until the declaration of war. Once again it became necessary to expand our resources to the utmost and we were forced off gold. Now, as we once again approach the end of war, we are getting ready to return to the gold standard notwithstanding that history has shown that when it has been necessary to expand our resources to the maximum we have had to go off gold, whereas in pe&ce time we have gone back to gold and reduced production.
Surely, if it is necessary to go off gold to have the greatest possible amount of production in war time, it should be equally necessary to keep off gold in order to do the same in peace time.
After all, the people in all countries are the same. People, generally speaking, are not interested in buying gold. They are interested in one thing only; they are interested in buy-
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ing goods and services. They do not care how many grains of gold their money buys; what they are interested in is the amount of goods and services which it will obtain. Therefore, undoubtedly, the correct basis of money is goods and not gold.
My next criticism of the final act of the agreement is that it seriously jeopardizes the good will that exists between the members of the British commonwealth of nations. Section 1 of article XI provides that members of the fund shall institute a boycott or blockade against non-member nations.
Fortunately public opinion in Britain is being aroused against the dangers of the Bret-ton Woods agreement and there is every likelihood that Britain will refuse to become a member and will revive the sterling group; or, if she did join, and later in order to avoid Dankruptey applied for permission to devaluate sterling and was refused, yet persisted, she would be forced to withdraw. If that happened, what would happen in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Under the terms of the agreement we should be forced to place a blockade or boycott against Britain.
If the people who drew up the final act of the Bretton Woods agreement had in mind the destruction of the British empire they could not have provided better means of bringing that about, because either this would destroy the British empire, or, on the other hand, the British empire as a whole would have to withdraw-and I hope that is what would be done. I am amazed that the representatives of any government in any of the dominions would agree to article XI, which deals with this matter, because that provision was not in the Keynes plan or the White plan or the Canadian plan. It is a new clause which was introduced at the last minute.


An hon. MEMBER:: Who by?


Victor Quelch: Somebody asked "Who by?" I do not know who was responsible for it. I doubt very much if he would like to have his name disclosed.
Mr. BLACIvMORE:	Certain traitors, I
guess. M


Victor Quelch: To my mind the Bretton Woods agreement would certainly destroy all chance of a new social order. It would be bound to create international friction. Some people will argue that it will be changed; but when it is so obvious that it is bound to cause international friction why pass it in the first place?
My final criticism is that this proposed economic policy will mean an end to national sovereignty. And in that regard I should like

to quote from a statement made by Mr. P. C. Armstrong in the Labour Gazette. This is what he says:
Something will come out of these studies, but it must be clear that they involve a considerable degree of surrender of each country's control of its own economy to some central body. Obviously, no country can hope to engage in that sort of extravagance, in internal policies, which leads to its currency falling in the markets of the world and expect any system of stabilizing currencies to protect it against this result. Therefore, international currency control means control of national budgets by an international body, and I suggest that we shall see nothing very drastic or successful in the way of a system of international currency control in the immediate post-war period.
We hope he is right. In the reports of the presidents of the chartered banks we note statements to the effect that we must be prepared to give up a certain degree of our sovereignty in order to put this scheme into operation. As I said before I would be prepared to surrender a small degree of sovereignty as it becomes necessary when you cooperate with other nations, but I would not be prepared to surrender sovereignty to the degree necessary to give away control of our internal policy as undoubtedly envisaged in the final act of the Bretton Woods agreement.
May I just quote from a statement by Sir Charles Morgan-Webb showing what the effect of the final act of the Bretton Woods agreement will be on England. I made the charge that it will undoubtedly destroy good will between members of the British commonwealth of nations. I think this statement of Sir Charles Morgan-Webb shows to what extent it will handicap England. It is a pamphlet entitled "Post-War International Purchasing Power". I quote the following:
The linking of the war debts of the first world war to the capricious medium of gold inevitably made them unpayable. The linking of the present overseas cash debts owing by Britain to gold, as proposed at Bretton Woods, will transform them from an obligation to redeem them in exports into an unpayable obligation to redeem them in gold. As they stand, they are payable in British exports. Transformed into gold obligations, they will fulfil the expectations of American high finance, and drive Britain into default.
If that happened she would likely withdraw from the organization, and we would be in a position where we would have to place a blockade against her.
As I mentioned a little while ago the Prime Minister referred to mutual aid and lend-lease as part of the programme of the new social order; and I am of the opinion that those measures should be continued after the

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war and adjusted to peace-time requirements. A plan has already been drawn up. It is not a question of Bretton Woods or chaos as we are told so often by certain leading bankers. Other alternative plans have already been formulated, and perhaps the best known one is that sponsored by the London chamber of commerce.
I was speaking to one of the highest officials of the Department of Finance on this matter and I asked him whether or not the London chamber of commerce proposals would be satisfactory. After studying them he said he thought they would be good proposals but the difficulty would be to get other nations to agree to them. I asked him what nations. I said: "Would Russia agree?" He said, "Yes, he thought so".
It finally boiled down to the fact that he did not think the United States would agree. Of course the United States hold eighty-five per cent of the gold reserves of the world and are, therefore, anxious to get the gold back into circulation. But should we turn down a scheme just because the United States will not agree to it and support a scheme which we know to be fundamentally unsound and which may very well wreck the peace organization?
In closing, I would again say that the Dumbarton Oaks proposals might form the basis for a discussion, but I certainly think that when the Prime Minister speaks in closing the debate he should tell us clearly and unequivocally whether or not endorsation of the Dumbarton Oaks proposals means an endorsation of the Bretton Woods final act.


Mr. BLACKMORE:: Yes, and prove his case.


Victor Quelch: We may not have assurance from other nations but at least we are entitled to that assurance from the Prime Minister. It is quite a while since the final act was formulated and we were promised a debate on the question in this house. We were promised that Canada would not agree to the final act until it had been agreed to by parliament. Up to the present time we have not had an opportunity to debate the question in this house. Now we are being asked to endorse proposals for a certain international organization of which we are told the Bretton Woods final act is the corner-stone.
I believe that under a sound economic policy Dumbarton Oaks could lead us to peace, but under an unsound policy, such as the final act of the Bretton Woods agreement, whilst we might possibly prevent an international war, we would on the other hand make civil war inevitable.


Mr. A. G. SLAGHT (Parry Sound):: In
addressing the house on this very important subject may I preface my remarks by saying that I believe this resolution and the San Francisco conference should receive the unanimous support of the people of Canada and the hon. members of this house. Before I deal directly with the resolution may I say a word with reference to the attitude of the hon. the house leader of the opposition (Mr. Graydon) as disclosed in his very able address to-day. I enjoyed that portion of his address which constituted an analysis and somewhat provocative and proper questions as to the interpretation of the proposed charter which we have before us as a basis. But I was somewhat surprised that the hon. member, despite the virtuous assertion of his desk-mate that the debate should be conducted without partisan or political prejudice creeping in-and I think it should-to hear him this afternoon as the house leader of a party bidding for power to whom these proposals have been available since last December, assail the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) and our supposed lack of government policy in the language which he used. I am going to give you, sir, three or four sentences to which I take distinct exception. The hon. leader of the opposition said that there was nothing to indicate what position Canada was taking with respect to closei collaboration with the United Kingdom and other commonwealth nations as to San Francisco. Surely the sending of an able representative to England to participate in commonwealth discussions prior to the journey to San Francisco makes that criticism purely one made for political purposes.
His second complaint is that the Prime Minister and the government ruled out John Bracken, as he put it, as a delegate and that conduct or ruling was regarded by his party as an unprovoked slight. I want to deal with that in a moment. Then the hon. gentleman went on to say that this government was derelict in its duty in failing to provide a full-time minister and the essential facilities properly to handle and discuss our relations with other nations; and he said that his party made its views known on this subject which he suggested had been kept in the background and in fact almost underground as far as the policies of the government were concerned. That is all very delightful language to be heard in a nonpartisan address. Then he charged our government with pursuing an ostrich-like course in time of peace, only to pull its head out of the sand at the last minute and find this country involved in a war.
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I am at a loss, Mr. Speaker, to understand why John Bracken should have been afforded an opportunity to go to San Francisco. What has he been doing for the last two and a half years? He was invited by the government to seek a seat in this House of Commons, where the leader of any party belongs unless he has something tugging at his coat sleeves to make him believe he can serve his nation better, in war time, by going from coast to coast hiring halls and making purely political speeches. Let me say to my hon. friend that during those two and a half years, and for years before that, the Prime Minister of this country devoted himself every day, and every minute of every day, to the business of the country and the business of winning the war. He has not taken time off to play partisan politics, and my hon. friends know that to be the case. I hear some murmurs, some grumbles, from over here in the sticks, but I did not hear the interruption. I had not intended to mention any political matters, but since these statements have been made by the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Graydon) I want to leave with hon. members the opinion of the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Winston Churchill, the most beloved man in the British empire to-day. This is what he had to say about our leader, our leadership and Canada's part in the war. I quote from a cable addressed to the Prime Minister:
In the darkest days Canada under your leadership remained confident and true. Now the days are brighter, and when victory is won you will be able to look back with just pride upon a record surpassed by none.
I leave to hon. members of this house and the people of Canada the choice between the political viewpoint of the hon. member for Peel and the viewpoint of that great man Winston Churchill, who plays no politics but, like our own leader, gives every minute of every day to the service of the empire.
I think we all know, or believe we know, what the allied nations are fighting for. It can be set forth in one word: freedom. But we must appreciate the need for this international charter, and the consequences of failure to bring it into existence. In this respect I adopt the words of my hon. friend the leader of the C.C.F. party (Mr. Coldwell), who said we should not send the Canadian delegation to San Francisco expecting to get every last item or clause we might hope for. We should go there in a spirit of give and take, prepared if necessary to accept something less than we desire. The great thing is that this meeting of nations should be a success, not a failure,
[Mr. Slaght.l
and that a charter should be evolved for the future peace of the world. Surely all will agree with that.
I believe that to appreciate the need for this charter we should examine the record for a moment as far as our enemies in this war are concerned. I read somewhere, as a criticism of allied conduct after the last war, this statement: "With the lives and happiness of millions of the human race in jeopardy, we cannot be forever blowing bubbles." Let not our conduct be such that this accusation could possibly be levelled at the allied nations after this war. The leaders of the two enemies with whom we are locked in mortal combat, and I believe, in the main, the followers of those leader's, are ruthless, cruel, bloodthirsty gangsters, nothing less. It is significant that both Germany and Japan are sworn enemies of religion, and by religion I mean the various philosophies of life that constitute the religions of the world, not only our Christian religion. That is a significant fact which we should keep to the fore in dealing with people of that type. They set aside religion and those philosophies which make for better living, better neighbours and those virtues that we in Canada have been taught to worship, no matter under what creed. From the German churches, says the Archbishop of Canterbury, has come no protest against such crimes as the attempt to exterminate the Poles, or the horror and misery of the Jews. For five years we have had to put up with announcements over the BBC such as this: "Fifty more Czechs, including old women and children, have just been shot." The nazis have killed, tortured, maimed, starved, plundered and burned altogether too much for any sane man in this world to adjudge them entitled to any kind of decency in our treatment of them.


Mr. JAQUES:: What about Greece?


Arthur Graeme Slaght: Yes, Greece is another sample of intensive cruelty, beyond all military needs. I could multiply them many times, but I shall pass along in what I have to say. I could speak of the destruction of thirty thousand civilians including old men and women with babies at their breasts, in that old Dutch city of Amsterdam-civilians who were murdered in cold blood by this ruthless gangster in the early stages of the war. And when the civilian population was fleeing from Paris along the roads the nazi aircraft zoomed up and down, spraying machine-gun death upon those helpless hurds of human beings, in order to build stop-logs of their bodies, so as to better the ruthless assault of the German army.

