1946-05-10

Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, a week ago to-day, it was my sad duty to remind hon. members of this house of the first loss which death had occasioned in its membership in this new parliament. Hon. members will have seen in this morning's press, the announcement of the passing last night of another of our number, Mr. Harry Leader, the member for the constituency of Portage la Prairie.
It cannot be said that Mr. Leader's death was unexpected. For years past his health had been steadily failing, and before the end of last session he was obliged to give up his duties in parliament and return to his home.
Mr. Leader knew that he was suffering from the dread disease of cancer, but had hoped that the treatment he was receiving might prolong his life. Some time before the last general elections he announced he would not again be a candidate for parliament, but would devote the remainder of his life to furthering cancer research in whatever way he could. In the belief that he had made some progress towards recovery, Mr. Leader yielded to the wish of his friends and again became a candidate and contested the constituency successfully.
It is not without significance that Mr. Leader's death has occurred at a moment when there is under way a nation-wide campaign for the raising of funds to further cancer research and to combat by all known means the spread of this appalling disease.
Mr. Leader's death should speak even more strongly to the nation than any words or efforts he might have been spared to put forth had his life been further prolonged.
Mr. Leader was bom in Burnside, Manitoba, sixty-six years ago, in what was to become his home constituency-Portage la Prairie. In point of service he was one of the oldest members of parliament, having first entered the House of Commons at the general election of 1921. There are, I believe, only seven members of the present house who can date their first entry into parliament from 1921 or earlier. Mr. Leader's name gained special prominence in the general elections of 1921, at which election he defeated the Right Hon. Arthur Meighen, who at the time was prime minister. Mr. Leader himself was defeated by Mr. Meighen in the general elections of 1925. He did not become a candidate again until 1935, when he was reelected for Portage la Prairie. He was again reelected at the general elections of 1940 and 1945.
Mr. Leader was one of the best known of the western members of parliament. He entered this house and sat as a member of the Progressive party in 1921 until his defeat by Mr. Meighen in 1925. He was then absent from the House of Commons for ten years. In that interval of time he had, like the great majority of Manitoba Progressives become associated with the Liberal party, and when returned in 1935 took his seat on this side of the house.
For most of his life Mr. Leader was a farmer and will be remembered for his strong advocacy of policies which he believed would best serve the interests of the farming communities. He was a well-known figure as a breeder of pure bred cattle. A sterling independence and deep sincerity were outstanding qualities of Mr. Leader's character. In his passing the parliament of Canada has lost one who, throughout his life, had faithfully served the public interest in many fields of activity and who, in his death, has left a record of undaunted effort and heroic endurance.
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Leader is survived by his widow, one son and two daughters. I know I express the wishes of all parties in the house when I ask that you convey to Mrs. Leader and other members of the family an expression of very sincere sympathy from all hon. members of the House of Commons.
The Late Harry Leader


Mr. JOHN BRACKEN (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure members of this party would wish to be associated with the Prime Minister's remarks. For a quarter of a century, Mr. Leader was a personal friend of mine. He was born, lived his life and died on the Portage plains of Manitoba, one of the most fertile agricultural areas in Canada.
For forty years he was engaged in public life in one form or another, either in the municipal council or here in the House of Commons. During his service here he sought to do two things, among others; first, he tried to secure a better deal for that section of our economy which produces the nation's food; and secondly, in his later years, when suffering from a malady which all too often proves fatal, when he thought he had found in the researches of a medical man in Winnipeg a means by which the prevalence of this disease could in some degree be lessened, he sought to encourage cancer research and to spread the doctrines that improved nutrition might help prevent extension of that malady. His death yesterday is a further indication that this disease still has secrets from medical science. But I am one of those who believe that Mr. Leader's speeches were not made in vain, because in recent years we have learned that improved nutrition has a great deal to do with the prevention of disease and early death.
In the passing of Harry Leader, Manitoba has lost a good citizen and this house has lost a good member. We here are pleased to associate ourselves with the motion of sympathy moved by the Prime Minister.


Mr. M. J. COLDWELL (Rosetown-Biggar):: May I associate the members of the C.C.F. party in this house with the expressions of sympathy th'at have been heard. Like the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) and the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bracken) I had known Mr. Leader for a number of years.
I knew him when we were associated together -in the old Progressive party; and while we sat in this parliament on opposite sides of the house Mr. Leader was one of the men for whom I and those associated with me had the very highest regard.
We have lost two members of the house " recently through this terrible scourge of cancer. I remember sitting in the gallery of the Saskatchewan legislature when I believe the present Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) was leader of the opposition, and hearing one of his supporters, a doctor, who at the time was speaking of this dread disease make the statement that if that legislature represented an average group of persons in this country, of the sixty-five members

thirteen would die of cancer. In the same proportion, forty-nine members of this house might be afflicted with that terrible disease. Harry Leader performed a great service to this country, I believe, when he brought before this house as forcefully as he did the hope that something might be found to meet the menace of cancer. We shall long remember him as a fine son of Canada and as a splendid representative of that great class who produce the food of the country; and those of us who havei had personal association with him, in spite of any differences we may have had, will remember him as a fine and true friend.
On behalf of those associated with me, sir, I wish to join in the expressions of sympathy to his wife and family- in the great loss which they have sustained.


Mr. J. H. BLACKMORE (Lethbridge):: Mr. Leader was honest, sincere, independent, public spirited, and virile. As a member of parliament he was conscientious, industrious and effective. A genuine man of the soil, he was a consistent and progressive representative of men of the soil. Mr. Leader's death has occasioned a distinct loss to this house. The members of the Social Credit party join other hon. members in mourning his death and in extending sympathy to those bereaved by his passing.


Mr. JEAN FRANCOIS POULIOT (Temis-oouata):: Mr. Speaker, I was on my way
home for a long week-end when I heard of the death of my deskmate, Mr. Leader. I thought it my duty to return to Ottawa to say, in addition to what has been said of him already, that he believed in the brotherhood of man; that he was a great farmer and a great gentleman, with a big heart. I convey my deepest sympathy to his widow and children.


Mr. WILLIAM BRYCE (Selkirk):: Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that Canada has not produced more men of the type, of the late hon. member, Harry Leader. His death is not only a loss to parliament but is a great loss to agriculture. His name will be remembered wherever Aberdeen Angus cattle are talked about, long after most of us have passed to the great beyond. Harry was a personal friend of mine for twenty-five years. I met him first as a fellow member of the United Farmers of Manitoba. We all appreciated his fine qualities, his honesty, sincerity and humanity. The greatest single quality which raised Harry in our esteem was his supreme courage. He fought against wrong wherever he found it. He always worked for what he thought was right, and championed

Lumber

Domestic Supply
the cause of the weak and the poor. He fought on courageously, though stricken with the incurable disease which has now taken him to his last home.
When words fail me in expressing my sentiments at a time like this I naturally turn to the ploughman poet of my native land, Robert Burns, who said:
An honest man here lies at rest,
As e'er God with his image blest;
The friend of man, the friend of truth,
The friend of age, and guide of youth;
Few hearts like this, with virtue warm'd,
Few heads with knowledge so inform'd.



STANDING ORDERS

[Stage Direction]
First report of standing committee on standing orders.-Mr. MacLean.


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 65, for the relief of Ruby Rosina Burnett Walters.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 66, for the relief of Winnifred Violet Unsworth Thomas.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 67, for the relief of Helen Louisa Willcox Reid.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 68, for the relief of Richard Carter Eaton.-Mr. MacLean.
Bill No. 69, for the relief of Annie Coyle Frances.-Mr. Stuart (Charlotte).
Bill No. 70, for the relief of Beatrice Irene Moore Hawes.-Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 71, for the relief of Laura Lillian Butler May.

Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 72, for the relief of Gladys Ethel Standring Weldon.

Mr. Maybank.
Bill No. 73, for the relief of Elizabeth Maude Foy Gage.-Mr. MacLean.
Bill No. 74, for the relief of George Burley Beresford.-Mr. MacLean.
Bill No. 75, for the relief of Isabella Eleonora Cantlie Angus.-Mr. Maybank.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
['I believe I can say what I have Co say in the limited time left before six o\'clock. I sometimes wonder, when I listen to different speakers, if we are not tending towards too much control. I had a great friend in the late Hon. James Malcolm and I remember one thing he said to me. "The more you interfere with natural laws, the more difficult it will be for government." There is a great deal of truth in that. You do not know where you will end if you start regulating everything.\nI wish to direct the committee\'s attention to something which in my opinion is of current concern and importance. I will read into the record some remarks that have appeared in the Owen Sound Daily Sun-Times, on Wednesday, May 8, signed by W. E. Dickin, operator of an abattoir in that city. In this article he is pleading with people for tolerance and understanding with regard to the price of beef, and some of his remarks are important:\nThe whole situation is:\tCan beef be sold at\ntwenty cents per pound ceiling price? My answer is definitely no. We are paying 12 to 12J cents per pound for cattle that dress 51 pounds to the hundred. The hide and other saleable parts are worth about $10. So any school child can figure out the loss on every bullock. Of course, if you can use common cattle it might be different, but this district demands and largely gets red ribbon beef.\nHe discusses other prices that are being offered and then says:\nBringing this to a close, what do we want or expect:\n1.\tKeep the price of all live stock up and encourage the farmer. He needs it badly.\n2.\tCompromise, Mr. Gordon and Mr. Gardiner, this once. We can all get together and say: This is our country. If mistakes have been made, let us learn by those mistakes. Again, I say, to one and all, compromise, and quickly.\nI am trying to point out the immediate concern we should all have in this matter inasmuch as I believe that the farmers are facing a difficult task. When I listen to the speeches of hon. members and then contemplate the picture painted by the Minister of Agriculture I realize that if we are to encourage people to return to the land the picture will certainly have to be more colourful than the one we are given. We must face facts. In the county of Grey, which is largely an agricultural district, we produce large numbers of live stock. There has been-and I think this is a tragic fact\n\na\n\nSupply-A griculture\nshrinkage of two thousand in the rural population of that county since the last census. That means something. We must endeavour to make agriculture more attractive. In the same issue of the Sun-Times of Wednesday, May 8, the following appeared:\nKeppel township council, meeting at Oxenden with all members present, instructed clerk Fred Carder to write or wire Donald Gordon demanding that the ceiling price of beef be raised or eliminated and that a copy of this demand be mailed to Hon. John Bracken, Garfield Case, M.P., and Findlay McDonald requesting their assistance.\nThere is something to justify the removal of the ceiling price from the products of the farm and ranch. You can fix the costs and other details of manufactured products but the farmer has to have some initiative to plant crops. In, a moment I shall refer to one of the things that has defeated that objective.\nThere is another item to which I should like to refer, namely, the position taken by an abattoir with regard to the ceiling price on beef. I hold in my hand a resolution passed by the Keppel township council with reference to the ceiling price on beef. It is taken from the same issue of the Sun-Times of Wednesday, May 8, and has to do with the local milk producers. What I am trying to do is to bring before the committee and to the attention of the administration a problem which is of current and immediate concern to agriculturists. This article is headed: "Local milk producers would halt deliveries if price not increased." The resolution is as follows:\nWhereas we, the milk producers of Owen Sound district are experiencing increased production costs as never before through increased wages, et cetera and whereas the government has allowed increases to farm machinery manufacturers of 12J per cent, and whereas daylight saving time in collection of milk has made production more difficult and whereas we know that production costs are higher than ever before while retail price of milk is much lower than at many times in history, be it therefore resolved that all milk producers in this province vigorously protest and demand recognition in the way of increased price and that in the event of increased prices not being forthcoming we recommend that we discontinue supplies until arrangements satisfactory to producers are provided.\nI have dealt with two important factors in agricultural operations, namely, the live stock and dairy producers. I come now to a letter which I received from one of my constituents, Mr. Carefoot. I might say that Mr. Care-foot is a well known breeder of short-horn cattle and draught horses and has exhibited his stock in some of the best rings in Canada. This is his story which I wish to convey to the committe so that hon. members will appreciate all the problems to which I have sought to relate my remarks. He says:\nWe as farmers are certainly getting it rough in the matter of labour. I am nearly sixty years\nold. have hired men ever since I was sixteen, and this is the worst we ever had. You really cannot get help of any kind.\nThere are a few novelty farmers who make their money some other way and who can pay $80, $100 per month, get men, but their business from an agriculture standpoint is not paying.\nThe average farmer throughout the country who is paying for his farm, raising a family and buying equipment is the man we have got to pay attention to, for they are the real backbone of the country.\nHe goes on to say, and I think this is something that is really tragic when so many people of the world are crying for food:\nI could name thirty men in this township who say if they cannot get labour at $50 per month, board and washing, they will simply just live on the farm and let the world go by.\nAs we know, the trend has been toward governmental paternalism, but it seems to me that it has led to a tendency to rob our people of the incentive to work, to rob them of their initiative.\nThis afternoon the minister spoke about two fine young Englishmen visiting Winnipeg. I cannot imagine our young men not visualizing the great challenge that this country offers; yet to-day we have young men who are capable of farming but will not do it. At the same time we have men like Mr. Carefoot offering to pay wages as high as $70 to $75 a month but unable to obtain labour. What is happening? About two weeks ago a group of young labour people, who were formerly the young communist group of Canada, interviewed various members of parliament. I had three young people who would be around twenty years of age interview me in my office in the parliament buildings. One young chap was from the farm. He isgetting out-of-work pay. I said to him: "Y7hy do you not go back to work on the farm?" He said: "The farm cannot pay me enough." I can say to these young people that while they might get 65 cents or $1 an hour in the cities or towns, the fellow on the farm has less opportunity to spend his money; he is in more healthful employment. I should like to see a great many of these young people return, because we shall live to realize some time that if we cannot make agriculture more attractive, induce our people to return to the land, to the good earth, as the hon. member for Assiniboia said, wages will not be as significant as they are at the present time. In other words, one might earn $1.25 an hour and still starve to death. I wish that labour, the farmers and others would realize that the basic economy of this nation depends upon the purchasing power of the dollar and not on the amount of money that is earned. I believe that agriculture still offers many attractions to young men to engage in that enterprise and feel secure in the days that are to\nPrivate Bills-Divorce', "come. I am glad that the Department of Veterans Affairs is making it as attractive as possible for veterans to engage in that type of work, since they are accustomed to the outdoor life.\nAt six o'clock the Speaker resumed the chair and the house took recess.\nAfter Recess\nThe house resumed at eight o'clock."]
John Bracken: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Reconstruction. On one or two occasions in the past he has answered questions with respect to the supply of lumber, but they do not quite cover the cases which have been brought to my attention in recent weeks from rural Manitoba.
I wish to ask the minister a question arising out of requests I am receiving with respect to supplies of lumber in rural Manitoba, requests which reveal what is said to be the most serious shortage in the history of certain of the towns there. Will the minister tell the
house what action the government is taking to meet the situation arising out of the shortages of lumber, particularly in small towns and rural areas in Canada, and what these areas may expect in the way of supplies during the next few months?