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When I speak of Germans I do not include one hundred per cent of the - Germans, but I do mean the nazi educated hordes who constitute the great majority of people in the German nation to-day. Let me hasten to say that we have a great number of splendid German citizens in Canada. To that large number of people nothing I have said would have the slightest application. But let us recall that, in the main, they came here to escape conditions in Germany. They came to Canada to escape revolution in Germany many years ago; they came to this great land of ours to be away from those very conditions we are bound to indict.
In the last hundred years Germany has taught her youth one continuous lesson, that of the grandeur of war-the lust to kill. From their very cradles German babies have been nursed on the milk of hatred) of all races other than the German race. We can remove a tiger from the jungle, put him in a cage in the zoo, and have the patience to train him. But when the keeper takes a chance some day and does something for the tiger, out comes the claw, the fang, and he becomes a killer, all over again.
Let us recall that in the last century Germany has begun and fought five separate wars of aggression. In July, 1900, the ex-kaiser made a speech at Bremerhaven to his German troops, in which he said, "When you meet the foe you will defeat him; no quarter will be given; no prisoners will be taken.''
And so we find to-day that Germany has become a habitual enemy. She has abandoned Christianity, and has substituted for it the worship of one man, der Fuehrer. What a man to worship! When he walks he struts; when he speaks he screams. His watchword is treachery, and his lust is for blood and the will to kill.
That has been extended to the youth of Germany, to the point where we find ourselves faced now with a proposal which we hope and believe can, once and for all, stamp this monster out, beyond any possibility of future war and conflict for our children.
Let me now turn from that ugly picture and say a word or two respecting the proposals. I make the suggestions, as we were invited to do, and after having given some close study to the proposals. I ask this: Is Canada content with the present constitution of the permanent court of international justice, and content to continue it in force; or are there provisions which Canada thinks should be inserted-as the proposals invite us to insert them, if desired? My own view is that amendments are needed to the set-up of the present permanent court of international
justice. They are of a somewhat legal and detailed character, however, and I do not purpose taking the time of the house to deal with them now.
If I may be permitted, I am going to give a memorandum to the Prime Minister, so that when Canada's delegation goes to San Francisco it will have my views before it. Is it considered desirable that Canada should) endeavour to have one of the six non-permanent memberships on the security council, and that she should endeavour to select her delegate for that purpose in advance-if it is -believed that the San Francisco conference will go so far as actually to select the security council? Then, is it desirable that Canada secure at least one member of the eighteen to be elected) on the economic and social council, and to select such proposed representatitve-if it is thought that the conference will reach the stage of electing those eighteen members?
Then what is an expert, as the word is used in chapter IX of the proposals? That portion of the chapter which troubles me for the moment is -this:


Section D:: Organization and Procedure:
1. The economic and social council should set up an economic commission, a social commission, and such other commissions as may be required. These commissions should consist of experts.
I find no definition of an expert. What occurred to me was this:	In Canada there might
be suggested to sit on one of those commissions a man with splendid business training, but with no university education, a man who has madte a success of a large industrial venture or one who is eminently fitted to sit on a commission of that kind. Would it not be well either to interpret or to define the word "expert" so as to avoid any friction later on. I say that because, as I see it, we must make this as free from any possibility of friction as it is possible to make it, and I suggest a definition so that an expert might not 'be defined as one having purely academic or professional qualifications necessary to bring him within the strict definition of the word.
Then with respect to the set-up of the position of secretary-general, I suggest, for the consideration of our delegation, that under the present proposals too many jobs are placed on his back. He is declared to be chief administrative officer. That, in itself, is a big task. It is also declared that he shall sit as secretary at the meetings of the general advisory- committee. Then, he is to eft as secretary at the meetings of the security council. It is conceivable that those two bodies may sit in different places, and in my view the machinery would be facilitated if it is suggested that he should be appointed-not elected-and that an assistant
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might be appointed who in his absence or alt his request might take on part of his duties. These of course are small details, but I give them to the Prime Minister, in passing, for what they might be worth.
I was greatly impressed by the most able address delivered by the hon. member for Essex East (Mr. Martin), particularly where he dealt with the question of voting procedure and voting power. He made clear to the house that we proposed urging that a functional basis of recognition should be adopted, so that Canada, as one of the greater among the lesser countries, should not have simply one vote as against one vote of a beloved but smaller and less important neighbour. I might have in mind, for instance, one of the South American countries. In my belief the functional basis could be recognized.
In that connection may I give to the house the observations of two eminent senators, when they discussed the point in March last in the Senate of the United States. At that time Senator Burton said that sovereign equality was rather an equality in status, and the fact that in any association some nations might have more votes than others would not destroy the principle of sovereign equality. As he understood the matter, they could have differences in representation and still have sovereign equality and the resolution which was passed by the senate did not mean that every nation which joined it would have precisely the same votes in the council. Then Senator Wiley, who I believe is of another political faith, in answer to Senator Burton said that he would say that that was a correct statement of the situation, that the question of votes was not so much involved as the field of authority which would be given to the international organization.
So that Canada might expect to find some support for the view put forward by the hon. member for Essex East and, I believe, by the leader of the C.C.F. (Mr. Coldwell) as well, that that matter ought to be carefully considered by .our delegation before departure and possibly a status as to voting secured to which this country because of its record in this war and heretofore is justly and properly entitled.
There are many attractive items that one would like to discuss in connection with this all-important matter, but I do not propose to detain the house with them. There is just one last suggestion I want to place before the Prime Minister-I do this with a good deal of diffidence-in order that the delegation which is to go to San Francisco may give it some thought and bring their
[Mr. Slaght.1
own judgment to bear upon it. They may then reject it or possibly, if they find it is something they believe the people of Canada desire and would be helpful, they may adopt it.
I should like to submit the proposal that at San Francisco it should be suggested that Canada become the permanent home of the new international organization, of the general assembly, of the security council, of the international court of justice and of the secretariat, or at least some of them. Personally, I would go so far as to extend an invitation that they all be placed upon Canadian soil. Without being, as a Canadian, immodest I would ask what country has a better claim for that consideration. Let me put it perhaps in a sounder way and ask what country would be as acceptable to all nations, great and small.


Gordon Graydon: That is a definite
possibility.


Arthur Graeme Slaght: I am glad to hear my hon. friend say that and I am sure he will feel like supporting it. Let me make just one or two brief suggestions in support of that proposal. Canada could offer a site of such beauty and magnitude as the world could not excel. We could well afford to donate such a site. We could offer the alternative of many sites. Right in our own Ottawa valley we could provide for the creation of a great new city: the city of peace, located in Canada. Just get the vision of that. The city of peace, located in this our country.
That city could be located in the Ottawa valley, up in the Gatineau hills, in the Grimsby valley on the Niagara peninsula or in the magnificence of our mountain fortress in the Rocky mountains. There are so many magnificent and beautiful sites to be suggested. Each allied nation could have its own building combining a home for its delegates and appropriate offices. Just as in the heart of the empire No. 10 Downing street is not only the home of the prime minister where he eats and sleeps and rests, it has as a part of it the great cabinet council where the business of the nation and of the empire is transacted.
I recall that at the world's fair held recently in New York a scheme was worked out whereby many of the European nations built their own beautiful buildings. The architects of the world could come to such a site. The main buildings would have to be constructed with joint moneys, but I believe there could be set up in this country of ours a city beautiful that would be a credit to Canada and to the world.

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The crystal dome visualized in the Canadian sunshine might have a dove of peace at its cre9t, but do not let us forget that there are teeth in these proposals. Probably at the portal we would have a replica of the American eagle, the British lion and the Russian bear so that nobody might enter unless with peaceful intent.
I have travelled almost the road, but let me give you in a word the other geographical position that Canada is in for this proposal. Nature has placed us, so to speak, in a pivotal geographical location. Canada has been referred to as the crossroads of the world. I learned to-day from authorities who know that it is only twenty hours from Ottawa to Moscow if you take a direct route over the north pole. It is only from fourteen or fifteen hours from Ottawa to London, and Ottawa is only a reasonable time from anywhere in the United States. I believe the twenty-one South and Central American countries would welcome Canada as a place to come to. It would be more convenient for them than possibly any other location that would have any chance of success of being selected.
If nature has made us the logical choice, then let us do our part to make welcome this great new organization with a dignity that will be commensurate with our own national development and pride. I should like to leave with the house this concept of the duty of our delegation at San Francisco which I believe might well be adopted to-day. I am going to the words of that great president, Abraham Lincoln, uttered seventy-eight years ago when at the close of a war which had torn his nation he said:
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan-to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. T. L. CHURCH (Broadview):: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has expressed in this very important resolution which he has moved the clear intention of the government of Canada with respect to the invitation to send representatives to the San Francisco conference.
The resolution first asks the house to endorse the acceptance by the government of Canada of the invitation; that the house recognize
that the establishment of an effective international organization for the maintenance^ of international peace and security is of vital importance both to Canada and the future well-being of mankind; that the house approve the purposes and principles set forth in the proposals of the four governments and agree that the representatives of Canada at the conference should use their best endeavours to further the preparation of an acceptable charter for this new international organization for the maintenance of international peace and security; and finally the house is asked to approve that the charter establishing the organization should, before ratification be submitted to parliament for approval.
I believe that in this connection what is wanted at the present time in the House of Commons by the people of Canada is plain speaking and clear thinking-something which we have not had for many years past with regard to the foreign affairs of this country. After all is said and done, the United States, our great ally, to whom we owe a great deal, have not had a foreign policy for fifty years beyond that of Jefferson and Madison and Monroe, which was to have no entangling foreign alliances unless their country was invaded.
The San Francisco conference comes, it seems to me, at a very peculiar time. We have had the Yalta conference in the Crimea, the Teheran conference and other conferences before that, and what was the result of one of these conferences? In my opinion, to divert so much shipping and armies to the far eastern theatre, more than could be afforded until Germany was beaten forever, greatly prolonged the war. Last year it was predicted that the war with Germany would be over by Christmas, and everybody thought at that time that the war was about to come to an end. But we are far from victory even now, and I believe it would have been better if the San Francisco conference had been postponed until after the war with Germany had been won.
Last December Mr. Churchill, who saved Greece and restored order there, was much criticized in hundreds, yes thousands-the latter figure is correct-of newspapers in the United States and by some of the members of this house for his policy with regard to Greece. We know that the British government later had to send an ambassador to Washington to look after the food and shipping situation so that relief might be sent to the liberated countries of Europe which had suffered so much and were on the verge of starvation. Ships had been withdrawn from European waters and transferred to the Pacific

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sooner than they should have been, and in that way the war wdth Germany was prolonged.
I believe that the Prime Minister deserves a great deal of credit for some of the work that has been done, and I think at the present time all parties in the house and out of it cannot stress too much the necessity of team work both with respect to this resolution and until the war is won.
As I study the invitation to this conference, I cannot understand how it came about that four neutral countries in Europe were invited while Poland was not. Poland was the country which Britain went to help at the very start of the war to redeem her pledge, and I believe that Mr. Churchill and Mr. Roosevelt did the best they could for that unhappy country at their conference last month, but still I think Poland should have been invited to the San Francisco conference when four neutral countries got invitations.
I have read a booklet that has been got, out by the Department of External Affairs. I may say that this world organization is to promote peace and that there has to be political and economic planning, that San Francisco is to take up the work where Dumbarton Oaks and Bretton Woods left off and write a new charter for world security. I may say myself that the San Francisco conference is to be exploratory and'is not related to the settlement of the war itself. This session will close within two or three weeks and the issue will then be up to San Francisco and the forty countries, more or less, that will meet in conference there. I hope that the conference will be a success.
We have had two great wars, with a long depression intervening between them, and there have been many of these pacts and agreements and notes and Locarnos and Kelloggs in consequence, but they have all ended in failure. This includes the second league of nations, and I believe that, the coming conference will contribute little or nothing to the collective security of the future or to world peace. Mr. Morgenthau, in the United States, made the statement, on February 5 that he hoped the world organization which had been outlined at Dumbarton Oaks would be a success. He said that- the San Francisco conference would complete it and the Bretton Woods agreement, but he let the cat out of the bag when he added that, while the United States would join with the^ other communities within the united nations in an organization to maintain peace, the United States did not guarantee to join in with them," and he would not help to remove one of the most dangerous causes of war -that, at any rate, is my opinion-namely, 
economic dislocation.:" But, I submit, the study of economic problems should precede any proposed agreement that might be submitted looking to security in the future.
As regards the questions of currency stabilization fund, the international bank, and so on, which the United States congress referred to the banking and currency committee of that legislative body, I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that if adopted they would so affect world trade and world employment that the result would mean the end of the British empire. It is no wrnnder therefore that these proposals have been rejected both by public men and by the press in the United Kingdom. If these proposals were carried out the empire, in my opinion, would pass into liquidation. But the great President of the United States, on February 12, sent a message to congress intimating his approval of both the monetary and bank proposals that have been submitted.
I say that we should know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth before this country is committed to anything in connection with the coming conference. I do not think we should be committed irrevocably in this last brief session coming at the end of the five-year term of this parliament. After all the great wars in the past hundred years and more, proposals of the same kind have been brought forward, and the lessons of history as to them ignored. As I say, the Lnited States treasurer, on February 12, approved both parts of the proposals, the fund and the international bank, and we were told that the American Bankers' Association were in favour of one but not of the other.
Let us retrace our steps so far as these proposals are concerned, linked as they are with the great problem of collective security and perpetual pacts during the last hundred years and more among the nations of the world. Let us be sane and honest with one another in our attitude to these questions. In my opinion, the San Francisco conference cannot succeed where similar conferences over the past two hundred years have failed.
After the last war I was a member of this house, and was a member for a cor *uderable period in the time between the two wars, and I can remember votes being brought forward every session for the purposes of the league of nations. But it all collapsed. The trip to the league of nations was regarded as a wonderful thing. I remember one Quebec member calling it a joy ride. I would not go as far as that, but it always struck me nevertheless as a sort of consolation prize for anyone who had voted right in the house. If he had done as he had been expected to do he

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would be sent to the league. In fact, a lady member from southeast Grey, in the southeast corner of the house, who went herself there, once proposed to send me to the league; she said that if I went after I had scoffed at the sham and humbug of Geneva I would come home to pray. But, Mr. Speaker, I have never been blind to the sham and humbug at Geneva which brought us face to face with a second war.
I have heard a great deal in the past about the first war that was to end all wars by Geneva and to make the world safe for democracy and to make this, among other countries, a place fit for heroes to live in. To-day the slogan "On to San Francisco" has been taken up all over the American continent. Well,
I should like to see my learned independent friend from British Columbia, the hon. member for Comox-Alberni (Mr. Neill) sent there. He is almost the dean of the house, and he would put a little common sense into the proceedings and tend to temper the clamour and agitation which will prevail there. We all know what will happen at this conference, because we know what happens when a lot of people get together. We know what happens at caucuses in and out of parliament, where all sorts of matters are discussed, from the foundation of the world upward. We know also what happens in community clubs and other organizations of that sort. Once people get together around the table they seem to get different ideas and the result is that there is a great deal of clamour and agitation and not very much that is really constructive.
For these reasons, the proposals which have been made do not commend themselves to me, and I do not think they will commend themselves to the wisdom and the sound judgment of the country. The first league of 1920 wound up in potter's field and caused a second war, and I am afraid of the consequences of this second attempt. At the end of the last war the allies parted friends, but those who had nominally won the war soon found that they were faced with all the elements that would make for another conflict. We lost Italy and Japan. Canada led in all this peace talk and cried aloud for the league and disarmament, that monument of folly. The result was a mad rush for disarmament, which led to another war.
Before we send off this delegation to San Francisco on the present trip of the good ship collective security, may I ask what the charter Party will be? Who will be admiral in charge? Have the shoals and seas of collective security been charted? Will the compass be laid on the table of the House of Commons? Are the proposals of the government to be brought
before the house? Will the government announce, in connection with these proposals, those who are to go, or will they meet separately? Are they to have some say or will they do as certain Republicans, selected to go by the United States, intimated to Mr. Roosevelt, when they said that they would carry out what they believed to be right? I would like to know what the long-term foreign policy of Canada is going to be. I have not heard of it. I would like to know what the longterm economic policies not only of Canada, but of Great Britain and the United States and of the other dominions within the empire, are going to be, before we decide to adopt these new proposals. These are matters that should first be considered before any question of collective security for the future can be broached.
Canada has never had a foreign policy except that laid down by Sir John A. Macdonald years ago. On this San Francisco occasion, this dominion will be going to the front-I think I might say that-without anything in the shape of a foreign policy. The new prospectus issued at Dumbarton Oaks in connection with the proposed new league which will emerge from the San Francisco conference contains two provisions as far as I can see; one is the policy of the old league and the other the policy of the new organization and what it proposes to do about the proposed economic council.
If the compass is not carefully examined it is hard to predict what the result will be. The Prime Minister did say that our delegates would meet, to see if they could harmonize their views. In my opinion it will be impossible to harmonize them because there are such wide differences of opinion. I believe in considering every case fairly and speaking common sense and I am not going to join in any halleluiah chorus and hosannah shouting about the success of the coming world conference, because I have some knowledge of the history of the world with regard to other security leagues for many hundreds of years past.
In connection with this work the body of the new league of nations was settled at Dumbarton Oaks and its framework, the substance of the charter of the united nations, differs little from the functions of the 1920 league of nations. The fundamental provisions are that the security council should 'be endowed with authority to investigate any dispute, any situation that would lead to international friction or give rise to a dispute in order to determine whether its continuance is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security.
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Subsection 2 of section B of the proposals reads as follows:
In general the security council should determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression and should make recommendations or decide upon the measures to be taken to maintain or restore peace and security.
The provisions are almost identical with the operative clauses of the concert of Europe and the now defunct 1920 league of nations. But *there is one difference. Whereas under the old league of nations the seat of power was the general assembly of the nations, under the Dumbarton Oaks scheme all effective power is transferred to and vested in the security council.
Under chapter V (B) (1):
The general assembly should not on its own initiative make recommendations on any matter ' relating to the maintenance of international peace and security which has been dealt with by the security council-
And,
... all members of the organization should obligate (sic) themselves to accept the decisions of the security council, and to carry them out in accordance with the provisions of the charter.
In these circumstances is it not farcical to pretend that "the organization is based on the principles of the sovereign equality of all peace-loving states"?
We had a sample of this, Mr. Speaker, in connection with the empire parliamentary association. That was an association for the good of the British empire. They had a sort of executive council inside, andl the association ceased to function, and a select few thought that they were the council. They in time turned it into a pan-American organization and forgot all about the empire. Some of the delegates on that association were in favour of disarmament and collective security and the like, and all the sham and humbug of Geneva. Some of them are the very people who are now clamouring for this particular institution.
In connection with this work, if we are to have internationalism let us start with the British empire. In a speech that I made last August 4 on foreign affairs I said:
How is it that more of the dominions are not willing to make an agreement of that sort? We are not real internationalists if we are not ready to join with other branches of the empire, the other dominions, as one family in a united empire policy of cooperation and collaboration with the mother country. Why should we not have a league of nations of our own? As has been well said to-day, the only league of nations that has ever achieved any success is the British empire. The United States knows that; the world knows it; and out of this war there should emerge a great league of nations, namely, the British empire.

As Lord Milner said in 1919, speaking at Oxford, it was a most strange anomaly to hear that the self-governing parts of the British empire should be joining a league, binding themselves by a formal tie to a number of foreign nations, when they had theretofore been unwilling to enter similar obligations with one another.
That is a fact. Then we had a similar debate on civil aviation in March, 1944. Delegates of certain states and countries who belong to these so-called leagues of nations established for the purposes of peace and security go to the meetings and take certain stands, but when they come back home they do not carry out any of the principles laid down by the said leagues. What have the different states that belong to these different leagues done in the last hundred years for collective security? They have been willing to belong to the different leagues so long as it does not interfere with their own status sovereignty and autonomy or aggression within their own borders.
Where would we have been in this war if we had had such an international policy which meant the giving up of Gibraltar and the Suez, the Cape, the Far East and the West Indies, Alexandria and these other bases around the world? We would have been in the position that I spoke of when I addressed the house on March 28 last, when I said:
Our position would have been impossible. We should have been under pressure to keep neutral. Internationalization presupposes a perfect world of the future. It is one of those dangerous principles.
The British bases to be under the control of an international security council are the backbone of the British empire in the seven seas. Upon them the peace and security of the British empire has depended for 200 years. Without them in this war we would be adrift, the empire would be an absurdity on the map, it would be a body without arteries. It is one of the most dangerous principles of the prospectus for a new league patterned by Dumbarton Oaks.
History teaches us one or two things in connection with this work. Let us not forget the lessons of history. It is inconceivable that English people in the Elizabethan or Victorian eras under Burleigh and Palmerston or thei French under Louis XIV or the Americans under Monroe or Lincoln would have dreamt of submitting their personal concerns to state control, or of surrendering the sovereign rights and national interests of their country to the control of international organization. It was never heard of until recently. A great historian wrote a textbook on the subject. Professor S. R. Gardiner, commenting on the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713, said,