Hon. C. D. HOWE (Minister of Reconstruction) :: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend, in referring to the most serious shortage of lumber in the history of those areas, is speaking, I presume, in a comparative sense only; because I feel certain that more lumber was used in Manitoba in 1945 than at any previous time in history. However, the supply is short of the demand. March and April are always the low points in the distribution of lumber, because, while the logs have been cut, the lumber has not yet been distributed from sawmills. The cut last winter was the largest in the history of Canada, considerably larger than in the previous winter, and I think that every yard can expect more lumber this year than it received last year. The additional supply is some 400 million feet more than last year.
The amount being retained for domestic purposes will be increased by the full amount of the increased cut, and I feel certain that by midsummer the supply of lumber in all parts of Canada will be much easier than it has been in the past.


Mr. CASTLEDEN:: Has any action been taken to curtail the export of lumber which is so badly needed in Canada?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I have answered that question several times. I have said that lumber exports to our historic markets have been and are being maintained at their pre-war levels, and that the increased production in Canada is going into domestic use. I think the house will commend that policy. I think that countries which have relied on Canada in former years as their source of supply for their needs are entitled to receive that supply in post-war years as they did in the war years. We hope they can always depend on that supply. Canada is in a similar position in connection with its imports of commodities such as coal and cotton and a great many others. We rely on those countries which have in the past exported these supplies to Canada to look after the Canadian position in difficult times as well as in ordinary times, and I am happy to say that in general those countries have followed that policy. Canada is only doing for these countries what we wish them to do for us in following out our policy in the export of lumber.
Mr. ROSS (Sourish: There was a report in this morning's press that owing to shipping
Food Wastage

conditions in the United States much of the better grades of lumber intended for export to the United States are piling up in this country. I would ask the minister whether the controller could not divert some of this export lumber to lumber dealers in Canada until United States transportation difficulties are ironed out.


Clarence Decatur Howe: The controller is watching the situation very closely, but I would point out that the lumber exported is of different sizes and grades from domestic lumber and I doubt that it could be efficiently distributed in Canada. To distribute it in Canada would have no effect in the long run, because we have an agreement with the United States as to the quantity of lumber to be exported to that country, so nothing would be gained by taking the lumber now awaiting export.



[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. M. MACDONNELL (Muskoka-Ontario):: I should like to ask the Minister of Finance a question oi which I have sent him notice. Does he feel that the government has done everything in its power to cut down the waste of food, having regard to the widespread famine conditions in the world and to the great and sometimes shocking waste at the present time in Canada?


Right Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Minister of Finance) :: I did not receive the notice of the question; had I done so, I would have handed it to
some other minister, as it is not a matter under my jurisdiction and any answer I gave would be just an expression of personal opinion, which I assume is not what the hon. gentleman wants.


Hon. J. G. GARDINER (Minister of Agriculture) :: Mr. Speaker, the matter is one which is dealt with by a committee of which I happen to be chairman. Just before coming into the house I approved an advertisement which is going into the press right across Canada dealing with that very matter. It is not the first but the fourth such advertisement which has been put out. Contact has also been made with organizations of different kinds in order to impress upon the public as much as possible the need for preserving food and seeing that it is distributed in a proper way.


James MacKerras Macdonnell: Mr. Speaker, that is not an answer to the question I asked. I will repeat it, and perhaps the minister will be in a position to 
answer on another occasion. I asked whether the government had done everything in its power to cut down the waste of food, not whether it had done certain things.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. SOLON E. LOW (Peace River): Mr. Speaker, will the Prime Minister*tell the house when we may expect the external affairs committee to begin its discussions, and whether that standing committee should not immediately set about the consideration of recent world events which are bound to affect Canada's international position?
William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, in reply to my hon. friend I would remind him that the committees of this house control their own affairs. The committee on external affairs has been appointed. Its chairman is Mr. Bradette, and it is open to any member at any time to ask that the committee meet together. The practice usually followed, is for a member who is desirous of having a committee meet to ask the chairman to call its members together. With regard to the meetings of this committee I would think that that would be the proper course to follow.
As to the second part of my hon. friend's question, which he was kind enough to send to me, namely that the committee should "immediately set about the consideration of recent world events which are bound to affect Canada's international position," that is I think for the committee itself to decide.
I am obliged to my hon. friend for sending me the question. As the house knows, I had hoped that the debate on external affairs and on the work of the department would take place before the estimates were referred to the committee; I promised some time ago that the estimates would go to the committee. I had an understanding with my colleagues that as soon as the debate on the bill with respect to the loan to Great Britain and the debate on the citizenship bill were concluded I would immediately have the right of way to follow with a discussion of external affairs. But up to the moment, while the house has concluded its debate on one of those bills, it has not concluded discussion on the other. However, I am anxious that the committee on external affairs should have the fullest opportunity to proceed forthwith to consider the estimates in committee as they did last year, and if the house would grant me permission so to do, I should be prepared at once to move that the different votes relating to

External Affairs _______________
the Department of External Affairs which were referred to the committee of supply on March 26, 1946, be withdrawn from that committee and referred to the standing committee on external affairs. Perhaps the house would grant me permission to revert to motions and have this motion put through immediately ; it would mean that the estimates would then be referred and that owing to my absence there would be no loss of time in their consideration. May I take it that the house agrees? I move:
That votes Nos. 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55 and 56 inclusive, dealing with external affairs and referred to the committee of supply on March 26, 1946, be withdrawn from that committee and referred to the standing committee on external affairs.


John Bracken: I am very glad to support the motion. In doing so may I suggest that the chairman proceed at once to call the committee so that it may proceed with its work?


Mr. REID:: I am rising to object to the motion, and I am calling the attention of the house to the fact that this is an historic moment. I trust this is not the beginning of sending estimates to committees.


Thomas Miller Bell: We too shall be very glad to support this motion. We have asked for something of this sort for a long time.


Thomas Reid: It is an historic moment,
whether the house realizes it or not.


Mr. SPEAKER:: Is the motion agreed to?


Thomas Reid: No.


Mr. D. M. FLEMING (Eglinton):: Mr. Speaker, did you read the items referred to as Nos. 41 to 54?


James Horace King: Nos. 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56.


Donald Methuen Fleming: There are two other
items, Nos. 39 and 40, when we come to that department.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: What are they? Are they statutory amounts?


Donald Methuen Fleming: Departmental administration is 39, and passport office administration is 40.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have not the estimates at hand, but if they are not statutory, certainly I would be only too pleased to have any numbers added, which should have been included.


Mr. HANSELL:: I do not know that I rightly understand the motion. There seems to be some misunderstanding as to whether these estimates are to be referred to the external affairs committee.


James Horace King: I regret to interrupt the hon. member, but according to standing order 38 this motion is not debatable.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I say to the hon. member (Mr. Fleming), who has raised a question on the numbers, that I imagine he must have some previous year's copy of estimates, because my attention has just been called to the fact that No. 39 relates to salaries and expenses of the chief electoral officer, and No. 40 to the civil service commission.


Ernest George Hansell: May I ask the Prime Minister whether his motion seeks to refer these estimates to the external affairs committee or to the committee of the whole house? If it is to refer them to the external affairs committee, I do raise a point of order on that.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend remembers that last session the estimates of the Department of External Affairs were referred to the committee on External Affairs. This is to give, the committee an opportunity to discuss anything that relates to external affairs.
I think my hon. friend the member for New Westminster, in referring to this as an historic moment, has in mind something that has not taken place. He apparently has in mind that the committee that was appointed to deal with the rules has made some recommendation, with respect to referring estimates to committees. That would be the adoption of something wholly new. But that recommendation of the committee has not yet come before the house and has not yet been agreed to. All that I am doing at the moment is to help to make it possible for the committee on external affairs, which is one of the committees of the house, to discuss anything which relates to external affairs. I do not believe its members will be able to think of anything relating to external affairs which it will not be possible to bring up by reference to some particular appropriation.


John Bracken: May I observe that when I agreed to support this motion it was on the understanding that this reference to the committee would be only for the committee to study these questions, but not for it to have final disposition of the estimates.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Oh, certainly.


John Bracken: They will have to come back here and be dealt with in this house, the same as heretofore. But it was hoped by proceeding in this way we might save some of the time of the house while at the same time getting more information for members.
Supply-Agricul ture


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That is correct.


Mr. HACKETT:: I should like to ask whether the Prime Minister would be prepared to make a statement as to the extradition treaty between Canada and the United States, on which the external affairs committee reported last session.


James Horace King: Order. This motion is not debatable.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
William Lyon Mackenzie King: Before proceeding to the next order of business, may I inform hon. members that during my absence the Right Hon. J. L. Ilsley, Minister of Finance, will be acting in the position of Prime Minister; the Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent, the Minister of Justice, will be acting Secretary of State for External Affairs; and the Hon. Ian A. Mackenzie, Minister of Veterans Affairs, will be acting President of the Privy Council. Mr. Mackenzie will also continue in cooperation with the whips to exercise supervision over the organization of the business of the house.
To my hon. friend who asked a question a moment ago as to the extradition treaty, may I say that I am pleased that external affairs will for a time be in the hands of the Minister of Justice, who has a special knowledge both of external affairs, and of the legal questions involved in the matter referred to by my him. friend.

The house in committee of supply, Mr. Golding in the chair.
DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE 1. Departmental administration, $163,190.


Mr. PEARKES:: Mr. Chairman, early this year the hon. member for Edmonton East paid a visit to Vancouver island. I hope that when the Minister of Fisheries is presenting his estimates the hon. member for Edmonton East will give us just as graphic a description of how he wrestled with a salmon as he gave us yesterday of how he wrestled with one of his sheep.
I notice that in his remarks he made some references to agricultural experts. Within a few miles of where he was staying this spring there is a dominion experimental farm where

there are a number of gentlemen who may well be considered experts in agriculture and horticulture. I want to take up a moment or two to-day to call attention to the difficulties under which these civil servants are working. They are doing an important service for the country and for the farmers and horticulturists who live in the vicinity of their farm.
The hon. member for North Battleford explained in considerable detail yesterday the activities of the Canadian Seed Growers Association. I know that these experts at the experimental farm have rendered very considerable assistance to the bulb growers, fruit growers and dairymen on Vancouver island, and yet one is forced to the conclusion that these experts have in the past received a remuneration hardly commensurate with their ability. I am informed that in the past their salary has been about thirty per cent less than that paid in some nine other professions in which people with similar qualifications - are engaged. Naturally these experts have to deal not only with the selection of seeds and the way in which fruit trees, bulbs and so on, are treated and protected against disease and the attacks of insects, but also with marketing conditions and other factors.
If we wish to attract to the agricultural service of the country the best type of our rural youth, we must give to those who enter that profession, an opportunity of making a reasonable livelihood, and we must also afford them opportunities adequate to retain them. I feel that in the past, owing perhaps to lack of understanding and appreciation, and to the exceptionally low salaries which have been paid, particularly to the younger men in the agricultural branch of the government service, we have run a serious risk of losing these men and of encouraging them to go elsewhere.
I offer these remarks merely for the purpose of calling the minister's attention to the need for stimulating interest in what I might term the professional agriculturists who have done such excellent work for the farmers.
I desire now to take up the theme of the remarks of the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Cruickshank). I wish to refer to some of the statements he made in his speech yesterday. He said in part:
I was surprised to find there have been only forty-eight applications for farms in my own riding under the Veterans Land Act. I fully expected there would be many more, but speaking from memory I believe only some seventeen have qualified and been granted farms.
The hon. member went on to explain what an excellent constituency he had.


Mr. CRUICKSHANK:: I still hold to that.

Supply-A griculture


George Randolph Pearkes: I agree entirely with the hon. gentleman; I know that constituency, and it is a most attractive part of the country. Then he went on to say:
It is surprising . . . there should be only forty-eight applications for farms under the act. The remedy is for this government ... to guarantee these men not subisidies, but prices which will afford a decent standard of living and which will permit them to carry out their obligations and manage the debt they will be called upon to undertake if they are to settle upon farms.
That is the local picture. A few day ago, in answeT to some questions of mine, the Secretary ' of State kindly tabled certain returns giving figures as to t'he number of men who have settled on the land, having taken advantage of the Veterans Land Act.
I asked1 the questions first of all because I was anxious to find out What would be the effect, on the veterans who were trying to reestablish themselves on farms, of the imposition of the additional twelve and a half per cent on farm machinery, because it seemed to me that that would be placing an additional burden upon veterans who were trying to get reestablished.
One of the first questions I asked was: What percentage of the equipment which these veterans have bought was new equipment, and what was second-hand? The figures given to me, as tabled in the house, were that 79-6 per cent was new equipment; 20-4 second-hand.


The ACTING CHAIRMAN (Mr. Golding):: I would call the hon. member's attention to the .fact that we are now discussing the estimates of the Department of Agriculture, administration. The matter which he is discussing relates to veterans affairs and rehabilitation. I might also observe that yesterday we did allow wide discussion, perhaps quite a bit of it out of order, but I hope hon. members now will confine their remarks to the item under consideration.