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The truth is that states combine readily through fear and very seldom through a desire for the common good, and when Louis XIV ceased to be formidable each state thought exclusively of its own interests.
It was in the same year, 1713, that the great learned scholar, Abbe de St. Pierre first set out the theory of collective security in France. He went to a very able cardinal of France, Cardinal Fleury and asked him to consider the scheme. The cardinal replied, "Have you sent out missionaries to turn the hearts of men?" I think that is what we should do down in San Francisco. We should send out missionaries among some of these forty nations, including some of the four neutrals.
Nothing more was heard of collective security until in 1815 Emperor Alexander I of Russia proposed what is known as the Holy Alliance or the Concert of Europe. Between whom? Between Russia, Prussia and1 Austria. They were to meet every few years, the contracting parties look over the face of Europe and see how peace and security was. What did it lead to? It led to the great prime minister of Great Britain, George Canning, urging that Britain should get out of Europe and seek a new alliance for a while; and it led by provocation to the United States adopting the Monroe doctrine in 1823. As Lord Castlereagh, the great foreign minister wrote to Lord Liverpool in 1815 at the Quai D'Orsay, "It was not without difficulty that we went through the interview with becoming gravity." It was the spiritual force behind the Concert of Europe of which Russia, Austria and Prussia were the protagonists. They were the high contracting parties. It lasted eight years, its most notable achievement being that it provoked the United States into establishing the Monroe doctrine in 1823.
Then another century passed and you have the league established which I have referred to before, and now Dumbarton Oaks. Mr. Disraeli, speaking in the British House of Commons on July 4, 1864, said:
I lay this down as a great principle which cannot be controverted in the management of our foreign affairs. If England is resolved upon a particular policy war is not probable. If there is under these circumstances a cordial alliance between England and France war is most difficult. But if there is a thorough understanding between England, France and Russia, war is impossible.
If in connection with this matter we substitute the United States or add it to these countries there is hope for the world by power alliance policies. With the alliance between United States, Britain and Russia, if they continue as they have so admirably done during this war there is hope for the world in collective security but not in the old forms of league political security.
I wish to refer to a great textbook writer on foreign affairs, Mr. Walter Lippmann. He has, according to a great editor of the National Review, written a textbook on the war aims of the United States. I read it three times. He was one of the sponsors in that great country of the league of nations under Mr. Wilson. He has recorded the action he took and he is candid enough to admit he was wrong in 1919, and now knows it. To those who were always convinced of the dangerous folly of the whole Wilsonian theory and who marvelled at the blindness of our English pacifists, Mr. Lippmann's book will bring evidence that the day of that particular lunacy is over in the United States. He saw the errors of Geneva. He knows that collective security is a dangerous myth. He is now in favour of the policy of the balance of power. He urges his own countrymen not to make promises unless they are sure to keep them and not to threaten when they cannot themselves carry out their threats.
I commend this book to those who are going to this conference; the author is in favour of a good understanding between the United States and the British empire, and also Russia. At the time of the Venezuelan controversy a great prime minister of Britain, Mr. Balfour, speaking at Manchester in 1896 said: "That the time must come when some statesman of greater authority even than Monroe will lay down the doctrine between English-speaking peoples that war is impossible". I am not going to be a party of the liquidation of the British empire through any such economic council as is here proposed1 at Dumbarton Oaks. The British empire has stood for centuries like the rock of ages for the peace and security of the world. Next to the Christian church the British empire has done more for freedom, liberty, humanity and civilization and for the peace and security of the world than any other agency, and no one else has done so much for the weaker nations. Britain has protected them with her fleet for four centuries, and even during this war. The tragedy which has overtaken civilization in the past twenty years was born of the league of nations and all its works.
In my opinion the future of Canada and the future of the United States lie in their own peoples. We need the closest and most absolute cooperation and collaboration and understanding between this country and the rest of the British empire, and between Canada and the .United States. Our position is of great importance. Our air policy, for instance, should be planned in close consultation with Britain, and we should have an empire council such as has been advocated by Mr. Curtin
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and Mr. Fraser. I am very sorry to see this conference being held at the present time. We hear very little talk about the London conference of the British nations in early April for empire collaboration first; all we talk is internationalism about San Francisco and California. If we want internationalism let us start with our own empire, which has been the only successful league of nations in the history of the world. The greatest error we have made in this war has been in surrendering too much political, military, financial and economic initiative to Washington; that has been one of our great mistakes. We hear talk ab.out the United States and Canada making bold trade moves. In my opinion it will be fatal to draw up international agreements based on disarmament before we have dealt with the essential questions of trade, quotas, preferential trade, empire trade, defence and migration within the empire first. We must solve these problems first. It is useless to expect harmony when basic principles are at variance. Look at the divergent economic systems of the United States and Britain, these two allies who have worked together so well during this war. Their cooperation after the war is most essential. We must appreciate the economic problems of these two countries and of Canada, for a clear understanding of these matters is needed if we are to carry on in future as we hope we may. For instance, we have the very high wages being paid in the United States. Britain is depending upon her export trade tp supply goods and services in exchange for her imports of food and1 raw materials, while in the United States they consume all but about five per cent of what they produce. I think you will find that the United States will wish to continue its high protective tariff after the war is over. So I contend the first thing to do is to settle these important empire economic and financial questions first.
I wish these San Francisco proposals every success, but let us not forget that the twenty years between the two wars were the most disastrous in the history of the human race. We lost a generation between 1914 and 1918, and the older generation had to carry on until the commencement of this war. After the last war everyone clamoured for collective security, for a league of nations and all that sort of thing, and we saw what that brought about; it caused another war. So that while I hope something will come out of these proposals I do not believe this is the right time to call such a meeting. Further, I believe that for Canada over the head of our own dominions to join any pan-American union would be a fatal mistake, a retrograde 
step, which might lead to the dissolution of the British empire. Many of these southern countries are fascist, they have not the British outlook; they are not large countries. For the last four hundred years, since the time of the wars with Philip of Spain and Louis XIV and Napoleon, through the two wars in our generation, the security of the world has depended upon Britain's supremacy on the high seas, which brought peace and prosperity from 1815 until the invasion of Belgium, and that will be the case equally in the future.
Mr. JEAN-FRANCOIS POULIOT (Temis-couata):	Mr. Speaker, is this just another
attempt to make the world safe for democracy after peace comes? It is a matter of very great importance, and I congratulate all hon. members who have carefully prepared their speeches on this motion. But this is not the first time within the last few years that statesmen have tried to save the world and to end war. There was the treaty of Versailles, which was a failure; but before it was acknowledged to be a failure there was also the Briand-Kellogg pact signed in Paris in 1928, as an added reinforcement to that treaty. Both collapsed1, which was very unfortunate. The result of all those efforts was pitiful.
The question now could not be to decide as to peace We will have peace only when the enemy capitulates. We are discussing now what will be done after peace has come. We are rather ahead of our time. This discussion is premature. A man Who is known the World-over, Mr. Edward R. Stettin-ius, Jr., Secretary of State of the United- States, published a very interesting article in the Readers' Digest of last February, in which he says there are four corners of the Dumbarton Oaks agreement. I will mention at -once the fourth comer, which has to do with disarmament. But see how cautious he is. He does not mention disarmament but says this is the progressive reduction of armaments "which in the modern- world h-ave become a crushing -burden on the resources of all nations." He do-es not say we will disarm immediately after peace is signed. He says we will reduce armaments, which is in accord with the aspirations of mosit of us. Then he adds:
The general assembly of the new international organization is,
(1) To consider the general principles governing disarmament and the regulation of armaments.
They are considering those principles. That is the first step. What will -be the second step, according to Mr. Stettinius?
The security council is to go further in order to achieve the least diversion of the world's human and economic resources for armaments.

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It is to formulate plans for the establishment *of a system of regulation of armaments, and it is to submit those plans to all members.
In ithe third place, after those plans have been formulated they will foe submitted again to the general assembly.
It is a vicious circle, but a vicious circle it will take a long time to go aro-und. Then he goes on with an observation that may bring a smile to the faces of foon. members. He says:
It is not proposed this time that the United States or any other members of the new international organization shall disarm as an example.
No one wants to give an example. Who will start it?
It is proposed that all members of the Organization-
With a capital "O."
-shall travel the road together, and at the fastest possible joint pace.
All together, or nothing. Then he goes on to say:
No nation however is likely to travel either fast or far on this road until it feels able to place full reliance for its security on the international organization.
Now, what would1 happen is this: We all hope the enemy will soon be defeated. But after it will take a long time to adjust a peace which will last. And only when that has been done, the matter we are now discussing-the Organization with the capital "0"-will start to work. Therefore I submit in the first place that this debate is premature.
In the second place I follow the custom that has been established and express my views in the matter. However this is not the proper way to discuss a matter of such wide scope and with so many ramifications. Some leading members of all parties should be called together to discuss in committee the very important matter we are now debating. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) has made a speech, as have the leader of the opposition (Mr. Graydon) and the leaders of other groups. Some private members have also spoken. This does not mean that they have joined in a united front, because it is inevitable that there shall be some differences of opinion.
If a Canadian delegation is to go to San Francisco to attend the conference, then the Canadian delegates should be in accord; which is impossible unless they discuss the matter before we are finally called upon to vote upon it. Therefore I will ask the government to adjourn the debate for the time being, to form a committee to discuss the whole matter around a round table, so that we may know
more about the position that will be taken by the country at the conference, if we are to attend.
This brings me to the question of the extension of parliament. We have been told that all must show unity of purpose. I am showing good will and I am ready to go the limit in that matter; but I do not see how three billions of dollars can be swallowed in three weeks-rather I should say two weeks, because the present debate will continue probably into next week. If we go to a discussion of the estimates it will mean that we have not given enough time to the debate now before the house.
I hope there will be an understanding among all parties so that, in the first place, this matter may be studied by a special committee, second, by a committee of the whole house and, in the third place that it may be brought again before the house, sitting as it is now.
The life of this parliament will expire on April 17. We may be told, "Hurry up; hurry up; parliament will die, and1 afterwards it will be too late." Is that the way to talk to responsible members of parliament? We may be told, "Let us show unity of purpose; let us save the country; let us vote three billions in two weeks." That is what may be said. There are some jingoes who will wrap themselves in the union jack. If we do not agree with them we will be called traitors and bad citizens. We will be told that we are not faithful members of parliament when we are not ready to vote with closed eyes such huge sums of money. It will be said that we are unworthy to be members of parliament, and that is one more reason why parliament will not be revived by extending its term. This is the kind of speech we may hear, very probably, unless by general consent the life of parliament is prolonged. Why should it not be? Is there anybody who is going to play politics at this time about such an important matter? We should have been called in January and then much of our work would have been completed by now. However, we were not called until later and we have only a short time in which to study what has been submitted to us. .
Neither the government nor the opposition should feel any false shame about coming down to brass tacks, about coming down to earth and seeing what can be done about an extension of parliament. There might be some criticism in some quarters, but the fact is that the government has the power to extend the life of parliament. It seems to me to be much more logical to extend the term of parliament so that we may give all or nearly all our time before the conference to a study of what has been said by Mr. Churchill, by Mr. Roosevelt,
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by the Prime Minister of Canada and by other representatives of the united nations about the maintenance of security in the post-war period.
This subject is so vast that it is impossible for a member of parliament to consider every angle in the time allowed to us. It is necessary that we should ask questions, but how can we do that? The procedure in debate is such that we are prevented from directing questions to the treasury benches. We are not informed and we will not be informed unless the procedure is changed.
What would be the effect? The Prime Minister may not be anxious personally to extend the life of parliament, nor is he anxious to secure money by governor general's warrants. But he should choose the lesser of those two evils. It would be more in conformity with modern parliamentary practice to extend the life of parliament than to secure such large sums of money by governor general's warrants. If the Prime Minister, the leader of the opposition, the leaders of other groups and their supporters do not agree to an extension of parliament the members of parliament will be faced with a dilemma. Either they will have to vote blindly the amounts that will pass before their closed eyes or the government will have to secure money by means of governor general's warrants.
In March, 1920, the Prime Minister said in this house: Why should we go to Westminster to amend our constitution? We should do that right here. It would be easy for this House of Commons to pass a resolution or a petition addressed to the British government if the views expressed by the Prime Minister twenty-five years ago are no longer his policy. Then this parliament could be adjourned during the conference. It would be understood that the session would continue afterward and we could come back then for a regular session. The rights of the people would be safeguarded much better by that course than they would be by following the course suggested by the government.
In his remarks yesterday the Prime Minister said that the country is interested in knowing what hon. gentlemen opposite think. He was referring to the Conservative opposition. The country is not at all interested in knowing what we think, but we are expected to know what the Canadian people are thinking, which is very different, and we shall act accordingly. We must represent the views of the Canadian people and in order to do that we must keep in contact with the people. I pay a tribute to most members of parliament for the contact they maintain with their constituents. They

keep in closer touch with the people than do the cabinet ministers who do not live in their constituencies. The right hon. gentleman added:
I think the matter is one on which hon. members already have more or less made up their minds, and in this debate I trust there will be very little in the way of diversity of opinion or occasion for any kind of party controversy.
In ans-wer to that may I tell the Prime Minister that there might be diversity of opinion on many occasions without there being party controversy and without any exhibition of partisanship.
What about the resolution itself? What is its purpose? It is to prepare a charter for a general international organization for the maintenance of international peace and security. That is a very fine purpose, but there are certain things in the resolution which are hard to accept. Let us point them out. The resolution states that it is in the interests of Canada that Canada should1 become a member of such an organization. Perhaps, but we must know more about it to be in position to decide that. Then the third clause in the resolution reads'.
(3)	that this house approves the purposes and principles set forth in the proposals of the four governments, and considers that these .proposals constitute a satisfactory general basis for a discussion of the charter of the proposed international organization.
Although it is not a finished product, we are asked to support it. The next paragraph reads
(4)	that this house agrees that the representatives of Canada at the conference should use their best endeavours to further the preparation of an acceptable charter for an international organization for the maintenance of international peace and security.
After we express our satisfaction with those purposes and principles set forth in (3) we go on in (4) to try to improve on them.
Then (5):
that the charter establishing the international organization should, before ratification, be submitted to parliament for approval.
Dumbarton Oaks makes a difference between the peace-loving nations and the rest of the world. Which will be the peace-loving nations? They will be precisely those which will be armed to the teeth to prevent, perhaps, the war-loving nations from ruling the world. So that the world will be, divided into peace-loving nations on the one side, and on the other side the rest of the world. Will not that be a cause for another war in the near future?