George Randolph Pearkes: I hope, Mr. Chairman, my build-up will convince you that I am endea-. vouring to confine my remarks to the item before the committee. I am merely building up my case by quoting figures which I think are pertinent.
The next question I asked had reference to the number of veterans for whom equipment had been purchased. The number given was 1,127. The next question was with reference to the number who had made applications for equipment, and the figure given was 2,101. These figures surprised me; I thought there would have been many more. Then I looked to see how many veterans had been 63260-89
established on the land, and I found, as far as full-time farming is concerned, by March 31, 1946, that 5,132 veterans had been established under the Veterans Land Act throughout the whole of Canada. These figures struck me as amazingly small. I made inquiries as to how many veterans had already been demobilized, as I thought that would give me an indication of the number of veterans who were going back on the land. I found that from May 1, 1945 to March 31, 1946, over 500,000 veterans had been demobilized from the three services, and that prior to May 1, 1945, an additional 400,000 had been demobilized. Admitting that some of those veterans may have had dual discharge, because that is quite possible, the sum total cannot be less than something well over 800,000 men discharged up to March 31, as compared with just over 5,000 who had been rehabilitated on the land. Therefore fewer than one per cent of the veterans who have returned to this country have been established on the land.
Frequently we have heard of the great agricultural resources of Canada. I have always understood that agriculture was one of our basic industries. I have been told many times in the house that we had the most generous and far-reaching scheme for the rehabilitation of veterans that could be found anywhere in the world. Surely there must be something radically wrong with the position of agriculture in the economic set-up of Canada if only slightly more than one-half of one per cent of all the veterans who have been demobilized almost a year since the cessation of hostilities have taken up farming on their own under the generous opportunities which are offered under the Veterans Land Act. I do not know whether it is the fault of the agricultural policy of this country or of the general economic set-up; but it is obvious that these men who had the courage to face the enemy in the air, on the battlefields of Europe, on the high seas or in the merchant marine, for some reason or other think they have not a fighting chance of making both ends meet if they take up agriculture in this great agricultural country.
I do not believe that any amount of propaganda, any amount of explanation which may be given, or any attempt to show increases in exports of this kind or that, can blur the stark tragedy of these figures-one-half of one per cent of our veterans re-established into agriculture under the Veterans Land Act one year after the cessation of hostilities.

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I ask the Minister of Agriculture to give his earnest consideration to improving agricultural conditions in Canada and the position of agriculturists so that veterans who ran such risks for us during the past war will think it worth while to take up agriculture as their profession, as a means of livelihood, as a means of getting re-established into a satisfactory economic condition.


Mr. ROSS (Souris):: I should like to support the concern shown and the request made by the hon. member for Nanaimo with respect to the future welfare of the settlers from the agricultural point of view. May I say that I was privileged to be one of the members of the committee on the Veterans Land Act which sat in 1942. I do not think it can be said that there is no close connection between the Veterans Land Act and the welfare of agriculture in Canada. They are closely linked up. Speaking on the bill which the committee brought before the house at that time, I said-


William Henry Golding: Order. I think that matter should be discussed when the estimates of the Department of Veterans Affairs are before the committee. I ask hon. members to discuss the item now before the committee, which is departmental administration.


James Arthur Ross: That is just what I am doing. When the motion to set up the veterans affairs committee was before the house I asked the Prime Minister and the Minister of Veterans Affairs if it would preclude a discussion on these matters in the house, and they said that the rules of the house would govern, but so far as they were concerned they would give us wide latitude. I raised that point before allowing the measure to pass without discussion.


William Henry Golding: The hon. member should keep in mind the fact that that suggestion was made to him in connection with veterans affairs. We are not discussing veterans affairs now.


James Arthur Ross: Does the chairman rule that there is no connection between the future of the settlers under the Veterans Land Act and agriculture in this country?


William Henry Golding: I do not want to make any ruling in the matter. We do allow a great deal of latitude in matters of this kind, but I trust hon. members will confine their remarks to the item now before the committee.


James Arthur Ross: I am going to confine my remarks entirely to the administration of agriculture, and I shall not be very long on this point.	*
Speaking on this bill, as reported at page 4386 of Hansard of July 20, 1942, I said:
May I say at the beginning that if it were not for the fact that I have some faith in the future, and a hope that agricultural parity will eventually be established in Canada, I would not have been able to support the bill even in principle. In the great nation to the south of us, the United States, there has been parity between agricultural and other products for a year now, and under the Washington wheat agreement of June 27, 1942, signed by the Argentine, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, the representatives of these nations have recognized the basis of a parity price for wheat which will return a fair remuneration to the producers as well as being fair to the consumer. On the basis of these agreements, and having regard to what has been done in the United States,'I think we may hope that we are doing these settlers justice by establishing them on the land, because we hope that they will be able to carry on under parity prices, in the future at any rate. As I say, if it were not for that hope I for one could not have supported the bill.
I am prepared to admit to-day how illusory my faith was at that time, because under the increase in wheat prices announced in the United States the day before yesterday, and taking into account the difference in exchange, a farmer delivering his wheat in the United States will receive slightly over $2.50 a bushel, exactly double what the producer receives in Canada to-day. We have pretty well discussed the matter of dairy products, meat and other products. I repeated this declaration when we discussed the amendment to the Veterans Land Act bill last November. Speaking on September 25 last on the resolution asking this government to undertake to guarantee the producers floor prices of at least ninety ; per cent of parity, I wound up my remarks as follows, as reported at page 464 of Hansard:
More than that, before many days have passed, when we discuss some of the other ministers' estimates and difficulties that already prevail to-day with respect to the rehabilitation of our service men, and especially those young men who want to settle on farms under the Veterans Land Act, if the government can assure them nothing more than this for the future years they will not be very eager about settling on the land.
I am not raising this point in any spirit of "I told you so", but I think it has been the vital concern of every member of parliament that these men should be rehabilitated on the land. As has been pointed out, one-half of one per cent of those who have been discharged, or some 5,182, have already been passed for settlement on the land. Surely that should be the concern of every public official in Canada. The situation has been

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progressively aggravated since 1942. From day to day and from week to week it is becoming alarmingly worse.
In a return brought down on April 16, 1946, with regard to the 12^ per cent increase on farm implements, it was asked whether it would be necessary for these settlers to pay that increase, and the reply was, "Yes, certainly, less the deduction in commission allowed to dealers." This comes rightfully under a discussion of agricultural matters, and it is the concern of each one of us. Surely we hope to settle satisfactorily more than 5,000 of those men. Speaking the other night I pointed out that out of the many thousands of enlistments from the farms in the prairie provinces, only seven per cent had signified their intention of returning to those farms. Meantime they have been overseas; they have knocked around and have seen things in other countries. The result is that they want to try some other occupation.
I agree with the Minister of Pensions and National Health that it is in the interests of any nation to have a fair percentage of its population on the land. I agree, too, with what was said a few days ago by the Minister of Agriculture about mortgage indebtedness, and mortgages which have been reduced. If a man could have his land and stock clear of indebtedness, there would not be a better occupation than that of operating a farm, other things being on a parity or a reasonable basis. That is what we should be striving for in Canada, rather than having the matter aggravated as it is to-day. I wish to support the request of the hon. member who has asked that we endeavour to do something about making the future a much happier one, as well as more remunerative for those of our settlers who have sacrificed everything that we might live and enjoy this freedom. Thus far they have been successful in winning the battle for us. During the years they were overseas fighting that battle, on many occasions in this chamber I expressed my fear about properly winning the peace for them. We are in the midst of that great controversy to-day, one about which I have expressed so much doubt. I trust we shall be more successful in the future than we are now.


James Garfield Gardiner: Mr. Chairman, I should like to say a word about the matter under discussion. I do not wish to go into detail, because I agree with what the chairman has said, namely that in discussing this question we are more or less out of order. However there have been some remarks by hon. members to the effect that they come from the best farming con-63260-89J
stituencies in Canada; and then they proceed to tell us that nobody wants to farm there. My story is somewhat different from that. I think, in view of what has just been said, that I must live in what is really the best farming constituency in Canada, because the first veteran who came back and made application for a farm in that area referred the matter to me. Then, later on, to complete the story, I was informed by the land settlement board that in two years time he had paid back all the money he received from the government, and that he was not even waiting for eight more years to be paid the $2,300 to which he would be entitled under the act, in order to secure clear title. He paid it all back in two years and received his clear title.
I think it is important that when we are discussing matters of this kind we should not discourage men from going on the farms by telling all these hard luck stories. In spite of the fact that I do not believe they are getting all they are entitled to, the farmers to-day are making more on their farms than they have made at any other time in my lifetime. Young men who are going back to the farms under present conditions are not experiencing what has been suggested in the house. They are possibly going back under conditions which will probably make it more difficult rather than less difficult for them in the future-and not because conditions to-day are trying, but because they are a little better than they usually are on farms in Canada or in any other country. That is because there is a greater demand for food to-day than can possibly be supplied by all the farm operators in this and every other country.
This being so, conditions are at least as good as we can expect them to be for a long time for those who are now going on the land. But when the suggestion is made that at this stage young men are not applying to go back on the farms, particularly in western Canada, I think I can suggest a much better reason than the ones which have been offered up to the present. Those of us who have lived in western Canada in the last number of years, and particularly during the ten years preceding the war, can well understand why many young men and women who have served in the armed services or elsewhere are not now going back to the farms. One of them is, of course, the difficulty they experienced in the ten years immediately preceding the war. They may feel that there is a possibility of similar conditions prevailing at some future time, and they possibly feel that they would like to settle themselves somewhere else.
However, I do not think that is the reason which has developed this attitude in the
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minds of most of them. Most of them know what to expect in western Canada; they were born and reared there. The only people who will ever make a success at farming in western Canada are those who know that for every four or five good years you have, you are going to have four or five poor years. One could not farm in that country were it not for the fact that it is comparatively dry. It is both too far north and too high up to farm under conditions where there would be any more moisture than falls there in an average year. Those who would operate successfully on a farm in western Canada must learn that lesson first. If they have learned that lesson, then it may be possible for them to make a success of farming on the prairies.
The fact is that in the last ten years before the war no one could make a living in western Canada, the reason being that the world was preparing for war. We could not have sold our farm products, even if we had had good crops in those ten years. We would have had a very difficult time. France did not want our wheat; Germany did not want our wheat; Italy did not want our wheat. They would not take it. The reason they would not take it was that in some instances they were preparing food in their own countries, producing it by synthetic processes in order that they might have it there, behind their own fighting lines, in a war which they all knew was coming, but which we would not believe was coming. Because we had those ideas in this country, we had people who were saying, "Oh, we are never going to have another war. Why do you prepare for war in this country? Why do you even think about it? There isn't going to be another world war." In other w'ords, we stuck our heads in the sand and let these people shut our food products out of their countries, thereby making it absolutely impossible for us to sell them. The result was that every boy or girl at home on his or her farm in western Canada just had to stay there. The farmers in this country do not do as the city people do, and I am not going to name any particular class of city people, because they are organized in a different way. In this country the farmer owns his own farm, or at least is trying to own it. He raises his own family on the farm. They are all part and parcel of the operation which is going on there. When their families are out of work because there is no market they do not turn their families out on the street to be kept by the state; they maintain their families themselves. Any person not gainfully employed on farms prior to this war was taken care of by the farmers, not by city councils or municipal councils or provincial governments or the
IMr. Gardiner.]
dominion government. Unemployment in that form was taken care of by the farmers themselves, with the result that thousands upon thousands of young men who should have been in universities or given courses to prepare them for life somewhere else off the farms did not have those opportunities. Why, anyone who knows farming in this country knows that only one boy can stay on the family size farm, and one of the neighbour's daughters. They constitute the new family heads who will remain on the farm; and if the farmer raises a family of four or five or half a dozen or ten children, the others have to find a living on some other farms, in business or somewhere else. Someone says it has been that way for a hundred years. It has always been that way where you have familysized farms, anywhere in the world.
So for ten years before this war began young men and young women were congregated upon the farms of this country because, during that period farming did not make it possible for them to obtain sufficient funds with which to secure the education or training they desired to permit them to go elsewhere when it became necessary for them to do so. As a result, during the war 400,000 of them left the farms and went into the services or. the war plants; and with them all gone we produced on our farms forty per cent more food than we produced in the years prior to the war when those people were on the farms. This proves, as conclusively as such things can be proved, that these young men were not gainfully employed on the farms during that period when they were not doing the things they desired to do.
The hon. member for Nanaimo says we have been boasting about the many fine things we are doing for returned men. The very fact that we have done fine things for them; the very fact that I am told that a man with certain qualifications, certain service and ' a certain family to be maintained can draw under these provisions as much as $10,000 to get himself an education, is the explanation as to why some of them are not applying to do anything else at the present time. That is an explanation of the fact that every university in this country is jammed to the doors with veterans, with as many more clamouring to get in, to take advantage of the provisions made by the government for men coming back from overseas to be trained and educated in the institutions of this country for the life that- is ahead of them. Before war broke out other countries were preparing for war, but we did not believe we should prepare for it. Therefore during the five or ten years before the war we did not take these men in and train them 'the way' we had to train

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them while the war was on. We had to give them an education in order that they could fly as they ought to fly, in order that they might handle equipment as it ought to be handled, in order that they might lay out plans for the battles that had to be fought, and so on. We would not do that before the war, but during the war we had to do it. Then when the war was over we sent thousands upon thousands of them back into the educational institutions of our country to be educated as they should have been educated before the war started; so I am not going to blame any of them for not going back to the farms in the meantime.
On the last trip I made west, last Easter, I think I had a very good indication of why some men do not go back to the farms. I went into the dining car for dinner. A young man, or perhaps not so young either, in airforce uniform, sat down across the table' from me. He asked, "Have you an agricultural college in Saskatchewan?" I replied that we had. He asked if it was a good one, to which I replied that it was second to none, as far as I knew. Then he said, "Well, I think I will apply to go there." I asked what he was doing before the war, and he said he was teaching school.
I asked how long he had taught school, and he said seventeen years. I asked why he was going back to university now. His reply was, "Well, I got married rather early in life and I did not find it possible to complete a university education under the circumstances, so I had to teach." I asked what family he had; I have forgotten whether he said four or five, but he went on to say that under the provisions which had been put into effect it was possible for him to go and do what he had always wanted to do, that is, complete his education in an agricultural college, so he thought he would apply for admission to the agricultural college at Saskatoon.
There is no doubt in my mind but that thoughts like these are going through the minds of thousands of young men. Some day that man may go back to a farm. He is not so young now-[DOT]


Thomas Reid: Not by the time he is through college.