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The Prime Minister said':
The conference at San Francisco is not the peace conference. The purpose is to provide for the maintenance of peace, once peace has been secured-
And that is very far away.
What exactly is the Dumbarton Oaks agreement? I will try to make it clear by summarizing Mr. Stettinius' article. He said:
We can only prevent-
He should have said "postpone".
-the next war by planning and developing, in cooperation with the other peace-loving peoples of the world, an organized peace that will really work.
The powers represented at Dumbarton Oaks were the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, China, and afterwards France was added as a permanent member of the security council.
What is the other comer of the Dumbarton Oaks agreement mentioned by Mr. Stettinius:
There are four corners to the plan proposed at Dumbarton Oaks. The first is this: peace can be maintained only if the peace-loving nations of the world band together for that purpose.
Then there is "sovereign equality". I quote again from the article by Mr. Stettinius:
The phrase "sovereign equality" is enshrined in Principle Number One of the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals.
So that the countries represented there will have to be sovereign. "National sovereignty remains unimpaired." I quote again:
Each such state, irrespective of size, is an international individuality. Each, therefore, has both a right to a voice in the affairs of the family of nations and a responsibility to share in the task of creating a peaceful world order.
All member states will be represented on an equal footing in the general assembly, the duty of which will be the creation of the international political, economic and social conditions favourable to peace. The proposals also provide for a smaller body of eleven members-the security council-of which the five most prominent nations will be permanent members.
The primary responsibility of the security council is two-fold: (1) prevention, and (2), suppression of war. It will comprise eleven members, five permanent members, representing the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, China and France, and six nonpermanent members elected for two-year terms by a two-thirds vote of the general assembly.
The supreme duty of the security council is "to take any measures necessary for the maintenance of international peace and security in accordance with the purposes and
principles" set down in the charter of the new international organization: (1) measures to prevent wars; (2) measures to suppress wars. Local differences can be settled by regional arrangements without reference to the security council. If those means fail, then the nations are obligated to come to the security council, which has the power, on its own initiative (1) to investigate any dispute, and (2) to recommend methods of adjustment.
Then they recommend an international court of justice, which will be very much like the permanent court of international justice, as Mr. Stettinius says, with minor modifications. There will be no change there.
The security council may call upon the general assembly to apply pressure to any offending state by non-military means. If that is not enough, the security council is empowered to take military action.
Here is what- Mr. Stettinius has said about it:
The members of the new international organization would agree, in the charter itself, that throughout these efforts the security council would be acting "on their behalf". They would also agree to assume the obligation to make "armed forces" and "facilities" and "assistance" available to the security council "on its call" and in accordance with special agreements previously concluded. To ensure effective employment of these forces the security council is to be provided with a military staff committee composed of the chiefs of staff of the permanent member nations of the council or their representatives.
If we are to have lasting peace, says Mr. Stettinius, in explaining Dumbarton Oaks, we have to build peace. How will we build it? The economic and social council to be created under the Dumbarton Oaks proposals will consist of eighteen states elected by the general assembly, and holding their posts for three-year terms. This is bureaucracy at its worst. It is still worse than the bureaucracy of the defunct league of nations.
There will also be according to Mr. Stettinius (1) commissions in all fields; (2) technical experts; (3) a secretariat; (4) a research staff for all projects. Then there will also be coordination of (1) the international labour organization; (2) the proposed united nations food and agriculture organization; (3) the proposed international monetary fund or the gold standard; (4) the proposed international bank for reconstruction and development; (5) new international "specialized" organizations in (a) aviation; (b) cartel control; (c) health; (d) education; (e) wire and wireless communications; (f) foreign trade; (g) many agricultural and industrial commodities. They call it an "Advisory economic general staff of the world." Then we would have the fourth cornerstone, progressive reduction of arma-
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ments. I am very doubtful whether bureaucracy will bring relief to the entire world. We had that sort of thing in the league of nations and it did not prove successful.
The Prime Minister said yesterday, as reported at page 30 of Hansard:
Even should the charter as finally drafted not be all that we could wish, its acceptance might nevertheless be preferable to its rejection.
Well, the question is not one of acceptance; the question is, shall a charter be prepared, which is altogether different. Instead of going to San Francisco to approve the Dumbarton Oaks agreement, without amendment, the proposal before us is to study it and try to improve it. Yalta and Dumbarton Oaks! On March 13 of last year I asked a question about our lack of representation at Cairo and Teheran and the answer of the government was:	[DOT]
Canada is not bound by the decisions of those conferences where she is not represented, but obviously, any conclusion relating to the conduct of the war made' by the representatives or heads of governments participating in those conferences will carry very great weight with all members of the united nations.
These big men seem to have power of attorney to make decisions that affect the whole world. It is hard to make comparisons between Messrs. Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill and Talleyrand, Metternich and Nesselrode, but it is to be hoped that when the time comes to obtain the signature of the enemy to the peace treaty the diplomats of our modern times will be as successful as the old men were, such as those at the Congress of Vienna.
It was to my great surprise that I saw in the press that the government had decided to invite members of the opposition. The thing had been done in other parts of the world, in Australia for instance, where the situation of the government is very precarious, and in England where Mr. Churchill wishes to face the country with a union government. But I did not see why it should be done here, with the big majority that the government has in the house But if it was done, it was ju^t a matter of courtesy on the part of the government to the opposition. It was not a matter of right for the opposition to say, "We will name our own men."
The government may find among the opposition some yes men who will be willing to put a rope around their necks and go to San Francisco as the burghers of Calais. They
[Mr. Pouliot.}
will go there and will show how important they are but I heard my hon. friend the leader
of the opposition say this:
Our party now asks that we be given by the Prime Minister the right to choose our own delegation.
If I were the Prime Minister my answer would be obvious: if you are not satisfied with what I offer you, you will get nothing; and no member, at least of the Conservative opposition, would go to San Francisco. But if the Prime Minister desires to make a selection, there are some members of the opposition who might be taken. There is my good friend the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church)., my good friend the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. MacNicol) and others, faithful members, who could go there; if the leader of the opposition and the past leader of the opposition are not satisfied, the invitation might be extended to others by the government.
But I do not regard it as a plum for them. It should not be a reward bestowed 'because 'the members of the opposition have been good boys and have voted for the government. I hope that was not in the Prime Minister's mind when he spoke of a united voice at San Francisco I hope that Canada will have a united voice, and that Canada will come back from San Francisco not as a small nation, a small country, not as a middle power, but as the great country that she is. Why such distinctions between small countries, middle countries and great powers? Why Should any country in the world consider itself a big power because of its population? Then the greatest country in the world would be China, and Japan would be much greater than many civilized countries in the western world.
I say, therefore, that going to the conference must not 'be the reward for surrender by the opposition to the government. It must be regarded in a different light.
Until now the debate has reminded me of some trips in the air over clouds when it was impossible to see the land below. One could not see the land without coming down to earth. If the Prime Minister goes there to preside at the conference, as has 'been mentioned in the papers, it will be an honour to Canada, and as president of the conference he should be relieved of some of the responsibility as leader of t'he Canadian delegation. But if the delegates to the conference wish to be useful to their country they must regard the trip not as a pleasure excursion, a joy ride. They must look upon it differently. They must not forget that they represent this country and they shall share the feelings of the wbrld, because we are

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sick of war and we hope thait it will be postponed foi a long period of time. While they are at San Francisco they must think of all those who have so deeply suffered during this war, so that that suffering shall cease in the future and this country be in the position that she deserves to have in the world.


Mr. ANGUS MacINNIS (Vancouver East):: I wish to add my voice to that of those who have already spoken in support of the resolution before us; and I hope I do so with full understanding of all that is involved in it.
I do not think that any sane person in Canada to-day is opposed to this country taking part in a collective security system. What has happened in the world during the past fifteen years should be sufficient to convince us that there is an imperative need for some kind of international system that will maintain peace. It is not only necessary to prevent aggression because in a certain sense that is a negative state; it is necessary that peace may be something more than just absence of war, it must be a dynamic condition promoting human welfare and human concord.
I must say that I was very much surprised at the attitude taken by the official opposition yesterday and the day before in refusing to take part in the debate until they had heard or read what the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) had to say. To me the resolution itself made it clear, as clear as it could be made at this time, what the position of the Prime Minister would be. For the sake of brevity I should like to paraphrase the resolution that we are discussing. It asks that the house endorse the government's acceptance of the invitation to the conference. That is No. 1. No. 2, that the house recognizes the establishment of an international organization for the maintenance of peace is vitally important to Canada and that Canada should be a member. No. 3, that the house approves the principle and purposes set forth in the proposals of the four governments and considers them a satisfactory general basis for discussion. No. 4, that the house agrees that Canada's representatives should use their best endeavours to prepare an acceptable charter for maintaining international peace and security. No. 5, that the charter be submitted to parliament for approval before ratification. To me this is well worded and I think it is a non-controversial resolution. It is clear and to the point. It proposes five things. It asks first for the acceptance of the invitation. Unless we are opposed to collective security we could not be opposed to that, and it should not give room for criticism. The second one asks membership of Canada in an international
organization for maintaining peace. I do not believe there is any room for opposition or criticism there. The fourth asks that Canada's representatives press for the best charter possible, and the fifth that the charter as approved be brought before parliament before becoming effective. Now I believe there is no room for criticism there.
Let me go back to the third one which I left to the last, namely, that the Dumbarton Oaks proposals be the general basis for discussion.
I do not think they are a matter for criticism so far as this government is concerned, because the government was not implicated or consulted in the formulation of these proposals. The proposals themselves, of course, are open to criticism. It also suggests that we here make proposals that the' delegation may submit at the San Francisco conference. Why should the official opposition, then take the position that they could not say anything or commit themselves to anything until they heard what the Prime Minister had to say? To me the attitude of the official opposition is amazing at so critical a time and on so important an issue. It is indeed very hard to understand.
The hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) in putting the views of this party before the house yesterday covered most of the points in the Dumbarton Oaks proposals that we should like to have considered. I do not think he exhausted the points in the draft plan that we believe could be improved, but I am not going to take the time to-night to add to what he said in that regard. The most I wish to say is that I am in favour of an international security system because I see no way of avoiding war or of avoiding world chaos unless we bring our international relations within the rule of law. The inventions in transportation and communications of the last few decades have made of the nations of the world a community; and it is no longer a figure of speech to talk about the community of nations. As we have a community of nations I think those nations must now come under the rule of law as individuals and groups in nations must abide by the law of those nations; otherwise I can see no hope for peace in the future. In order that that may be done, as was pointed out by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar when he spoke, nations may have and will have to give up a certain amount of sovereignty. I believe that, as is the case again with the individual who, in giving up certain freedoms acquires certain other freedoms which do not limit his opportunities but add to them, so with nations.
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Commander Harold Stassen who I believe is one of the representatives selected by President Roosevelt to go to the conference for the United States, said that one of the reasons why he subscribed to an international security system was this.
He said:
That we do not subscribe to the extreme view of nationalistic sovereignty; that we realize that neither this nation nor any other nation can be a law unto itself . . . and that we are willing to delegate a limited portion of our national sovereignty to our united nations organization.
I think that is inevitable if we want to have peace. So, then, as the nations should bring themselves under a code of laws, it follows that no nation should be above the law, as no individual is above the law. There is another function of a collective security system, that is, the function of removing the causes that lead to aggression, and improving social systems. We should stress this as much as the function of preventing aggression. Provision for this is made in the Dumbarton Oaks proposals, and I am firmly of the opinion that the more attention the nations give to the study and solution of social and economic problems, the less time and thought they will have to give to coercive action. Some people are cynical-perhaps that is too strong a word -as to the success of any system of international security because of the failure of the league that was created at the end of the last war. Again I agree with the hon member for Rosetown-Biggar when he said, that it was not the league that failed; it was the refusal of the nations of the world to use the machinery created by the league that brought us to the verge of catastrophe in the present struggle.
At this time, however, in my opinion we are discussing international security in a very different atmosphere. After the last war collective security was an idea in the mind1 of one statesman at the peace conference. Because of his position and the prestige of his country he succeeded in having his proposals become part of the treaty of Versailles, but I do not think it is any secret that other statesmen at that conference accepted those proposals with their tongues in their cheeks. They did not like them. They were afraid of them. They were afraid they would interfere with the old system of grab, and no sincere attempt was ever made to make them work. To-diay we are talking about collective security in an altogether different situation. We are talking about collective security at a time when the nations of the world have become convinced by the events of the past 
five or six years that there is no safety in isolation. War has become so terrible that no country or individual can escape its consequences. As a result everyone must accept his or her responsibility for putting an end to it; and in my opinion there is no other way to put an end to war in general except the way we are going to put an end to this one, and that is by the cooperation of the nations of the world. President Roosevelt told congress recently that the United States would have to take the responsibility for world collaboration or have to bear the responsibility for another world conflict. We in Canada are facing the same situation that is being faced by the people of the republic to the south. We have come through this war, at least so far, without the invasion of our shores or the destruction of our cities, but it is most unlikely that if another war should take place in ten, twenty or twenty-five years, we should again escape.
I think it was the Prime Minister who said yesterday that we should not expect perfection, and I suppose that is true. But there is no reason, I suggest, why we should not strive for it, and I hope our delegates to the San Francisco conference will put forward every effort, because they have a sacred trust to do everything in their power to make the charter as perfect as possible. In this I am sure they will have the good wishes of all hon. members of this house.