James Garfield Gardiner: walking for half an hour down the streets of Winnipeg and back. They wondered why in a new country like ours they found exactly the same situation on the street corners in Winnipeg as they had experienced in Great Britain in relation tt) labour troubles there.
I mention these things only to emphasize that if we want our young men to go on the farms we must first create better conditions than they have had in the past. We believe that for the time being we have better conditions than we had in the past, and we are hopeful that we can establish those better conditions permanently for the whole lifetime of the men who are going on the farm. But however long they remain, we can only persuade young men to go on the farm and remain on the farm by telling them of the opportunities in farming, what the privileges are of living on a farm, what the advantages are-because there are privileges and advantages in living on a farm in a country where you can own your own farm and where conditions are such that, as I said a moment ago, a young man can come back from the war, buy a good farm, pay for it in two years and get on with the job of creating- a home that he and his young wife whom he married at the end of the war that he and she will be proud to live in.
I do not think we should be going round, particularly those who never have farmed and never intend to farm, telling people how terrible conditions are on the farm. Why should a young man go on the farm after listening to some of the speeches made in this house yesterday? If he knows anything about it he will say that those fellows do not know what they are talking about. If he does not know anything about it, he will say: I had better go and look somewhere else for a living. The fact of the matter is that in Great Britain only a small percentage of the people are on farms and the people who come here from the British isles are not accustomed to' farming. I would say that ninety per cent of the people of Britain do not want to farm and never did. Some of them when they come over here like to make money faster than they can on a farm and even if they settle on a farm are anxious to get away from it for a while.
Within the last forty-eight hours I met a delegation of real farmers who had a complain to make when they came in. Of course, that is what most people come here for, to make complaints and to get wrongs righted. In the conversation which took place a statement something like this was made. Twenty-five years ago we could go down the streets of our cities and towns and hire immigrants

who did not mind milking cows, hoeing sugar beets and doing other things that have to be done on a farm. There is no use in anybody going on the farm if he is not willing to hoe sugar beets, if he is not willing to milk cows, if he is not willing to feed pigs, and so on down the line. That is what has driven a large percentage of Anglo-Saxon people away from the farm. That is why so many farms in Canada are being settled by people who came from other than Anglo-Saxon countries.
If we want to keep our boys on the farm we have to preach a different kind of philosophy from what is being preached to-day in this house and elsewhere. We must preach the philosophy that there is nothing better or more worth while than producing food and clothing, the two things that are necessary for all of us. If farming, producing the things we need the most, is not considered one of the best of all professions or trades, or whatever you like to call it, there is something wrong with our way of thinking.
It is all very well to get up here and say what a wonderful class of people our farmers are, how fine they are; but just take your pencils and put down $1,600,000,000, which is the highest cash income the farmers of this country ever took in for three years' work- that was in the last three years-and divide it by 800,000. What do you get? It gives you $2,000 as the average cash return on a farm in Canada in the best three years we ever had in this country.
I go down to Toronto and a man tells me, as he did on one occasion: There is no reason why the farmers should not be the wealthiest people in Canada. I asked him why, and he said that someone had ninety acres just outside Toronto and they took $40,000 off that land every year. I said, "What are you talking about?" He said "They are taking light hogs off the market in Toronto, feeding them out on that land and then turning them back on the market when fit, and they took in $40,000 a year by doing that". He went on to say that there was no reason why every farmer in Canada should not do that. I said to him, "There are two very good reasons why it cannot be done,"-and hon. gentlemen would be surprised to know who this man was. He gives us advice about running this country. I said to him, "There are two very good reasons, and the first one is that if every farmer in this country produced that many hogs every year he would not be able to find a market for them, even at possible Chinese rates of return. The next reason is that there is not enough feed produced in Canada to feed a fraction of that number of hogs if every farmer was producing them."
I said to him, "You are not talking about a

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farmer; you are talking about a feeding lot, where a man takes the hogs, buys the grain, puts the hogs through his feeding plant and turns them back on the market. That is not a farm; that is not farming." Then I know of other cases: these cases are typical. Whenever you go into a certain part of this country and ask somebody to take you out and show you a farm, I know where he will take you. And I know that the man who owns that farm never lived on a farm in his life. I know that he got the first money with which he started his agricultural pursuits running an evangelistic campaign. I know that the next basis of the fortune which went into that farm came from race horses, and that the land was purchased as a result of that. It is a very fine farm, and most people who go to see it come away thinking that the owner is the type of farmer we have in Canada, that those are the type of people we have on farms in western Canada. I hear it said that they go to California every winter, or they go somewhere else in order to enjoy themselves; they do not farm; they work only a few months in the year. I have heard statements something like that since this debate started. These may be very fine people but they are not farmers.
I had the privilege only this'morning of having verified something which I thought I had learned when I was in Europe recently. I have heard-I won't use the term I was going to use, but I will say-I have heard a great deal of buncombe about farming in some countries which are a long distance away. I always had the idea that at least fifty per cent what I heard had. no basis in fact, but was based on what one is shown by propagandists for a thing. So when I was in Denmark last January I hopped out of the plane and into a car and I said, "Nobody knows I am in this country at all, nobody would know who I am if they did know I was here, so just show me a few farms". A young air force chap ran me around to half a dozen farms and I went in and took a look at them. I was never more surprised in my life than when I went into these farms. I have never seen on any well-run farm in Canada as poor cows as I saw there. I would not have the same kind of horses on my farm as I saw on some of theirs, and the chickens were as mixed as any flock of chickens you ever saw on any farm anywhere in the world. So I thought, well, there may be something wrong with the picture I had drawn for me of farms in Denmark. Only this morning I had the opportunity of having breakfast with a gentleman who made the remark that he had written a book on this matter some years ago, having been sent over by the government
to investigate farming conditions in Denmark and elsewhere. I said, "What did you find?" "Well", he said, "I thought what I might see around Copenhagen might not be typical of the rest of the country, so we did not go to Copenhagen first. We just slipped in up over the mainland; we did not say anything to anybody, and we visited a number of farms before they knew we were in the country." "Do you know", he said, "that their farms are not any better than the back concession farms in Ontario? They are much the same type, operated in much the same way"; and he went on to tell me that when he drove into a certain place he was invited to dinner, that the mother of the family was out in the garden or out in the field, down on her knees, weeding sugar beets. He said ^he was dressed in clothing which looked very much like what we call gunnysacks. "What we had for dinner", he added, "was tapioca and one or two other foods which we would think very common on our tables in this country." I mention this in order to emphasize that this was the picture I found when I was there, but I was, not sure of it. But he said that when the officials got hold of him they did not take him to places like that, but to places like the one of which I have been speaking and which you can find in this country too- quite a number of them-outside of Toronto and Montreal and probably Ottawa and other cities. I think we should toot our own horn instead of suggesting that our boys found things so much better elsewhere that they will not farm in Canada.
Too many people in this country do not know the farmers' condition, and too many people who don't know talk about it. As I have indicated, farmers in this country have had in the past three years an average cash income of about 82,000 gross, and out of that they must pay at the present time, if they want to get a man at all, about $100 a month, which is $1,200 a year. If anybody can tell me how a farmer who has to pay that much for help can pay much income tax, I Should like to know how he is going to do it.
I thought I had to say that some time, and this is just as good a time as any to say it. We have been talking a lot about general matters, and a considerable number of those who have been on their feet have said that we ought to have more money for agriculture. I think I said at the beginning that we had increased the expenditures in every division, and everyone who has mentioned it at all has said that we ought to have even more. Well, I quite agree, but I have not been able to convince everybody else of that. But if I have convinced the committee of it I should like
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hon. members to do one thing: let us pass one item and get on with voting the money we have been allowed.


Mr. NICHOLSON:: I am sure that the members of the committee have listened closely, as they always do, to the Minister of Agriculture. It was a most unusual speech. He scolded all the members of the house for presenting the problems of the farmers in such a light that young men leaving the services might be afraid to take on the responsibilities of farming.


Mr. FRASER:: Only those who spoke
yesterday.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Yet he has stated that the average gross income has been $2,000 per year per farmer, which indicates that if some are getting $40,000 a year a great many are getting very little.


James Garfield Gardiner: And it is more than you ever got until you became a member of this house.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: That does not happen to be correct.


James Garfield Gardiner: Very nearly.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Well, I should be glad to discuss that with the minister, but our personal affairs really have not very much interest for this parliament, and the reference is certainly not in very good taste.


James Garfield Gardiner: You can apply it to seventy-five per cent of the people in this country.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Certainly, and I am not ashamed of the fact that my income has held some relationship to that of the people with whom I have worked.


James Garfield Gardiner: To make sure that there is no misunderstanding about it, I will say that it is more than I ever had until I was a member of the legislature of Saskatchewan.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: That, too, is interesting, but the minister would have done better not to raise the question of what he and I have been accustomed to having.
I think it was also unfortunate that the minister spoke of visiting the people of Denmark and came to the conclusions he did, considering that they were under German occupation and that many of their best breeding herds were completely destroyed. I spent two weeks in Denmark a number of years ago before the country was overrun by the enemy.
I admit frankly that every farmer in Denmark has not a perfect herd, but the Danish people have earned a reputation all over the world for excellent breeding stock and producing a 
high quality dairy product. They have held the British market for years, and I should not be surprised if they made a bid for it again. I do not know how many farms the minister saw during his brief visit, but it is most unfortunate that a Canadian Minister of Agriculture should make comparisons of the kind as a result of such interviews as he had.
Every session I have taken advantage of this item to recommend to the minister that there should be a certain reclassification of salaries for the personnel in his department. But before proceeding with those remarks I should like to pay a tribute to him for a valuable international service which his department has recently rendered. I have a letter from P. S. Quan, who is an engineer attached to the department of irrigation, ministry of agriculture and forestry, in China. He recently spent three weeks in Canada studying irrigation and soil surveys work here. He visited the experimental station at Sum-merland, the irrigation projects in the Lethbridge district and the P.F.A.A. office in Regina. He writes to me:
The admirable work done by your department-*
I may explain that he was drawing his conclusions entirely from his association with these three branches.
The admirable work done by your government and the intelligence and diligence of your farmers gave me deep impressions of the battle of food production. My Canadian trip was a most profitable one not only from the point of view of giving me a very good picture of developments in your country but also of giving me much information for our future developments in China.
I suggest that if the minister, from time to time, could find ways and means for promoting that sort of communication it would have a much better effect than the sort of contribution he made this afternoon with reference to Denmark.
I might also express thanks to the minister for a recent appointment that has been very well received in all parts of Canada, particularly the west. I refer to the appointment of Doctor K. W. Neatby as director of scientific services. This gentleman is one of the most distinguished graduates of my own alma mater, the university of Saskatchewan, and I am sure that everyone who knows him and knows the work he has done is glad to have him back in the work he is so well trained to do.
When I was discussing these estimates a year ago I said that in my opinion the personnel in the Department of Agriculture did not receive as adequate compensation as the personnel in other departments, or persons outside the government services. I may have

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strange ideas in connection with these matters, but it is my opinion that the Department of Agriculture is as important as any other department of government. The minister has referred to the fact that the people who do scientific work in his department are probably as well paid as farmers. That possibly is true; but I think it should be the goal of the minister to see that those who work on farms receive the highest possible income, or at any rate that they have a fair share of the total national income. Likewise, those who work under his supervision in the government service should have a fair share of the amount spent for all services.
I do not think we can solve both problems immediately, but I do not think we should wait, to make adjustments in the civil service, until we have solved all other problems in the wider field of agriculture.
Last year the minister answered a question regarding the number of employees holding the bachelor's degree and receiving certain salaries. One receives less than $1,000; 287 receive less than $2,000; 358 receive less than $3,000; and only 96 receive over $3,000. There are sixty with master's degree reeciving less than $2,000; 113 receiving less than $3,000; and forty-seven receiving over $3,000. With the Ph.D degree there are ten receiving less .than $2,000, forty-one receiving less than $3,000, and, sixty-two receiving over $3,000.
I have never argued that because a man has a college degree he is entitled to an income that places him in a position of advantage over his fellows, but I imagine that most of the employees in the department holding degrees have come from farms. If one boy stays on the family farm and continues to develop it, even if his income is only the average of $2,000 over the whole nation in good years, while another boy goes to university, spends four years taking the bachelor of science degree, another two years receiving his master's degree, and a total of eight years until he receives his Ph. D., and if the latter has to pay off his debts and maintain a decent standard of living he should receive an income higher than the amounts paid to so many of the personnel of the Department of Agriculture.
Last year the minister argued that in his opinion the salaries in his department compared very well with those in other departments. However, checking over the public accounts, I find that the assistant deputy minister in the Department of Agriculture receives $4,800 a year, whereas the assistant deputy minister in the Department of Munitions and Supply receives $9,000. I am not
acquainted with either of these gentlemen, but I assume both have important responsibilities.


James Garfield Gardiner: I think the comparison could be made to better advantage with some other department, because the Department of Agriculture is permanent, whereas the other is only temporary, doing a temporary job, and considerations such as go with permanent employment do not go with it.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: I realize that. I know that what the minister says is quite true, but when you have a man coming in from private industry and working alongside a civil servant who is better qualified and does a more responsible job at half the salary, you are bound to have friction. In the Department of Agriculture we have a relatively short list of men receiving $2,400 a year or more, whereas in the wartime prices and trade board alone I find that there are ten pages giving salaries of more than $2,400, many receiving $5,000, $6,500, $7,000, $8,000, and so on. The same goes for the Department of Munitions and Supply.
I submit that those who have been doing such important work in these scientific fields require a return that is a great deal higher than they have ever received. Last year when these estimates were up I referred to the annual pay of some of my class mates who were in university twenty years ago. Doctor Broadfoot receives $2,880. He was a brilliant student, one of our popular undergraduates. He went to the university of Minnesota and took his doctor's degree and now, after nearly twenty years, he receives a salary of $2,880. There is Mr. Russell, who has done outstanding work in the field of rust, who also receives $2,880; and there is Mr. Mead, who receives $2,400. These are three of my classmates who have all had upwards of twenty years' service and they are getting less than $250 a month. I maintain that this sort of compensation to industrious and capable civil servants is not good enough.
I was interested in an article in the Journal of the Professional Institute of the Civil Service of Canada, and I find that this problem has been agitating the civil service for many years. Back in 1922, shortly after the present Prime Minister took over his responsibilities, he was disturbed by the salaries prevailing in the civil service. However, the wheels of government move slowly, and it was not until 1927 that a special committee of the cabinet finally forwarded a directive to the civil service commission to make a survey of compensation rates paid to professional and scientific employees, with instructions to report
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their findings to the government. That was in March, 1927. A year later certain recommendations were presented and they involved the spending of aprpoximately $750,000 more than was being spent. Those were the days, I may say in passing, when the question, "Where shall we' get the money?" really stopped things. Nothing happened. Then about a year later, on April 16, 1929, a royal commission was established with the late Sir Edward Beatty as chairman and the late Doctor Walter Murray, of the university of Saskatchewan, and Sir George Garneau as members * of the commission. They made a careful study and they came to certain conclusions. One of their comments was as follows:
We have been especially impressed, however, by the slow rate of advancement observable among officers with from eight to twenty years of seniority. Many of these officers at a time of life when financial responsibilties of a growing family are apt to be heavy, have not yet reached a scale of salary which can be regarded as adequate, even for a decent subsistence. If their professional competence is not open to question, then they should be provided with opportunities for advancement which will at least enable them to pass on to their children the same educational advantages which they themselves have had.
But the recommendations they proposed required an additional $750,000 annually. The Minister of Finance of that day, the Hon. Charles Dunning, was completely stumped by this problem. I understand that Mr. Dunning is being honoured by the university of Saskatchewan. When we think of the problem of finding $750,000 in 1930 to meet injustices which had existed in Canada for many years we wonder why we could not find so little money when during the last four or five years we found so much for war purposes.
In this article there is a reference to the sort of treatment we have meted out to civil servants. It referred to Doctor Saunders, the man who gave Canada Marquis wheat. There can be no argument at all that his discovery has meant hundreds of millions of dollars to the people of this country, and yet we are told that in the estimates for the year ended June 30, 1905, the late Doctor Saunders was receiving the princely sum of $1,250, or little over $100 a month.
A good deal of publicity has recently been given to the development of rescue wheat. I understand that the principal work has been done by A. W. Platt, of the Swift Current experimental farm. His discovery is also going to mean millions of dollars to the wheat producers of this country; yet Mr. Platt's name does not even appear in the public accounts among those receiving $2,400 or more. I understand that he is receiving
(Mr. Nicholson.]
$1,800 a year, to support his wife and four children. I have also been informed that he has been offered a salary of $5,000 to go to the state university in Kansas, but because of his loyalty to this country and his hope that some day a measure of justice will be granted to civil servants like himself he has declined the offer to leave Canada. But I do not think it is fair to expect scientific workers who are doing this kind of work to continue in Canada indefinitely. I cannot see any good reason why this country which has raised so much money to prosecute a war cannot demonstrate now that we can adjust these grievances.
In the December issue of the Institute Journal there is a table showing a comparison of salaries paid to agricultural scientists in Canada, the United States and Great Britain. I am sure this comparison will be of interest to the committee and I shall read it. In the lowest grade Canada compares favourably with Great Britain. In grade 1, our range is $1,800 to $2,400; in the United States, $2,552 to $3,278; in the United Kingdom, $1,210 to $2,200. I might say that in these comparisons the United States dollar was taken at $1.10 and the British pound at $4.40. In grade 2, Canada, $2,400 to $3,000; United States, $3,278 to $4,004; Great Britain, $2,420 to $3,300. In grade 3, Canada, $3,000 to $3,300; United States, $4,004 to $4,730; Great Britain, $3,420 to $4,840. In grade 4, Canada, $3,300 to $3,600; United States, $4,730 to $5,698; Great Britain, $5,280 to $6,160. In grade 5, Canada,	$3,600	to	$4,200;	United	States,$5,698 to $6,622; Great Britain, $7,040 to $7,920. Grade 6, Canada, $3,900 to $4,500; United States, $6,853 to $7,777; Great Britain, $8,800. Grade 7, Canada, $4,500 to $5,100; United States, $7,892 to $9,047. Grade 8, Canada,	$5,100	to	$5,600;	United	States,
$9,625 to $10,780. There is a note appended which states that in the United Kingdom they have various salaries in these high ranges from $9,900 to $11,000. Since this table was prepared I understand that there have been increases in the United States for all those getting less than $1,200. There has been a twenty per cent increase on salaries up to $1,200, a ten per cent increase from $1,200 to $4,600, and a five per cent increase above $4,600. I have also been informed that there was a resolution passed in the house of representatives approving a further flat increase of $400 over the whole service, but the senate was not prepared to go quite that far.
In one of these journals a list is given of the new members who have joined the veterinary group of the institute. Checking over the public accounts, I found that these men who have had a long and costly college

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course are receiving salaries of $250 a month or less. I hold in my hand a copy of a brief that was prepared for the investigation in connection with health insurance by Doctor J. S. Fulton, director of animal research in the university of Saskatchewan. In his brief Doctor Fulton complains that compensation to graduates of veterinary science has been so low that they have not been able to attract a sufficient number of young men adequately to care for the health of animals and the supervision of meat and milk offered for public consumption. I know that most of the veterinarians listed here are engaged in the health of animals division. I have seen some of these men at work in the abattoirs. I consider that their work is of a responsible nature. It is not easy work. I can see no reason why these university graduates are not as important to the people of Canada as are the salesmen for Canada Packers or the Swift Canadian Company. It casts a serious reflection on our whole economic set-up when graduates in veterinary science find that if they give up the practice of the profession for which they were trained and look after cats, dogs and canaries they make a handsome living; whereas if they go out to the country to look after the health of cattle, horses and sheep they find it difficult to make a living.
In his brief Doctor Fulton points out that at the time it was prepared there were only forty-five qualified veterinary surgeons in the whole of Saskatchewan, which has a horse population of 830,000, a cattle population of 1,602,000; a dairy cow population of 467,700; a swine population of 1,325,400 and a sheep population of 410,000, not to mention a poultry industry with an estimated $20 million involved, returning to the producers $9,976,000. The whole point of my argument is that in my opinion the compensation provided by the Department of Agriculture for those who are well qualified in the various branches has not been comparable with the returns in other departments of government, and certainly not comparable with the returns-


James Garfield Gardiner: They are just the best in the permanent service at the present time.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Then why is it that a man like Doctor Broadfoot, a Ph.D., is not entitled to more than $2,880, after serving for more than twenty years in the Department of Agriculture. Why should Mr. Platt, who is associated with the producing of-


James Garfield Gardiner: Well, there is no use in dealing with individual cases. But I can tell my hon. friend that within the last few days I have received a statement from the authorities who deal with these matters stating that they have just now completed a full readjustment of salaries in these classifications in the Department of Agriculture, and that there is not any other department in which, up to date, that has been done.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: If they have completed their job of reclassification, then I suggest that they start all over again.


James Garfield Gardiner: But you are not an authority on even the men you are talking about.	'


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: But possibly I am an authority on balancing budgets and raising families in Canada, where the cost of living has gone up to such a great extent.


James Garfield Gardiner: It has not anything to do with this. It was the civil service commission that made the readjustment. They have just written to say that they have practically completed the adjustment in the Department of Agriculture, an adjustment of pay upwards. I repeat that it has been dealt with more completely in this department, up to the present time, than it has been anywhere else.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: If that is all we can hope for, then I think it makes the situation all the worse. I believe a great injustice has been done to the producers in Canada, if some hope cannot be held out in the very near future in connection with retaining in this colmtry some of our trained scientists who have had such attractive offers to leave Canada and go to the United States.


James Garfield Gardiner: What is the date of the publication from which my hon. friend has been quoting?


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: I have been quoting from the public accounts.


James Garfield Gardiner: But when? The adjustments to which I have referred have been made within the last three months.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: I have a statement of reclassifications in the science service, the divisions of botany, plant pathology and entomology. The hon. member for North Battle-ford referred to the matter yesterday. These are rates which are comparable.


James Garfield Gardiner: But the public accounts are old.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Perhaps so, but I do not see in this statement the names of some of the persons with whom I am familiar. Unless something can be done in addition to what has been done I fear we are certain
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to lose, in the next year or two, some of the better scientists whose departure from Canada would be a serious loss.


James Garfield Gardiner: I take no objection to that statement. But when the statement is made that the Department of Agriculture does not compare favourably with other departments, I must object to it, because we have just completed a review of the classifications to which reference has been made, and my understanding is that they are now classified on a basis which is higher than that generally running through other departments. Others have, I believe, still to be adjusted to this.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: What about reconstruction? The Department of Reconstruction is now a permanent department?


James Garfield Gardiner: No, it is not a permanent department.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Would not the appointment to the position of assistant deputy minister of the Department of Reconstruction be a permanent appointment? Would such an official not receive all the benefits of a permanent member of the civil service?


James Garfield Gardiner: There are really no permanent appointments in some of those departments to which reference has been made. The department itself is not necessarily a permanent set-up. Some of the staff in the Department of Munitions and Supply, which operated during the war, have b^en' taken over by the Department of Reconstruction. Some still remain there who will go back to civil life.
I would not attempt to compare salaries in the Department of Agriculture with those in that department, without having all the facts before me. The civil service commission has had that job to do. We submitted all the technical staff in our department, and we were the first department to do so. Those technical staffs were submitted to the commission for review and for adjustment of salaries. I have been signing lists of them, from time to time, and I was informed the other day that the work is practically completed.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Does the minister
mean that his department has finished that job, and that individuals in that department cannot expect anything more?


James Garfield Gardiner: The work is practically finished, although there may be an occasional one left. I do not know about the gentleman just referred to. I do know, however, that the work is practically all completed, and to an extent more than in any other department.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: I do not w-ish to prejudice- the cases to which I have referred. I just picked them out at random as the information appeared for two years ago and again last year in the public accounts. I happened to know Doctor Broadfoot. very well, as we were undergraduates together.


Mr. McCULLOUGH (Assiniboia):: Mr. Chairman, I have listened with keen interest to what has been said by the minister. Each time he speaks he treats us to some first-class oratory. However, on this occasion I do not find myself in agreement with him when he appeals to the committee to pass the first item in the estimates of the Department of Agriculture, so that we may get along more quickly. There is no one in the committee more anxious to proceed with the business than I am; but when I am convinced we are going in the wrong direction I cannot see any good reason for hurrying. In view of government policies announced in the past few weeks in connection with increases in the price of farm machinery, and an increase of three cents a gallon on gasoline, I am firmly convinced that the decontrol policy of the government respecting agriculture is not a satisfactory one. To my mind it is more important that we place some facts before the government in the hope that it may reconsider its decontrol policy for agriculture.
The Minister of Agriculture has made an appeal that we adopt the philosophy of urging people to go back to the farm. I can agree with him but assure him that my appeal, my philosophy, will be from a different angle. Rather than speak from a capitalist philosophy, I shall speak from the philosophy of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation.
In the past few weeks we have heard from some of the ministers some emotional appeals for rationalization. I, for one, feel the time has come when we should stick to facts, figures and statistical data if we wish to legislate properly for the people of this country.
When the Minister of Finance was making his appeal, in justification of the 12^ per cent increase in the price of farm machinery, he said that we must have faith in the wartime prices and trade board, on the ground of its war-time performance. That is not good enough to-day when we are trying for all-out production to feed the starving peoples of the world, when we are fighting for peace at home, and to establish an economy where we can live in decency in a time of peace, rather than just in a time of war. It is of the utmost importance that we consider carefully all the issues involved in any policy. My contention is that this problem cannot be solved individually.

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Agriculture is linked with other problems in the country. The future, the prosperity-yes, and the happiness of the farmers, the workers and the everyday people are indivisible. So, too, are their troubles interdependent. After having sat here last session and so far this session it seems to me that the elephants of monopoly, if I may call them that, are having another party. During the war these people were making tremendous profits; in other words, they had a party, and they came out of that with huge amounts of money. _ I remember the evening the Minister of Finance announced in the house an increase in the ceiling on farm machinery. I was sitting in my seat, and it seemed to me he was making a purely emotional appeal to this house. For a while I thought he was giving us a real
sob-story in behalf of the farm machinery companies of this country; but when I looked down at my desk I saw some financial statistics for a number of companies taken from the Bank of Canada statistical summary, October-November, 1945. I should like to put this table on Hansard without taking time to read it. If I have permission of the committee I shall do so; otherwise I intend to read it into the record. Have I your permission, Mr. Chairman?


William Henry Golding: Has the hon. member unanimous consent to place the statement on Hansard?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Agreed.