Mr. FRED ROSE (Cartier):: On behalf of the Labour-Progressive party I wish to endorse the resolution which has been moved by the Prime Minister concerning Canada's participation in the San Francisco conference. I want to urge upon hon. members that we adopt this resolution unanimously, as an expression of the united desire of the Canadian people for lasting peace. Lasting peace! Here are two words that mean so much to suffering humanity. The men at the front and the people at home look to us to leave no stone unturned in our endeavour this time to make possible a peace that will endure. Many ask if this can be done, if it is only a utopia. The answer is to be found in the mighty combined offensives that are giving nazism its death blow. The answer is to be found in the unprecedented unity of the three great leaders of world democracy who charted a new course for mankind at the Crimea conference. The answer is being given by the people of all lands who fight for freedom and who are utterly dtetermined that never again must the world pass through the horrors and devastation of war.

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The decision that we are called upon to make at this session is truly a momentous one. Should we fail to grasp its implications we shall fall short of what Canada expects from us. At San Francisco this country must help shape the pattern of the post-war world. The Dumbarton Oaks proposals for a world security organization, endorsed by this resolution, unquestionably provide a real and workable basis for maintaining peace. These proposals are based, not on fictitious abstractions, but upon realities of the world to-day. And the biggest of these realities is the fact that for the first time in the history of mankind the vast majority of the world's peoples, represented by Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, have achieved definite agreements for planned, long-term cooperation on a world scale.
If we had no peace in the past it is because never before was agreement achieved on such a scale and on such a high level of understanding. Capitalist democracies, the socialist Soviet Union, the peoples of Europe and the far east fighting for liberation have overcome all differences in order to wage war. They are no less firmly united in their determination to establish enduring peace and economic collaboration for world prosperity.
That determination is fully shared by Canada's people, French- and English-speaking alike.
Our achievements in this war, of which all Canadians are justly proud, have been possible above all, because we have had before us a supreme national objective, the objective of victory.
So likewise, in the post-w'ar years we must fight unitedly for an objective that will be as easily understood and as widely supported by the overwhelming majority of Canadians- the establishment of an enduring and prosperous peace. Only by maintaining such a unity in pursuit of this new great objective can we make sure that Canada will play her full part as a sovereign power in world affairs.
Just because Canada is so strategically placed as a member of the British commonwealth of nations, a nation of the Americas, and a next-door neighbour both to the United States and the Soviet Union, she can make a most vital contribution to the security and the peace of the world. In making this contribution constructively and independently Canada can best fulfil her destiny as a young, vigorous and growing power.
Canada's new stature as a power should find expression at San Francisco. She could declare herself publicly prepared to accept responsibility as a member of the new world security organization, ready to share responsibility for jointly preventing aggression, and ready to 32283-7
maintain a permanent armed force after the war in order to help in the collective safeguarding of peace. Nothing less than that is required of us.
I welcome the unanimity with which the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) and leaders of other groups on this side of the house have expressed support for the principles embodied in the resolution. My party, from the very first, has sought to popularize among the people the historic agreement reached at Teheran and more recently at Yalta by the three leaders of the world. We believe that the attitude of parties and individuals toward those momentous agreements will determine whether or not we have lived up to the opportunities and responsibilities of this decisive turning point in the history of the world.
The Prime Minister's speech expressed the desires and aspirations of the Canadian peoples for a peace which will endure. It is therefore regrettable that anything in his speech should have given ground for the kind of interpretation that has crept into some of to-day's newspapers, which suggest too much emphasis on reservations and alterations.
It is disturbing that in the discussion reservations over secondary and even minor features of the Dumbarton Oaks proposals have tended to overshadow what is primary, namely that the big three have reached a definite agreement on the basic principles for a world security organization.
Any attempt to argue legally and on technical ground in this regard in respect of that agreement means that the peoples of the world can only undermine unity and help the foes of peace. Among the close to fifty nations to be represented at San>
Francisco Canada should stand out as a staunch supporter of the unity achieved in the Crimea. Pressure from the opponents of that unity will operate with most telling effect on small nations which have more limited responsibility. Canada should under no circumstances fall victim to such reactionary pressure.
I could not help feeling that such pressure found some expression in the speech of the leader of the C.CE. Instead of telling the house that we should go to San Francisco to assure the immediate setting up of a permanent organization for world security the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar goes no further than saying-
The Dumbarton Oaks agreement provides a good basis for at least the discussion at San
Francisco of concerted action among the nations to outlaw war.

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"At least a discussion" is not enough. What we are called upon to do is to act, and not merely discuss.
I cannot escape the impression that the reservations regarding points of procedure in relation to discussion, voting procedure and the implementing of decisions flow from a failure to support wholeheartedly the essence of the Dumbarton Oaks proposals as a whole.
It would be nothing short of disastrous should controversy over secondary matters lead Canada to place herself among the obstructionists who seek to imperil agreement at San Francisco. Flanking attacks against Dumbarton Oaks are being made under the dishonest and misleading slogan of "defence of small nations' interests". This should lead us to ponder on the fact that in the last analysis Canada's role will be determined not by our status in a hierarchy of gradations among states, but by the firmness of our support to the principles of the Crimea agreement, which must underlie any enduring organization for peace.
We take second place to none in our advocacy of a strong affirmation of Canada's independent role in world affairs. But that role must be a constructive one; nothing less than that will serve our national needs. This house must decide and state frankly which thing it places first in the struggle for a world security organization; the question of hierarchy and the exact place that Canada is going to occupy, or the question of how Canada can contribute most to the establishment of a world security organization.
It is perfectly reasonable to recognize the fact that if it is possible to organize the voting powers and the seating on the permanent council in such a way that there is a differentiation between those powers on the basis of their ability to contribute, then it is good that it should be done. It will bring the world security organization more into harmony with the actual gradations of power in the world. But that is a very secondary question.
For Canada to come forward and make this a divisive issue, or to come forward as a representative of those states which consider that as middle powers they should have a separate special status, might well place this country at the head of the opposition to the establishment of a world security organization.
It is quite natural for us to accept in the conduct of the war the assumption of military leadership by the great powers in the making of vital decisions. There is no reason in the world why, in the battle for peace, we should have less confidence in the leadership of those powers. On the contrary, without their united leadeship there can be no security for the lesser powers or for the world.

There is a great fundamental difference between the league of nations and the proposed new world organization. It consists precisely in the fact that whereas the league attempted to operate without the simultaneous participation of all the greatest powers, including the Soviet Union and the United States, and in fact at its outset bore the imprint of the exclusion of the Soviet Union,-it is now possible, in the midst of the war against nazism, to give lasting permanence in organized form to the all-inclusive unity of the freedom-loving peoples, great and small.
I believe that I can best answer the ifs and buts that have crept into the discussion in the following words of President Roosevelt, contained in his recent address on the state of the union. I quote:
Perfectionism no less than isolationism or imperialism or power politics may obstruct the paths to international peace. Let us not forget that the retreat to isolationism a quarter of a century ago was started not by a direct attack against international cooperation, but against the alleged imperfections of the peace.
Another kind of flanking attack on Canada's support for Dumbarton Oaks comes from the camp of those who seek to counterpose empire unity to world security. To these imperial centralizers, the Prime Minister has given Canada's answer in his admirable address to the commonwealth conference last May.
Behind the outburst of Premier Drew of Ontario against the Prime Minister's advocacy of a distinctive national flag and anthem for Canada lies a deep-seated opposition both to Canada's sovereignty and to the primary need of world cooperation. The constant protests and insistence of the Progressive Conservatives that Canada's decisions on world affairs must pass through London before the Canadian government can act, when coupled with their equally constant omission of any expression of desire for full cooperation with the Soviet Union all add up to the policies of empire exclusiveness which can only weaken the chances for strengthened world cooperation. This Tory attitude, detrimental to commonwealth interests as well as to Canada's, is expressed also in opposition to any increase in Canada's participation in inter-American affairs.
As against those who try to keep Canada from full participation in the affairs of the American community of nations, it is our opinion this house should associate itself with the historic decisions reached a few weeks ago at the inter-American conference held in Mexico city. Canada should endorse the

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act of Chapultepec, with ita proposals for strengthening of the political and economic solidarity of the Americans. There are two reasons for this. First of all, Canada should not be the only democracy in the western hemisphere that does not adhere to that pact. Second, such a step would demonstrate Canada's determination to contribute fully as a sovereign state in North America to the achievement of the new relationships of world cooperation, which victory in the war is making possible.
This question is particularly important, in the light of the fact that there can be no prosperity for Canada in the post-war years unless international cooperation is developed to the fullest possible extent in the world. The issues of peace and prosperity are inseparably linked together. The fight for markets, which in the past has been one of the chief causes of war, can now for the first time be resolved on the basis of a new concept-planned world economic cooperation. This will be one of the chief tasks of the economic and social council, envisaged in the Dumbarton Oaks proposals. Canada more than any other country is vitally concerned in the successful attainment of this objective.
The huge task of reconstruction in Europe, the vast opportunities for the industrialization of the countries of Latin America and1 of the far east, provide a solid basis for full employe ment and prosperity in the post-war period. The democratic reconstruction and industrialization of these areas will make possible the carrying through of policies aimed at the con-tiuous raising of purchasing power and living standards. An illustration of what is possible is to be seen in the fact that if we were to increase the purchasing power of every individual in India and China by ten cents a day it would mean an increase in world purchasing power of $25,500,000,000 a year.
The key to the carrying through of this world programme is the joint cooperation of the capitalist democracies and the socialist Soviet Union on the one hand, and the resolving of conflict among the capitalist nations on the other. It is in the interest of Canada's peace and security that the agreement reached at Crimea for long-term cooperation between capitalist and socialist states should be firmly upheld and vigorously developed, The touchstone of the enduring unity among the capitalistic states is the relationship between Britain and the United States. Canada is vitally concerned in resolving the conflicts and frictions between these two great powers.
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Canada is excellently placed to make a vital contribution to the solution of this very serious problem because she is at one and the same time a leading member of the British commonwealth and the second industrial nation in the Americas. It is my belief that our representatives, both at the London meeting of commonwealth spokesmen and at San Francisco, should make constructive proposals in this regard.
These proposals should express recognition of the fact that the productive capacity of Britain, the United States and Canada is such that any return to the policies of restricted markets that prevailed before the war can bring nothing but disaster to all three of us. In the light of this we should urge that definite agreements be reached first and foremost between Britain and the United States upon a division of export markets, a division which would make it possible for British industries to operate at full capacity, while at the same time guaranteeing an equitable share to the United States, Canada and other powers. Such an agreement is just as much in the interests of the United States as of ourselves and other peoples, because the only alternative to it is a reversion to a cut-throat struggle which would undermine the whole of world security. There is no country in the world so favourably placed as Canada for advocating such an agreement. An accord of this kind is vital to our domestic prosperity. Achievement of such economic collective security will make it possible for us to carry through the policies at home which will provide full employment and raise the purchasing power of Canada's people.
Only in such a perspective of peaceful world development, and not in isolation, can the people of Canada and of my own province, Quebec, be assured that our factories, shipyards, mining and forest industries as well as our farms, can be kept in full production. As I have emphasized, the raising of living standards at home can be achieved and must be pursued within the framework of such world cooperation.
Of particular urgency here is the problem of helping to expand the domestic market in the province of Quebec. It is a startling fact that total retail sales in my province amount to scarcely more than half of what they are in Ontario. According to the Financial Post Business Year Book for 1944, the figures are $1,368,0001100 for Ontario as against $777,000,000 for Quebec.
This means that by raising papular purchasing power to the Ontario level alone wouldi provide Canadian business with' an annual
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market for half a billion dollars worth of goods. This is practically half of our total pre-war exports. That .means that we must have postwar policies which will raise substandard wages, increase farm income and provide a national minimum of social security. It means rejection of the suicidal isolationism advocated by the Tory-inspired Nationalists, whose programme is both a denial of the realities of the present day world and a betrayal of the true interests of the great French Canadian community.
These things I have been speaking about are all dependent on world stability and world cooperation, made possible by the crushing of the fascist monster. Anti-Semitism was part of the official programme in all countries of the Hitlerite coalition. Hitler's anti-Semitic poison has had its effects in countries outside the fascist axis. Every member of the united nations is duty bound to ban by law all racial discrimination. We should do so in Canada, and should strive to have it established by the new organization that all member states rid themselves of fascist anti-Semitism.
No single national group has suffered more than have the Jewish people at the hand of Hitlerite barbarism. With approaching victory the solution of the much-discussed problem stands before us in full sharpness. There is little doubt in my mind that world democracy and the complete destruction of fascism, and its tool anti-Semitism, are the true prerequisites for a new world order for all' peoples, and a new deal for my people, the Jewish people. With victory in the war, the problem of resettlement of the survivors of the Maidenek murder factories will become more and more acute.
Scattered through the European continent many of the Jewish survivors will seek to leave the lands where so much suffering has been visited upon them. The coalition cemented at Teheran, at Yalta, and as it will be further extended in San Francisco, makes possible a new and constructive way of solving longstanding problems of nationalities and frontiers. It is in the light of these historic faots that we should approach the problem of Palestine.
The problem of the creation in Palestine of a Jewish homelandl is one which requires solution and which can now be achieved' as a result of the new world order envisaged and planned at Crimea. Following the Crimea conference both Mr. Churchill and Mr. Roosevelt held discussions with the Arab peoples. While no official reports were issued on the results of these discussions, it is to be hoped that the Arab leaders will understand that mass migration of Jewikh people into