Edward George McCullough: The
statement is as follows:
Financial statistics of 686 companies (all with 1941 assets of $200,000 or over for which consistent reports are available, 1936-44).	Bank of Canada statistical summary, October-
November, 1945.
Net operating profit before depreciation
Net income before income and e.p. taxes	
Net income to stockholders (inch refundable EPT) Undistributed profits (incl. refundable EPT)	
Net operating profit before depreciation
Depreciation	
Net before taxes	
Net income to stockholders	
Undistributed profits	
1936-1939	1940-1944	Increase
average average (millions)		per cent
436	741	70113	171	51323	564	75264	294	1249	84	711937	1939	1944468	484	722115	119	160355	363	560293	289	27874	66	81
Net operating profit in 1944 was $254 millions more than in 1937, and $238 millions more than in 1939; 54 per cent higher than in 1937, and 49 per cent higher than in 1939. Depreciation was $45 millions more than in 1937, and $41 millions more than in 1939; 39 per cent more than in 1937, and 34 per cent more than in 1939. . Net before taxes was $205 millions more than in 1937, and $197 millions more than in 1939; 58 per cent more than in 1937, and 54 per cent more than in 1939. Net income to stockholders was $15 millions less than in 1937, and $11 millions less than in 1939; 5 per cent below 1937, and 4 per cent below 1939. Undistributed profits were $7 millions more than in 1937, and $15 millions more than in 1939; 9 per cent above 1937, and 23 per cent above 1939.
1944 Increase
Over 1936	Over 1937	Over 1939	(millions)	(millions)	(millions)	$	%	$	%	$	%191	91	179	81	141	54335	161	351	183	371	216526	126	530	128	512	119090	82	655	75	578	60284	85	314	103	270	77-159	-16	-137	-14	-126	-13- 62	-11	- 45	- 8	- 36	- 7-221	-14	-182	-12	-162	-11539	73	479	60	437	52Cash	Securities	Cash and securities	Net working capital	_	
Net working capital excl. inventories....
Funded debt	
Preferred stock	
Funded debt and pref	
Earned surplus and surplus reserves....
Total new investment in plant, property and equipment, 1940-1944, $591 millions, an average of $118 millions; 1936-1939, total of $436 millions, an average of $109 millions.
Total depreciation, 1940-1944, $855 millions, an average of $171 millions; 1936-1939, total of $452 millions, an average of $113 millions.
Plant nroDertv and equipment, net, in 1944, were $2,158 millions, as against $2,431 millions in 1936. a Pde(freaJe of $273 millions. Total depreciation, 1937-1944, was $1,200 millions; total new investment in plant and equipment was $936 millions.
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Depreciation as percentage of plant, property and equipment (net) in each year (i e 1937 depreciation as percentage of net value of plant, etc., at end of 1936) :
1937	1938	1939	1940	1941	1942	1943	19444-73	4-54	4-88	5-85	7-19 ,	8-12	8-08	7-19
Average rate for the 5 war years was 7-29 per cent; for the 3 pre-war years, it was 4-72 per cent. Increase was almost 55 per cent.
Net income to stockholders as percentage of shareholders' investment:
1936 8-36	1937 10-42	1938 1939 8-69 10-14	1940 9-77	1941 10-25	1942 9-93	1943 9-07	1944 8-48Twelve 13-3	monopolies 17-6	and near-monopolies: 13-7 14-8	13-6	13-6	13-0	11-4	9-5
686 companies 12 monopolies
1936-1939 average 1940-1944 average per cent X per cent 9-4	9-5
14-9	12-2
Pre-war monopoly rate was about 58-5 per cent higher than general rate; war, about 28-4 per cent higher. (Monopoly and near-monopoly figures from Financial Post survey of corporate securities.) (The 12 monopolies are:	Canadian Westinghouse, Canadian General Electric, Canadian Celanese, Canadian Industries Limited, International Nickel, Imperial Tobacco, Aluminium Limited, Imperial Oil, Canada Cement, Consolidated Mining and Smelting, National Breweries, Canadian Breweries.)
I have just tabled reports showing the profits some companies have made during the war. I want to go farther and prove to the Minister of Agriculture, if I can, that this implement price increase at this time is completely unjustifiable. I have here the report of the select special committee on farm implement prices and distribution of the legislature of Saskatchewan, dated March 27, 1939, from which I desire to quote in regard to the price structure. This is what I find at page 10, speaking of farm machinery companies:
Early in 1936 the companies announced an increase of price in farm implements amounting to 4-4 per cent as found by the Ottawa committee. It was this particular increase, announced after a substantial reduction in the tariff from 25 per cent to 12J per. cent, that gave rise to the Ottawa inquiry. Despite a further reduction in the tariff to 7J per cent and despite the findings of the Ottawa committee that this increase was not justified and that the prices of farm implements had been, over the years 1913-36, too high, despite, too, a definite finding that there was an excessive markup over cost on cream separators and repair parts, and that the prices of these should be particularly and substantially reduced, this committee finds that none of these findings were given effect to, and that, in addition, further price increases occurred in 1937.
Further on, the report has this to say in reference to labour costs:
Between 1930 and _ 1933 the Massey-Harris company put in operation a ten per cent decrease in wages paid in their plants. In 1935 the company restored two and a half per cent of this decrease and since then has restored the balance of seven and a half per cent, thus reestablishing the same scale as was' in force in 1929. It can, therefore, be clearly seen that

the increase in the price of implements between 1929 and 1939 is not attributable to higher wage costs. In 1929 the I.H.C. binder sold in Begina for $283, and in 1939 for $324.75.
Carrying that a little farther, Mr. Chairman, I find in the Journals of the House of Commons for 1937 tables showing that the cost of an eight-foot binder in 1913. was $84.96. The price to the fanner was $165 and the net sales realization. $123.03, or a profit of a little over 28 per cent. In 1935 the total cost was $128.29; the price to the farmer was $265.50; the net sales realization was $187.23. and the profit was $58.99, or almost 46 per cent. There is an estimated backlog of farm machinery in this country to-day amounting to around $200,000,000. If we take the profit per $100 of cost, according to this table appearing at page 435 of the Journal, we find that these machine companies, in filling their backlog of farm machinery will make a profit of around $140,000,000. The government has allowed certain increases in the price of steel, and it has also been argued that labour is partly responsible for the increased prices of farm machinery. I have here a table showing that profit, not labour, is the cause of high prices for farm machinery. This is taken from The C.I.O. News of September 10, 1945. It refers to a United States federal trade commission report, and has this to say:
The idea, which is common among farmers, that labour costs are the reason for the high price of farm machinery is completely exploded by the study, which shows that labour costs range from only 5-9 to a maximum of 14-6 per cent of the price the farmer pays for his machinery.

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It goes on to say that this federal trade commission report takes a combine selling for $638. The labour costs were only $46.43, or 7-3 per cent of the price paid by the farmer. Materials such as wood, steel, iron, fabric, rubber and so on cost $174.27. Counting the work of mining ore, cutting the timber, and so on, plus the factory work, the labour cost was $221. This leaves $417 to be accounted for in factory overhead, manufacturer's and dealer's margin, freight, manufacturer's distribution and dealer's discount. It goes on to say:
The retail dealer's margin is 19-1 per cent and the manufacturer's margin is 13'4 per cent compared to the manufacturing labour cost of 7-3 per cent.
I could go on, and give more figures showing that this price increase is not justifiable, but I wish to point out here that the government allowed an increase in the price of gasoline. I have here a report by Mr. L. G. Reynolds in relation to the commission on price spreads, which has this to say:
For many years the Imperial Oil has refined most of the gasoline sold in Canada, and this concern "fixes" prices for the industry. Imperial is the "price leader" and the other companies -follow. Each dealer is generally bound by contract to take his gasoline from only one company, and the dealers are controlled by tacit agreement among the companies to withhold supplies from price-cutters.
The companies have set the price of gasoline at a level that provides a wide profit margin. This has led to limited competition among the companies, not in price but in sales-extremely wasteful sales practices, and serious duplication of personnel, storage facilities, retail outlets, et cetera.
A survey by the royal commission on coal and gas products in British Columbia, for instance, found that there was one gas station for every 48 cars in Vancouver as compared to one for every 114 cars in Seattle, Washington. The commission concluded that in most towns in British Columbia one-half or more of the stations could be eliminated with no loss in convenience to the public.
There we have the situation of this government allowing price ceilings to rise without thorough investigation of the effect on the Canadian economy and considering whether it is justifiable. I have received a letter from Mr. Brown, president of the Cooperative Implement company in which he says that this policy of the government has accentuated the need for cooperative control of farm implement prices. Since this is reflected in the Canadian economy and is bound to have serious repercussions all across the country I would recommend that the government consider seriously using the Combines Act and that it should not be satisfied until a thorough investigation has been made of the big machine companies in Canada.
I remember distinctly when the Windsor strike was on last year that, according to press reports, General Motors refused to allow government auditors to see their books to ascertain whether labour's demands for wage increases were justified. Therefore I suggest that the government make a thorough investigation of the prices of farm machinery to determine scientifically whether a price increase is justified.
I am in agreement with, decontrol but not the type of decontrol which, on the one hand, satisfies the demands of people like these big machine companies and at the same time stabilizes the prices of farm products. The whole subject must be investigated on a scientific basis.
I have listened with interest to the Minister of Agriculture, for whom I have a great regard. I think he knows his department perhaps as well as any minister in the government. I was much interested in hearing him refer the other night to the principle of the ever-normal granary and to stability of prices. We in the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation have constantly advocated over the past years the ever-normal granary, and unless the minister is just paying lip-service to this principle of the ever-normal granary-


James Garfield Gardiner: I advocated it before there ever was any C.C.F. party.-


Edward George McCullough: I am glad to hear that. But the remarkable thing is that the minister is advocating the ever-normal granary now when we have no grain and are scraping the bottom of our bins. But you cannot do it in that way. If you are to have the ever-normal granary you must take the good years and the lean years too. I stated in the house last year that we should adopt such a policy in Canada.
A report has -been handed in to the provincial government of Saskatchewan by a commission appointed under the former Liberal government in Which it is stated that the chemurgic use of farm products in western Canada was not feasible in view of our lean and good years. It is true that we have lean and good years. If we have 500,000,000 or 600,000,000 bushels of wheat to-day, under our present system we call it a surplus, but I say that if we have 1,000,000 bushels properly stored throughout the prairie provinces it should be like money in the bank.
I am a farmer and I do not think I can be classified among those to whom the minister referred as knowing nothing about farming. I feel a responsibility in the matter of what should be done in this crisis which we are facing to win the peace. The minister said
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that he did not know how the farmers were going to pay income tax out of an income of $2,000, which was the average annual income of Canadian farmers in the best three years in our history. I might say to the minister that I cannot see how the farmers are going to pay 124 per cent increase in the retail price of farm machinery. There is a nigger in the woodpile in this whole business of farm machinery. When I was home at the Easter recess the local dealers had a meeting in Regina and were told by one of the head men of the implement company that they were lucky to get any machinery at all because the company had overseas commitments which would take them many years to fill. There should be an investigation of this whole question of farm machinery, so that our farmers who during the past five or six years have built up a backlog of requirements during that period of controlled purchasing power on account of the war may be able to get a decent supply of farm machinery. If it is not forthcoming, the government should do something about the matter.
The Minister of Agriculture referred to some of the stories that are going around about people leaving the farm, many of whom are not going back. I am alarmed at the urbanization which is taking place in this country, and if there is anything we can do, and should do, it is to get our people back on the land. This trend of people leaving farms and going to the cities seems to me one of the most disastrous things facing Canada. People who live on the land have a sense of values perhaps lacking in people who do not know the feel of the good earth and have never known what it is to grow something. I am disturbed at the decrease in our rural population. The Canada Year Book says:
Of the farm land already occupied in Canada, only 39-40 per cent of it is actually in use, and for the past several decades there has been a steady trend towards a smaller farm population. During, the relatively prosperous decade of 1921 to 1931 a net total of some 350,000 people shifted from rural to urban areas. During the five-year period 1931-36 the prairie region actually lost population equivalent to 63 per cent of its natural increase, and during 1936-41 it lost all of its natural increase and 16,000 besides. In other words, the prairie provinces have been sending a surplus farm population elsewhere rather than absorbing population from other areas on the land. The rural areas of other provinces have had the same experience to a smaller degree.
There are reasons for that. I was in Fort William recently and spoke there, and in a visit around the city with the mayor of Fort William we went to that very fine building which was erected by the Canadian government to house the girls who were working in

the Canada Car factory. The city of Fort William had taken possession of that building and were making it into two and three-room suites, because they had a housing problem. As we went through one portion of that building, which cost around $300,000, and I saw all the bathtubs piled up in a large room- there seemed to be dozens of them there-I remarked that I had seen more bathtubs in that one room than in all the Saskatchewan farms I had visited. That indicates one reason why our boys and girls do not want to go back to the farms. I should like to read to the committee, and I hope the Minister of Agriculture will listen, in view of his intimation that groups like ours are going around and spreading propaganda which was frightening people away from the farms, a statement contained in one of the government's own publications introducing Canada to British war brides. The title is "Not luxurious-no, not quite." This is What it says:
Though usually comfortable, a Canadian farm home is not luxurious. You have only one chance in five of having electric light in a farm home, which means you must use coal oil (paraffin) lamps. You have only eight chances in one hundred of finding any sort of plumbing in a farm home, outside facilities taking its place. Six farm homes out of ten have radio (wireless), three have telephones, and nearly half have motor cars. One-third of Canada's farm homes have none of these conveniences. A considerable number are in need of repairs.
As I said, this is from "Welcome to War Brides", an official publication of the government. So that it is not only members of our group who may be accused of spreading propaganda which will deter people from taking up farming.
I have travelled from here to the province of Saskatchewan a matter of seven times in the last few months, and in doing so I met with a number of veterans. To-day veterans are trying to make up their minds what they are going to do. I .feel that I know something about farming, not everything; but at least I have learned the hard way and, as the minister has stated, there is no better life than life on a farm, provided that one can make ends meet and have a, decent standard of living and not be loaded down with debt so that mortgage companies and farm implement companies are hounding you day in and day out. But when a veteran speaks to me about going on to a farm and asks me what I think about it, I am afraid that conscientiously I cannot tell him that he has an even break. We find to-day that land values have gone up, and not only so, but there have been increases in prices of farm machinery and gasoline. Right there we have two strikes against the veteran.

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Again, in the last year, although the government recognizes the need of some sort of stability for agriculture, there was a ceiling put on wheat for export. It is true that a floor was put under it too, but we never applied a quota to the amount which might be delivered. So that I think we have yet to go a long way to convince the veterans that agriculture in Canada has anything like stability. If in two or three years we in this country return to peak production, and European countries likewise go back to full production, we may be again faced with the problem of having several hundred million bushels of wheat on our hands. Veterans ask me, if that situation should take place, what will happen; are we to return to low prices and perhaps be unable to handle our live stock? Because, Mr. Chairman, we have not as yet any long-term agreements which will ensure decent prices for live stock. When I think that this government has seen fit to give only $6,000 as a maximum for veterans starting on the land, and now has allowed a 12% per cent increase on machinery, I do not see how, unless these veterans are first rendered unconscious or are forced by exceptional circumstances, they are likely to go back on the farms. Let me point out that to-day you cannot get a small tractor for less than $1,500, and if you go to one of these sales of second-hand implements you will probably pay $2,200 or $2,400 for an old one, as they did in Yorkton. A small combine costs $1,700, and a truck costs $1,200. So that there, for three major pieces of machinery, you have a total outlay of $4,700; yet the veteran is allowed only $1,200 for farm machinery and $4,800 for land. How in the world is he to rehabilitate himself? The fact is, of course, that the veterans are just not going back on the land.
However, in my constituency there are quite a number of boys who have tried to save some extra money during their period in the services, and this is what they have found. When they go to the board they are investigated and inspected to find out if they are physically fit and otherwise capable of going on a farm. Often they find that it takes months for them to get the first interview. Then the property on which they wish to go has to be inspected. I took this matter up with Premier Douglas of Saskatchewan, and I should like to pass this on to the minister and ask him what he can do about this matter. It is in regard to hastening the inspection of the lands of these veterans who want to settle on the land. One person who was in the forces for five years, and has a family of five, was delayed three months before getting an interview with the board. After he was passed
he went back to try to have his land inspected; it was in the district where he wanted to farm; the owner was retiring and had this land for sale. The situation was-and it is a typical one-that unless he made a down payment he would probably lose the property. It might be said, well, he could get a farm some other place. But that is not a satisfactory solution, for this reason, that a good many people want to go to the districts in which they lived before; they have their hearts set on a certain piece of land; they want to operate a certain farm. In the particular case I mention the veteran made an initial payment of $480 to hold the land, but when he tried to get it inspected there was nothing he could do about it, as the board advised him, until the following year.
I wish to point out that after men have served for five or six years and have come home and want to start up, something should be done to hasten their rehabilitation. I have heard that under the present set-up, and at the speed with which applicants can be interviewed and the land inspected, it will take years before the veterans are properly established, and it is not satisfactory simply to tell these men that they had better get something temporary. I spoke to the premier of the province asking whether they would be prepared to cooperate with the federal government in expediting the inspection of the land, and Mr. Douglas assured me that he would be ready to use the agricultural representatives of Saskatchewan, of whom there is a considerable number, in this work. I would appeal to the minister to do something about this matter.
There is just one other recommendation I would make to the government. We need to plan scientifically if we are to win the peace. We have had enough of the emotional appeal in this house, and if we are to have in Canada an economy that will be best for all the people it will have to be worked out on a scientific basis.
In conclusion, I would say this. Holding the views I do, I realize quite well the interdependence of the farmer and the common people. Nevertheless I courteously and as strongly as I can urge the minister and his colleagues to set up negotiated prices so that the cost of living and the cost of production as well as all other costs shall bear a fair relationship and that we may thus have production for use rather than for profit as the mainspring of our Canadian economy.
May I in closing quote from the C.C.F. manifesto:
The future prosperity of the Canadian people requires the fullest development of Canadian agriculture. In the past the Canadian farmer
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has not received a fair share, of the national income. Agriculture, in the main, has accumulated huge deficits because farmers have received less than their cost of production. No modern industrial nation can afford poverty in any section of its people. The farmer is a consumer, as well as a producer. Farm people are entitled to the same standards of health, housing, nutrition and education as other sections of the Canadian people.
I believe the Minister of Agriculture himself, while in Saskatchewan, made a statement to the effect that at the time we went on to rationing of beef we had not shipped any beef out of Canada. That is an important statement, because in the first years of the war we started to put pay checks into t*he pockets of the workers so that we had a market for beef, butter, pork and cheese. While, therefore, we are concerned about foreign markets I suggest that we should see to it that there are no hungry children in this country and that everyone has all that he wants to eat and has a full stomach.