Palestine is essential and is not a menace to a prosperous future of the Arab people. Such mass migration should be encouraged by the united nations, and all financial responsibilities connected with it should be undertaken by the united nations as part of their general resettlement and rehabilitation plans.
The Crimea conference and the subsequent discussions with the Arab people as well as the San Francisco conference will make possible a peaceful, industrial, cultural and political advancement of all countries in the near east.
On the background of such a bright future the Arab people can and should consider the establishment of a Jewish national homeland in Palestine as a constructive factor in the development of the near east.
Iam sure that I express the sentiments of the house when I voice our sincere hopes that the Crimean charter will herald the establishment of the friendliest, fraternal relations between the Jews and Arab people, so setting this stage for a great future of all people in the near east, and for the fulfilment of the aspirations of the Jewish people through the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine.
May I here repeat what was stated in the house before, that we of Canada should stand prepared to participate in the joint solution of the problem of resettlement of refugees.
The greatness of Canada at San Francisco will be reflected, not in gradation of our country's position in relation to other powers, but in the action of our delegation. That delegation should be unanimous in expressing the desire of the Canadian people for durable peace and for prosperity.
The makeup of our delegation is important in that regard. Canada can demonstrate the new spirit and give a lead to other nations to follow her example by including in her delegation, a unity delegation, representatives from the ranks of organized labour, preferably from the two congresses, the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada and the Canadian Congress of Labour.
Labour has achieved, at the recent world conference of trade unions held in London, representing 60 million organized workers, a new high level of unity, on the basis of the policies arrived at simultaneously in the Crimea meeting. Canadian labour, to its great credit, participated in that conference through a joint delegation.
Labour is one of the biggest and most homogeneous groups of the Canadian population. Labour has played a fine role in this war; labour is concerned about the future of Canada's peace and prosperity, and the organized labour movement should therefore have representation at the San Francisco conference.

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Mr. Speaker, we are deciding in this session a matter of vital concern to all Canadians. The issue of banishing the scourge of war for generations to come rises high above partisan politics and rhetoric. The men at the front, their families and friends at home, all Canadians, say that it must never happen again. We must not fail them.


Mr. NOSEWORTHY:: If the hon. member will permit a question, has he read the entire paragraph on page 38 of Hansard from which he quoted a sentence from the speech by the hon. member of Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Cold-well) and does he not think that he has distorted the meaning of that paragraph by giving just the sentence he quoted?


Fred Rose: No, I have not distorted it.
I read and studied that whole page very carefully and I based my remarks on the whole essence of the hon. member's speech, not just on those few words.


Joseph William Noseworthy: Did the hon. member read the sentence regarding the solidarity of the three great powers?


Fred Rose: Is the hon. member making a speech now?
Mr. WILFRID LaCROIX (Quebec-Mont-morency) (Translation): Mr. Speaker, paragraph 3 of the resolution on which the government requests our approval reads as follows:
That this house approves the purposes and principles set forth in the proposals of the four governments, and considers that these proposals constitute a satisfactory general basis for a discussion of the charter of the proposed international organization.
Now, I think the decisions which have already been taken at Yalta and which undoubtedly will be ratified at San Francisco already include the germs of a new war, and this as a consequence of the stand which Russia, England and the United States have taken at Yalta in agreeing to the spoliation of Polish territory, and also because Russia has been conceded a right of veto on whatever decisions may be taken against her interests by a majority of the four powers having permanent membership.
To my mind it is not to be doubted that the San Francisco conference wall ratify the decisions taken at Yalta. Yet, the government asks us, by this resolution, to approve the purposes and principles set forth in the proposals already framed by the governments which will have permanent membership in the security council. At Yalta the reasons put forward to involve Canada into the war have shamefully been side-stepped, and Hitler resorted in 1939
to historical arguments just as Stalin is doing to-day, when he claims eastern Poland. Because England and Canada considered the nazi demands as being at variance with the Versailles treaty and other agreements with Poland, neither London nor Ottawa wanted to let Hitler take Polish territory without Warsaw's consent, and our present Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) even went to Berlin, at the request of the British government, to warn Hitler that if Polish territory was in any way violated, it would mean war as far as Canada was concerned. Stalin's present demands, to which Churchill and Roosevelt have yielded, are much harsher for the Poles than were Hitler's in 1939. Moscow claims more than one-third of Poland, and Polish integrity and sovereignty are definitely cast aside. All this has happened in violation of the principles expounded at the beginning of the war in the Atlantic charter which has foundered in the ocean of that name.
After this sacrifice of the right of peoples to self-determination, Yalta will be recorded in history as a conference constituting a repetition of Munich, as well as the most complete surrender of democracy to Stalin's dictatorship. If we were opposed to nazi annexations in 1939 why did we declare war to permit sovietic annexations in 1945? We shall see, after this war, communistic influence permeate the whole of Europe and if Canada approves the purposes and principles set forth in the proposals already framed at Yalta, it means for us a war in which we shall inevitably be involved within ten or fifteen years.
The security council will have only four permanent members and, contrary to the principles of international justice, each one of those four member-governments will have a right of veto on any decision taken by the majority, which will necessarily mean war, should a decision be unacceptable to Russia. As the Russian government is wholly under the control of a dictator, Stalin, just as the German government is under the control of Hitler, one can easily imagine the adventure toward which we are heading by going to San Francisco. Such an adventure will be all the more regrettable as it will mean for this country permanent enforcement of conscription so that we may play our part in the international army which will have to maintain order in the world. That is an absurd and *idiotic policy for a young country like ours, whose population is just 12 million, with an area as large as Europe awaiting development. Why should we not imitate Ireland and the Irish who unlike us, remain first and before all
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Irishmen and do not accept as binding decisions that may be taken by the London government if they are against their interests.
Further, as the hon. member for Laval-Two Mountains (Mr. Lacombe) so aptly said, what mandate has the present government to thus commit the future of our country? It has no such mandate. And I am convinced that notwithstanding the statements made by the Prime Minister the decisions which will be reached at San Francisco will be submitted to the new parliament as a fait accompli. Can we expect that the three groups present in this house will refuse to ratify them? I do not think so, for the present Prime Minister has become as much of a Tory as the staunchest of the imperialists who sit opposite him, and although he had about 160 supporters in the present house, he readily yielded to all the demands of the 39 Conservative members opposite, in spite of the most formal pledges which had been given to the electors of my province, and in such a flagrant manner that all the Liberals who sit in the Quebec legislature, headed by the former premier, the Hon. Mr. Godbout, could not refrain from passing a motion which was unanimously adopted in which the Quebec legislature vehemently protests against the enforcement in Canada of conscription for overseas service and deeply regrets that the right hon. the Prime Minister of Canada has broken his most sacred pledges. Therefore, the legislative assembly unanimously instructed its clerk to forward copy of this resolution to the Prime Minister of Canada and to the other ministers of the cabinet for the province if any still remain.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, how could we rely on future promises on the part of the Prime Minister, when he has completely broken his past pledges? If he had kept the promises he had already made, we would not have now a whole province which has lost faith in a man who owes it his present standing.
Will it be possible for us, at the time of ratifying the treaty, to have confidence in the Progressive Conservative group? No, for their imperialistic and reactionary doctrines together with their electioneering methods of continuous mud-slinging against the province of Quebec, inspire me, as a Canadian, with the greatest contempt.
Could we rely, in these circumstances, on the C.C.F. group? Again no; for I have noticed, in the eight years I have spent in this house, that they have never failed to support the views of the Russian government in the field of international politics.

What will be needed in this house, after the next elections, for I doubt that any of the three parties I have just mentioned will have a working majority, is a group of members strong enough to force the other parties to follow a truly Canadian policy.
In a talk delivered recently before the Cercle des Femmes Canadiennes, in Quebec the British High Commissioner to Canada stated that we remained masters of our fate and that each of the dominions was free to decide for participation or neutrality on the declaration of war and that no imperial edict, originating in London should or could influence our decision or force us into the struggle. But, Mr. Speaker, all the speeches made in this house by the government supporters before the declaration of war, were based on the assumption that neutrality was impossible because we were a British dominion. However, the attitude, of Ireland proved that this was not true. The simple truth was that an order had been given in London and we had to obey. The same thing will apply when the time comes to ratify the decisions taken at San Francisco for then, unless the Canadian people is sufficiently wide awake to think of their own interests, as at the declaration of war, we shall be confronted with a situation and an accomplished fact arranged in London and not in Ottawa. All the attractive promises that may be offered to us during the next electoral campaign will not be worth much more than the pledges taken in the past and we shall be irrevocably launched in a policy of internationalism and cooperation in the establishment of a programme of world security dependent on the good will of Stalin, the dictator or, which would still be worse, of international high finance.
For these reasons I shall vote against the motion - before the house, for I believe it to be my duty to prevent Canada from being drawn into another war and- at the same time to protest against the wanton annexation by Russia of one third of Poland, and of the Baltic States, without mentioning the moral occupation of Yugoslavia and part of the Balkan countries.