James Garfield Gardiner: In view of the discussion that has taken place I should put on the record the actual figures in regard to the number of returned men who have made applications for farms. The number of applications for qualification certificates on March 31, 1946 was 42,856; the number dealt with by the regional advisory committee was 31,763; the number issued with qualification certificates was 24,590. In relation to the remarks just made towards the end of the speech delivered by the hon. member for Assiniboia, this indicates that 42,856 have applied and only 31,763 have so far been dealt with, and of course that would suggest that about
11.000	could say that their cases have not been considered. As to how long those have been delayed I am not in a position to say.


Edward George McCullough: Does the minister mean that their land has been inspected, or does this refer to the first interview?


James Garfield Gardiner: This has reference to applications made for qualification certificates. The number dealt with is 31,763 and the number issued with certificates is 24,590, and those are completely qualified to go on farms. The number actually on farms is under 6,000.


Edward George McCullough: On what date?


James Garfield Gardiner: March 31, 1946.


George Hugh Castleden: That means that
18.000	have qualified, but the arrangements for them to proceed with spring work have not yet been made and the likelihood of their getting on the land is small.


Edward George McCullough: That is the important point which I was trying to bring out.


William Henry Golding: I would point out to the committee that the discussion is once again getting back to veterans affairs.


James Arthur Ross: For the sake of the record I would point out that the exact figures for full-time farming as at March 31 were 5,132 according to the returns.


Mr. CASE:: I believe I can say what I have Co say in the limited time left before six o'clock. I sometimes wonder, when I listen to different speakers, if we are not tending towards too much control. I had a great friend in the late Hon. James Malcolm and I remember one thing he said to me. "The more you interfere with natural laws, the more difficult it will be for government." There is a great deal of truth in that. You do not know where you will end if you start regulating everything.
I wish to direct the committee's attention to something which in my opinion is of current concern and importance. I will read into the record some remarks that have appeared in the Owen Sound Daily Sun-Times, on Wednesday, May 8, signed by W. E. Dickin, operator of an abattoir in that city. In this article he is pleading with people for tolerance and understanding with regard to the price of beef, and some of his remarks are important:
The whole situation is:	Can beef be sold at
twenty cents per pound ceiling price? My answer is definitely no. We are paying 12 to 12J cents per pound for cattle that dress 51 pounds to the hundred. The hide and other saleable parts are worth about $10. So any school child can figure out the loss on every bullock. Of course, if you can use common cattle it might be different, but this district demands and largely gets red ribbon beef.
He discusses other prices that are being offered and then says:
Bringing this to a close, what do we want or expect:
1.	Keep the price of all live stock up and encourage the farmer. He needs it badly.
2.	Compromise, Mr. Gordon and Mr. Gardiner, this once. We can all get together and say: This is our country. If mistakes have been made, let us learn by those mistakes. Again, I say, to one and all, compromise, and quickly.
I am trying to point out the immediate concern we should all have in this matter inasmuch as I believe that the farmers are facing a difficult task. When I listen to the speeches of hon. members and then contemplate the picture painted by the Minister of Agriculture I realize that if we are to encourage people to return to the land the picture will certainly have to be more colourful than the one we are given. We must face facts. In the county of Grey, which is largely an agricultural district, we produce large numbers of live stock. There has been-and I think this is a tragic fact

a

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shrinkage of two thousand in the rural population of that county since the last census. That means something. We must endeavour to make agriculture more attractive. In the same issue of the Sun-Times of Wednesday, May 8, the following appeared:
Keppel township council, meeting at Oxenden with all members present, instructed clerk Fred Carder to write or wire Donald Gordon demanding that the ceiling price of beef be raised or eliminated and that a copy of this demand be mailed to Hon. John Bracken, Garfield Case, M.P., and Findlay McDonald requesting their assistance.
There is something to justify the removal of the ceiling price from the products of the farm and ranch. You can fix the costs and other details of manufactured products but the farmer has to have some initiative to plant crops. In, a moment I shall refer to one of the things that has defeated that objective.
There is another item to which I should like to refer, namely, the position taken by an abattoir with regard to the ceiling price on beef. I hold in my hand a resolution passed by the Keppel township council with reference to the ceiling price on beef. It is taken from the same issue of the Sun-Times of Wednesday, May 8, and has to do with the local milk producers. What I am trying to do is to bring before the committee and to the attention of the administration a problem which is of current and immediate concern to agriculturists. This article is headed: "Local milk producers would halt deliveries if price not increased." The resolution is as follows:
Whereas we, the milk producers of Owen Sound district are experiencing increased production costs as never before through increased wages, et cetera and whereas the government has allowed increases to farm machinery manufacturers of 12J per cent, and whereas daylight saving time in collection of milk has made production more difficult and whereas we know that production costs are higher than ever before while retail price of milk is much lower than at many times in history, be it therefore resolved that all milk producers in this province vigorously protest and demand recognition in the way of increased price and that in the event of increased prices not being forthcoming we recommend that we discontinue supplies until arrangements satisfactory to producers are provided.
I have dealt with two important factors in agricultural operations, namely, the live stock and dairy producers. I come now to a letter which I received from one of my constituents, Mr. Carefoot. I might say that Mr. Care-foot is a well known breeder of short-horn cattle and draught horses and has exhibited his stock in some of the best rings in Canada. This is his story which I wish to convey to the committe so that hon. members will appreciate all the problems to which I have sought to relate my remarks. He says:
We as farmers are certainly getting it rough in the matter of labour. I am nearly sixty years
old. have hired men ever since I was sixteen, and this is the worst we ever had. You really cannot get help of any kind.
There are a few novelty farmers who make their money some other way and who can pay $80, $100 per month, get men, but their business from an agriculture standpoint is not paying.
The average farmer throughout the country who is paying for his farm, raising a family and buying equipment is the man we have got to pay attention to, for they are the real backbone of the country.
He goes on to say, and I think this is something that is really tragic when so many people of the world are crying for food:
I could name thirty men in this township who say if they cannot get labour at $50 per month, board and washing, they will simply just live on the farm and let the world go by.
As we know, the trend has been toward governmental paternalism, but it seems to me that it has led to a tendency to rob our people of the incentive to work, to rob them of their initiative.
This afternoon the minister spoke about two fine young Englishmen visiting Winnipeg. I cannot imagine our young men not visualizing the great challenge that this country offers; yet to-day we have young men who are capable of farming but will not do it. At the same time we have men like Mr. Carefoot offering to pay wages as high as $70 to $75 a month but unable to obtain labour. What is happening? About two weeks ago a group of young labour people, who were formerly the young communist group of Canada, interviewed various members of parliament. I had three young people who would be around twenty years of age interview me in my office in the parliament buildings. One young chap was from the farm. He isgetting out-of-work pay. I said to him: "Y7hy do you not go back to work on the farm?" He said: "The farm cannot pay me enough." I can say to these young people that while they might get 65 cents or $1 an hour in the cities or towns, the fellow on the farm has less opportunity to spend his money; he is in more healthful employment. I should like to see a great many of these young people return, because we shall live to realize some time that if we cannot make agriculture more attractive, induce our people to return to the land, to the good earth, as the hon. member for Assiniboia said, wages will not be as significant as they are at the present time. In other words, one might earn $1.25 an hour and still starve to death. I wish that labour, the farmers and others would realize that the basic economy of this nation depends upon the purchasing power of the dollar and not on the amount of money that is earned. I believe that agriculture still offers many attractions to young men to engage in that enterprise and feel secure in the days that are to
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come. I am glad that the Department of Veterans Affairs is making it as attractive as possible for veterans to engage in that type of work, since they are accustomed to the outdoor life.
At six o'clock the Speaker resumed the chair and the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.



PRIVATE BILLS


[Stage Direction]
Mr. G. RUSSELL BOUCHER (Carleton) moved the second reading of bill No. 37, for the relief of Marie Evelyn Dormer.
Mr. GLEASON BELZILE (Rimouski):: Mr. Speaker, last Friday an interesting debate occurred on this very bill. The hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. Maybank), speaking on the principle of divorce bills in general, suggested the setting up of some sort of organization or special court to handle the divorce cases which came from the province of Quebec. In support of his proposition he put a few facts before the house, and I say that they are true. But I am afraid that some misapprehension prejudicial to the province of Quebec might result if certain other facts were not placed before the house.
The hon. member said, "There is no general divorce law in the province of Quebec." That is a well known fact. Then the hon. member continued, as reported at page 1190 of Hansard:
It has developed since some time past that whenever adultery is committed in the province of Quebec and the outraged husband or the outraged wife wants to do anything about it, he or she comes to the parliament of Canada and asks the parliament of Canada to pass a special law, among all the other statutes with which it has to deal, giving her relief as it is called, in the event of a female spouse coming forward, from continued association with her adulterous husband.
That statement was also true, but it might be misunderstood or misinterpreted.
It is not a fact that the civil code of the province of Quebec does not provide relief in the case of adultery. On the contrary, the law of Quebec provides for the separation of the consorts; it provides for the settlement of their property; it provides for the custody of the children; it provides for the payment of alimony. It even provides for an ever-possible reconciliation. As a matter of fact, the Quebec legislation has almost the same immediate effect as a divorce bill, the chief difference being, as everybody knows, that neither of the

parties legally separated can marry again during the lifetime of his or her consort. That kind of relief the Quebec legislation does not provide.
The immense majority of the population of Quebec on account of its religious belief does not give special consideration to such relief- just sympathy, I should say. The hon. member is very much concerned with his own personal situation as a member of- parliament when he says:
It seems to me, sir, that it is not a proper part of the duties of the parliament of this nation to be continually considering, in the midst of its important business, these trivialities.
He is right again. But in 1867, by the British North America Act, divorce was attributed to the federal jurisdiction because some people believed in it. They insisted on it, and it was so attributed against the opposition of Quebec. It is an historical fact that Quebec refused categorically to accept it, although it was pertaining to civil rights.
The hon. member now finds that he has an ever-growing and almost impossible problem to settle. I really sympathize with him; and all the Quebec members are in the same predicament of dealing with these trivialities.
Respecting his project of the setting up of some extra-territorial organization to deal with divorce, I have no comment to make, except that it will probably come into conflict with every rule of domicile and court jurisdiction extant.
I humbly submit to his consideration that he find himself a practical solution. I would agree with his suggestion that-
... we make some sort of declaration that this ' sort Qf petition will not hereafter be entertained, and that petitions of this sort cannot be received by this parliament with any chance of being acted upon.
I would agree with that if it would be of any utility. Personally, I almost feel like washing my hands of the whole business. There is a moral to be drawn from the speech of the hon. member, and it is this: Sometimes, just once in a while, somebody should listen to someone from Quebec.


Mr. J. H. MATTHEWS (Kootenay East):: Mr. Speaker, in spite of what the hon. member has said, seeking to justify the position of the people of Quebec, the situation continues to stand in this house as it has done for many years. I support the suggestion made the other evening by the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. Maybank) when he sought to suggest some method of relieving this house of parliament of the onerous duty of dealing with divorce. I am satisfied that if proper attention and thought

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were given the matter by the lawmakers of this land, some equitable disposition of the problem could be found. I do not for one moment believe that it is impossible for the House of Commons to arrive at some position which would be satisfactory to all parties.
I for one object again in this session, as I objected in the last, to the time of parliament being wasted by having to handle such business as this. However, I have noticed that several times in the debate the suggestion has been made that these are trivialities. I take strong objection to the use of that word in this connection. I would say they are tragedies of human life; they are not trivialities by any means. I believe that they are real tragedies, but that they should be settled somewhere outside the House of Commons.
Motion agreed to and bill read the second time.