Mr. W. E. HARRIS (Grey-Bruce):: Twice in my lifetime Canada -has been plunged in an European war and to add to it, on the second occasion, we have had a Pacific war and in which we are still engaged. It seems to me that, next to the declaration of war, the most important measure that has come before parliament is the present resolution, and we should take steps immediately to do what we can to prevent a recurrence and our being involved in a third world war. I believe we should take these steps at once, because it

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requires the complete support of the Canadian people for anything that we decide to do at this conference or in any later plans that are made.
Prior to 1914 Canada knew little about war. We had in fact had the South African war, but for all practical purposes I assume that war came to Canada for the first time in 1914. We had become world conscious before that because the west had developed wheat and had exported it in great quantities to Europe and we knew that dislocation of trade in Europe would adversely affect our economy. Nevertheless, it was not with that in mind that we went to war in 1914; it was because we decided that small nations had rights which had to be protected and that Germany in particular had acted in a most uncivilized manner in attacking a smaller nation. So that while we entered the war to aid a small nation we knew we had nothing to gain ourselves and would only have losses as a result. In fact, we had 60,000 killed and many more incapacitated, and when we came out of the war we had nothing to show except our losses.
Prior to the war our position in the British empire had been one which required a certain amount of consideration and which did not altogether agree with the situation as the world knew it. Owing, I believe, to our contribution to the last war, and to other matters as well, it was agreed during the war that our position needed clarification, with the result that in 1921 it was first made known informally and in 1926 formally by statute. What had been the practice became the law; that this country was free and self-governing, and by a common allegiance to the crown, was a member of the British commonwealth, free to do as it wished. Therefore upon the appearance of world war II, there was a very considerable difference in the method by which we joined it. World war I had been entered because Great Britain declared war on Germany and we automatically followed. We followed then, I believe with almost the unanimous support of all hon. members of the House of Commons at that time, and certainly with the practically unanimous support of the country.
On this occasion parliament was assembled, the government recommended a declaration of war, debate ensued and war was declared. It was not suggested on that occasion that we had automatically followed in any event because Great Britain had gone into the war. On the contrary it was tacitly admitted, I believe, that it was within the full power of this parliament to have made a decision not to enter the war. To an outsider there might have been certain evidence that it would
have been in our material interest to have decided to stay out, because war is undoubtedly the greatest evil that can overtake a nation, and that it might better serve the people to postpone it as long as it would be possible to do so. However, it is my personal opinion, for what it is worth, that had any government attempted to stay out at that time it would not have lasted much longer after having made known its intention.
The reason for the practically unanimous decision of parliament to enter the war was I think due to a circumstance which I believe was properly explained by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) when he called parliament. He said something like this, that the fate of a single city or the independence of a particular nation was the occasion rather than the real cause of the war; that the real cause was that there had grown up in one nation of the world a belief not in the individual personality of all of us, but that the person belonged to the state and in consequence it was proper that states might use might in its relation toward any neighbour, particularly a smaller neighbour.
By September, 1939, the Canadian people had been firmly convinced that that was the intention of Germany, and that if we were to defend our homes, our religious and our parliamentary institutions it was necessary to go to war and' it was desirable to go to war at the time when we had friends with whom we could join. Once again we had no material gain at stake in Europe, but once again we hazarded everything, knowing that we would have losses, and knowing that there was nothing we could gain directly by entering the war. Up to the present time we have in fact lost over thirty thousand people again, and our losses are mounting each day and will continue to the end of the war. Yet on each occasion, Mr. Speaker, we did not entirely lack all profit in the war. There is such a thing as national honour, which is something like the individual conscience. On each occasion I think we have saved that honour, because had we not done so national life in this country would have been empty and we would not be entitled to the future which I think is in store for the Canadian people. We decided that evil as war was there was no price that we would not willingly pay if we could reassert again certain spiritual values which seemed to have gone out of fashion in the world.
To say that world1 war II was an admission of failure of our efforts to maintain the peace after world war I is of course true, but there is no nation that sought to maintain
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peace as much as Canada did since 1918. We joined the league of nations; we aided in every plan for disarmament; we suggested! to the world that we had experience in negotiating and in arbitrating of our difficulties with our neighbours; that these methods might very well be adopted by other nations, and' we did on every occasion what we thought would advance the interest of civilization.
It is true we felt extremely disappointed that the United States did not join the league of nations. We also felt that the United States did not advance the cause of peace when she refused to join with Great Britain in guaranteeing the security of France for fifteen years if France did not insist on occupying all lands west of the Rhine; but we did admit that the United States and all nations would have to make these decisions for themselves. And in so far as we1 could as a good neighbour we attempted to show the United States that her interests as well as those of the world could best be served if she joined, if not the league, then every other body which attempted to solve any differences which might lead to war. At the same time we appreciated the fact that isolationism as it grew up in the United States was understandable, because a similar opinion developed in this country, particularly in the period from 1929 to 1935; and many public men in this country in all sincerity and after considerable thought made it clear that it was doubtful what Canada might do if another European war occurred. Of course, we know that when the time came there was no doubt about it and that we did go into the war, if not united, at any rate united except for a vote or two in this house. I repeat these things to remind ourselves that isolationism is a condition of mind which grows, I think, through weariness and cynicism; that that opinion may very well rise up again in Canada in the future if it does not already exist in some parts, and that it is an error into which we must never fall again lest we lose the hold we have on ourselves and cease to work for peace so that we may avoid future wars.
I believe we ought to consider realistically the position of Canada with respect to the world. We are members of the British commonwealth of nations and as such we are bound by sentiment and common interests to at least six self-governing nations which are scattered around the globe, and in the commonwealth, or empire, if you like, there are colonies in various stages of self-government and there are dependencies and there are what are known as crown colonies. In this very large group there are many countries which from a strictly military point of view, must, 
for our security, remain in friendly hands. It is only necessary to remind ourselves of the real fear which arose in this country in June, 1940, of the thought of Great Britain being invaded to realize what I mean. We could not contemplate the possibility of Great Britain being in unfriendly hands, and I suggest- and it is my own opinion-that for some time to come we could not contemplate that happening. In this country there is an honest realization that Great Britain was the first country which taught the world that a man might be free if he so willed; that individual freedom is restricted for the sake of the common good, but restricted as little as. possible, and that these principles were not only given to the dependencies and colonies, as they started out to be, but encouraged as the various countries became self-governing. When one contemplates that situation and realizes this is the inheritance which this country received from Great Britain, I for one at any rate feel that we owe so much that time alone will tell when we feel we have paid the debt, if we ever have that feeling. I pass over the other members of the commonwealth, not because they are different but- because they are the same. Each is going its own way, yet the roads are not diverging very much. They are trying, as we are, to improve their inheritance in order that they may pass it on to succeeding generations.
With respect to the United States, we have been at peace with that country for 130 years and in each of those years we have seen an improvement in our methods for the negotiation and arbitration of any differences. We have now reached a point in our relations with that country where I believe we have eliminated the suspicion which is so often the bar to countries having confidence in dealings with each other. I think we have reached the position, indeed, that not only in this war but in peace each country counts on the other to resist aggression on the continent of North America. I am sure we feel, the United States would do so, and from what happened in 1939 and 1941 I know the United States counted on us if aggression came this way. However, our two countries face the Pacific together, and our interests there may be the same; at any rate I do not believe they are very different I cannot conceive of an occasion arising in the Pacific in connection with which we will clash with the United States; nor can I conceive an occasion arising in the Pacific in which, if their interests are adversely affected, our interests at the same time will not be adversely affected. Under these conditions, concerned as we are with Great Britain in Europe, with the United

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States in the Americas, with the commonwealth of nations and the United States in the Pacific,
I feel it reasonably certain that should any major war break out in future we will inevitably be drawn into it, whether we like it or not, and I approach this resolution with that in mind.
The resolution calls for the approval by this parliament of the action of the government in accepting an invitation to attend the conference at San Francisco to promote world security, and it is suggested that the proposals made last fall by the big four, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, the United States and China, should be accepted as a basis. I do not intend to go into those proposals; I am sure all hon. members have read them. As I understand them, the proposals do not vary very much from the old set-up of the league of nations. There is a general assembly, a security council, a court of justice and of course the administrative officers. There is one noticeable difference, however, with the league of nations setup; that is in the voting. It was said that one of the weaknesses of the league was that one small nation might block any decisive action, and the framers of these proposals apparently have tried to avoid that situation in the future. They have succeeded in doing so, but it is possible that they have swung too far in the other direction, so that small nations now will not be in as strong a position as they were under the league of nations. It seems to me that may be a mistake, because at the beginning of this war a number of small nations maintained their neutrality until they were invaded. Those of us who were in the war considered this unreasonable; we could not understand their attitude, since we thought we knew they would inevitably find themselves involved in any event. Yet I wonder if their decision was not made because in the past they found that their advice to the league was not accepted, or that they were not in a position to bring their advice forcibly before the league. However, Mr. Speaker, it is not my intention to examine the proposals in detail.
I am sure that by the time the conference ends they will have been changed, and I am sure the nations concerned will attempt to draw up a charter in such a way that every country will be given an opportunity to make its views known, and that proper voting strength will be decided having regard to the contributions made in this war and the contributions to be made toward maintaining peace.
To give the reasons commonly advanced, wars begin through racial and national strife, religious differences and economic disloca-32283-8


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tion. At least I have always seen economic dislocation given as a reason. No doubt it is, yet I am satisfied that it is not the common man, whose economic position is often insecure, who consciously wills a war; and on no occasion that I can remember has the common man insisted on his leaders taking him into war to improve his economic position. It is true that if there is economic stress leaders may seize that opportunity to present their arguments and obtain the support of the people for a war, but usually the argument is based on some ground other than self-interest, such as racial superiority or racial improvement. I hope the plans made for the peace will include an effort to convince the world that all races have some advantages; that no race has all the ability, all the brains, all the right to live, or the right to impose its will and its ideas on others.
It has been pointed out during this debate that this is not to be a peace conference, and that is quite true. When the peace treaty is drawn up, if in fact there is one, it will be on terms decided by the countries which conquer Germany in the first instance and Japan in the second; and I suppose that when the peace treaty is finally concluded it will be the duty of this body to see that the treaty is carried out, with perhaps changes from time to time designed to promote the cause of peace. So that while nothing will be finally decided on this occasion except the actual organization, it seems to me it might very well provide the nations with an opportunity to express their opinions as to the peace of the future. I have no particular views as to the nature of the peace to be dictated to Germany and Japan; I leave that in better hands. Nor have I any particular views as to the nature of the peace which ought to be maintained in future. Yet it is a fact that peace is not something you have as a matter of course. After having been back in Canada for six months now I am afraid that people may easily fall back into the comfortable assumption that if we leave it to somebody else all will be well, and that we need not bother our heads about such a troublesome thing as Europe. I know that European politics are incomprehensible to most of us and therefore suspect; yet we must never allow ourselves to fall back into that position. Canada has made a contribution in this war out of all proportion to its size, and I have no doubt this will be recognized at the conference in San Francisco. And yet Canada must continue to make its contribution in

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San Francisco Conference
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the cause of peace, out of all proportion to its size. That contribution can be made by this delegation when it goes to San Francisco next month. I am sure they will go-at any rate I certainly hope so-with the unanimous vote of parliament. They will go in the knowledge that war is the greatest evil we face; and that while it is in order that we should insist upon our rights, yet if all nations are ready to forgo some of their rights in order to promote peace, then Canada might very well join with them in that respect. The Canadian people are prepared now, after two experiences, to feel that any price is not too great in peace time to continue peace.
That brings me to my final word, and it is this, that if unanimous approval is given to this resolution, as I hope it will be, the fact remains that the people of Canada should be told fully about the reasons we have for doing this. They must be told not only the advantages they -will gain by a world peace organization, but also the duties which that organization involves. I hope members of the house will feel obliged in some respects to see that those obligations are fully understood. I believe the people of Canada are prepared to assume them; and yet it is better that they should know about them at once, rather than later on.
Those obligations, I take it from the draft proposals, are not any more onerous than they were in respect of the league. Therefore if we enter into them with full knowledge of them I believe the Canadian people will continue to give their support. In the final analysis it amounts to this, that peace is maintained if people want peace; and1 if they get away from that we will have war. I hope our delegates to the conference, and delegates we may send to future organizations, will go with a spirit of maintaining peace, and that they will induce others to do likewise.
Mr. A. W. ROEBUCK (Trinity):: Mr. Speaker, may I just take a moment to congratulate my gallant and learned friend from Grey-Bruce (Mr. Harris) upon the informed and thoughtful address he has just delivered. It ran through my mind that if all statesmen of the world approached this problem with such judicial calm, good will and kindness of thought we would not have war in the world, irrespective of the institutions we might support. It was a fine address.
On motion of Mr. Roebuck the debate was adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Mackenzie King the house adjourned at 10.45 p.m.
FMr. W. E. Harris.]
Thursday, March 22, 1945