SECOND READING

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 48, for the relief of Margaret Ruth Weir Allan-Mr. Boucher.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. MacLEAN moved the second reading of bill No. 18, for the relief of Juliana Edmonda Isabella Ferdinanda Becquaert de Beaujeu.
Mr. E. G. HANSJ5LL (Macleod):	Mr. Speaker, I suppose I could have spoken on bill No. 37 instead of waiting until this bill was called, but I only wish to amplify what the hon. member for Kootenay East (Mr. Matthews) has said. This is the same old story. We make an appeal year after year that these bills be handled in some other way. If we were conscientious in passing these bills every hon. member would have to read all the evidence submitted in each case. The only basis of consideration is what has happened and how we can pass a bill if we do not know what it is all about.
We all have stacks of evidence which some of us like to read and which others do not, it being a matter of one's choice. This subject comes up every year and it will have to be brought to a head some time. I am quite certain that this parliament could bring it to a head. More and more of these bills are coming before us each year, and I would not be surprised if before the session ends we have to deal with four or five hundred or perhaps more.
If the members of this house exercised their parliamentary right they could ask that each bill be taken up section by section, for that is the way to pass a bill, and forty or fifty members could speak on each bill. I am not suggesting that such a filibuster take place,
but I am quite certain that if it did parliament would have to sit here for many weeks or perhaps many months discussing these bills and then the government would begin to move.
Another way that this matter could be handled would be to take a recorded vote on every one of these bills. Sooner or later the applicants would find that they were paying out a lot of money for nothing. If this parliament would take the bull by the horns, as the fellow said, then these people would say, "What is the use; we pay our money but the bill is either defeated or it dies on the order paper." I am not throwing out any challenge, nor am I going to organize anything along that line, but sooner or later some of us will become a little tired and something like that will be organized.
Edward George McCullough: Mr. Speaker, I should like to support what the hon. member for Kootenay East (Mr. Matthews) and the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Hansell) have said. To pass these bills without full consideration of the evidence is against my conscience and judgment, so that I am in full support of the two hon. members.


Mr. A. L. SMITH (Calgary West):: Mr. Speaker, I am not in support of what those hon. gentlemen have said. It is quite easy to say that we should not pass this or should not pass that without making some concrete suggestion as to how to cure the evil. It is quite easy to criticize. As I think I mentioned last year, the history is that we have a place called another place. There has been much criticism of some of the individuals who are there, but I have attended various sessions of that committee and I know that its members go into all these matters very carefully.


Thomas Reid: I believe as carefully as a court.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Just as carefully as any court, and I have been in many of them.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Why do they not go to the courts?


Arthur Leroy Smith: I think the hon. member knows the answer to that better than I do. The fact is that we are afraid to give the real reason, so we shall just let it go at that. My hon. friend says that he does not want to assent to something without knowing all about it, but, all of us in our business and social life accept the word of bodies which have been appointed to do certain jobs. I am not ashamed to accept the judgment of the senate committee, knowing as I do how carefully they go into these matters.
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Hon. IAN A. MACKENZIE (Minister of Veterans Affairs): Mr. Speaker, I have just one word to say. I find myself in thorough agreement with the remarks of the hon. member for Calgary West (Mr. Smith). I am also in agreement with the general sentiment of the house that the present procedure as far as divorce bills are concerned is unsatisfactory. Last year we had a' committee under Mr. Speaker studying the rules and procedure of the house. The hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis) will recall that committee. In its report the committee recommended that certain action should be taken with reference to the procedure in connection with divorce bills, but unfortunately that report did not find favour with the house and it was never adopted. I Would suggest that it might be advantageous for the committee now sitting under the chairmanship of Mr. Speaker to reconsider the whole question of divorce proceedings and make a recommendation which would have the attention of the government of Canada.


Hon. ALPHONSE FOURNIER (Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, for the last sixteen years I have listened to discussions of this kind at nearly every session of parliament. It is not a new problem. Divorce comes under federal jurisdiction; but because one or another of the provinces wanted to set up divorce courts of their own, it was done and at the present time there are divorce courts in eight of the provinces. Quebec is the only province with no such court. Hon. members know why that is so. In principle we are against it. Last year when I spoke on this question, the moment I stepped out of the house one of my friends stopped me and said, "You should not have gone that far. Do not try to impose on Quebec something that they do not wish or do not like or do not believe in because there is a minority in Quebec that will want to have divorces as the years go on." I reminded him that when Ontario proposed to establish a divorce court the Catholics protested, but the law was passed.
I am broad-minded on these matters, but in principle I am against divorce and I am going to do my utmost to try to make the getting of divorces as difficult as possible. A complaint has been made in the other place that there are too many petitions for divorce this year, but if you consider the number of cases coming before the other place and this house you will find that it is only about one-fifth of the cases being brought up in this good province of Ontario. I clipped the

following report from one of the Ottawa papers on May 8, knowing that this discussion would come up. This is what it says:
Ontario divorce figures believed to be record
Provincial authorities said to-day that Ontario had so many divorces in 1945 that they are recheeking the figures to make sure they are correct. Tentative figures show an all-time high of 1,939 compared with 1,510 in 1944 and 960 in 1940.
I have the utmost respect for those who believe in divorce. I do not believe in it myself. If we believe that the future of our country is based on the family, divorce is not the way to bring about the conditions we desire.


Arthur Leroy Smith: You do not keep families together by refusing divorce.


Alphonse Fournier: That is a matter of opinion, and I respect the hon. member's.
What gets under my skin is this. Every session some hon. member says that this procedure is not the right one. But if hon. members would go into the divorce courts in the provinces they would see that the evidence is taken in just the same way as it is in the other place, and I believe that in the other place we have men who are as experienced as any judges in hearing these cases and deciding on the evidence. The evidence is prepared and presented in the same way. If some cases are not prepared well, let me say that I can recall cases right in this capital city in connection with which a man was sentenced to seven years in the penitentiary for fixing up the evidence given before the court to obtain a divorce. We may find the same thing here. But it is tiresome to hear hon. members year after year saying that there is one way out of it, namely to give the provinces jurisdiction in divorce.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Hear, hear.


Alphonse Fournier: My hon. friend says "hear, hear." Then what would take place in my province? There would be no divorce at all.


George Alexander Cruickshank: They will move out.


Alphonse Fournier: That is as they wish. I am not in favour of giving jurisdiction to the province because there is a minority in the province of Quebec who do believe in divorce. If we give jurisdiction in divorce to the provinces, the provinces that believe in divorce can have their divorce courts; but in the province of Quebec, where they do not believe in divorce, they would have no divorce court and there would be no divorce at all. I do not think we should impose that on the minority in the province of Quebec.

Private Bills-Divorce
The other suggestion was to have a court in Ottawa, perhaps the exchequer court, with special jurisdiction in divorce cases. There may be something to be said in favour of that, but so long as parliament has jurisdiction in divorce under the British North America Act, why stand up year after year and say that we should not be granting divorce in this way? The province of Quebec is a part of this country. There are over 3,000,000 people in that province. We want harmony; we want unity; we want respect for other people's opinions; but we also request from this parliament respect for what we believe. I think we are right. Many people think we are wrong. But, after all, we are not asking for more than a few hours of the time of parliament where for sixteen years I have listened to nonsense being talked hour after hour. I think this system should remain. I am convinced that it still is the best system. There may be 300 divorce cases from our province. But if you believe in broken homes and in children being separated from their parents-


George Alexander Cruickshank: Nobody believes in that.


Alphonse Fournier: I am just telling you-


George Alexander Cruickshank: You are wrong.


Alphonse Fournier: Perhaps I am wrong, but I like to say exactly what we believe in in the province of Quebec. For the last sixteen years I have listened to the same arguments and the same discussion on divorce in this parliament, and now it is narrowed down to the province of Quebec. Always there are the same arguments and the same replies, and what I am saying to-night has been said in this house year after year. The arguments and replies will not change as time goes on. Every new parliament brings in new members who start the same discussion all over again. Why not let us proceed to take an hour once in a while to settle these cases? Your conscience may rest at ease. I have followed these divorce cases for my own satisfaction to see if there was anything in the criticism made against the way in which the inquiry was held in the other place. I have been present at the committee in the other place, and the procedure there is just the same as in the courts. The only argument that might be made here is that we spend too little time in giving our decision on the evidence presented. If you do not wish to read the evidence, you are just taking the recommendation from the
other place, and it is not a bad thing at times to base our judgment on what they decide.
I hope I have not said anything that displeases those who do believe in divorce, but I am simply telling the house what I have heard in my own province since I was a boy. I think we should bear with the present system for a while yet.


Mr. ANGUS MacINNIS (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, I think I shall have to agree, like the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. Mackenzie), with the position taken by the hon. member for Calgary West (Mr. Smith) and also with the members on my left.
The Minister of Public Works (Mr. Fournier) said that he has listened to an awful lot of nonsense: spoken in this house.


Alphonse Fournier: The hon. member has said the same thing himself many times.


Angus MacInnis: If what the minister has said to-night is not nonsense, I am afraid that it is very contradictory. We do not say that we believe in divorce any more than we say that we believe in theft or any other kind of misdemeanour that may bring persons into our courts. But we do recognize the necessity for divorce. Among Roman Catholics I understand that marriage is a sacrament which cannot be dissolved, but the hon. member for Rimouski (Mr. Belzile) has told us that the procedure for annulments in Quebec is practically the same as divorce in every way except that the parties cannot remarry.
What I rose to say, however, is this. If divorce is within the jurisdiction of this parliament-and that must be true because we have exercised jurisdiction for many years- it cannot be beyond the power of parliament to find a way of providing divorce courts for the people of Canada, no matter where they live. Every civilized country so far as I know has divorce laws. They have ways by which persons, when they find they cannot live together, can separate. That does not contribute to immorality; it diminishes immorality, and I think that is how we should look at the matter. A broken home does not take place with the divorce; the home was broken before the divorce became necessary.
I suggest that we try to find a way of dealing with this important question, and I say again that this parliament having jurisdiction in the matter can create some other way than by this parliament passing divorce bills.
I was really shocked a week ago to-night to note the flippant way in which this vital
Private Bills

Divorce

human problem was dealt with in this house. It certainly did not do parliament any credit, the way we discussed this subject last week.


Thomas Reid: It was even more than flippant.


Angus MacInnis: It was more than flippant.


Thomas Reid: It was vulgar.


Angus MacInnis: I hope the same thing will never take place in this chamber again.


Hon. H. F. G. BRIDGES (Minister of Fisheries):: I am one who in this house
usually speaks only when he is spoken to, and I have endeavoured to adopt that as a policy since I came here as a new member last summer. I rise to agree in some respects with the remarks made by the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Fournier). I do so by reason of the fact that I have arrived at that conclusion by another route.
If we look into the history of divorce we shall find that the province of New Brunswick had machinery for divorce from as far back as 1791; in the province of Nova Scotia they also had it, although not quite as far back as that, but they had it prior to confederation. It will be remembered that at the time the fathers of confederation met in Quebec and the Quebec resolutions were adopted, it was agreed by the parties that marriage and divorce should come within the jurisdiction of the federal parliament; and again when the London resolutions were framed it was agreed that marriage and divorce should come within the jurisdiction of the federal parliament. As a result, the British North America Act was enacted, and since that date marriage and divorce has been under the jurisdiction of the federal parliament. We quite realize that in Canada we have different races, different religions, and different nationalities. The church to which the Minister of Public Works belongs happens to be the Roman Catholic church, and for them marriage is one of the seven sacraments. The church to which I belong happens to be the Anglican church, or Church of England, and although marriage is not regarded as a sacrament, divorced couples are not allowed to be remarried by the Church of England in Canada.
It may seem strange that a bachelor should rush in and make some comments on the question of divorce. But my reason for speaking this evening is to say that I have followed these discussions both before I was in the House of Commons and since, and so far as I can see at the present time there is no way that you can get around the presen! system. I am sure there is no desire on the part of anyone to impose upon the province of Quebec a court which the majority of the
[Mr. Maclnnis.l
people in that province do not want. At the same time it should be remembered that from the days of confederation in 1867 marriage and divorce have been within the jurisdiction of the federal parliament, and if you will look in your statutes for the year 1868 you will find that the first divorce case came before the Senate and the House of Commons at that time; it was reserved for the Queen's pleasure; it was sent to England; and finally the act divorcing the couple, who were from the city of Montreal, was affirmed.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Would the minister permit a question?


Hedley Francis Gregory Bridges: Certainly.


Arthur Leroy Smith: That was thought to be true, was it not, down to the case of Beck versus Beck, which went to the privy council and in which it was decided that divorce was within the jurisdiction of the provinces? The minister will remember that the case came from Alberta; it is one of the things we are proud ofl


Hedley Francis Gregory Bridges: I think it came later. But what I wish to point out at this time is that the very first case which came before the Senate and the House of Commons, in 1868, came from the province of Quebec. So we see that since confederation there have been certain persons in that province who desire the right of divorce. Here is the situation: the majority there are definitely opposed to It; the minority, on the other hand, have had that right ever since 1867, and the first case was heard in 1868. From that date on I believe you will find if you check the figures that there was one _ case each year; then the number gradually increased to ten; and now you all know that the figure this year is 330 or thereabouts. .
At the present time we have that situation. We have this committee of the senate dealing with these divorce bills. I have had some experience in divorce courts and, looking over the proceedings as I have seen them carried on here, I feel that the work done by that senate committee is just as careful as it is done in many of our courts.
One of the speakers last week remarked that in many cases there was collusion. That is quite possible, and I do not say that it is not so, but it is also quite possible that there is collusion in many cases which come before the courts of the various provinces.
Therefore as I say, the situation is that the majority of people in the province of Quebec do not wish divorce; a minority in that province have had the right ever since 1867 to come to ^his parliament for divorces. I am sure there is no desire on the part of anyone in this

Private Bills-Divorce
house to do away with the rights of that minority group, and I can only say that the situation as far as I can see must remain as it is at the present time.


Mr. JOHNSTON:: The minister says there are no divorces in the province of Quebec. But there have been a number of annulments. What is the difference between annulment and divorce ?


Hedley Francis Gregory Bridges: I would suggest that the hon. member consult a lawyer from the province of Quebec.


George Alexander Cruickshank: They want to come here and not to the lawyers.


Thomas Miller Bell: I have several times taken part in discussions of divorce procedure in this house, and I had no intention of taking part in the discussion to-night, but the trend of the debate has more or less compelled me to rise and say that I want to support those who believe that we should find a method different from the one which is now adopted for the consideration of divorces. I think that this is a matter for a court rather than a parliament of this description or the hon. gentlemen who occupy the other place. I think that a judicial body can look into the applications more carefully than they can be looked into at least by this house; and, after all, you and I as members of this house have to take the responsibility for the dissolution of these marriages. That, I suggest, is one of the gravest responsibilities which we have to assume, and one which we ought not to assume unless we know upon what grounds the petitioners request divorce and warrant us to grant the divorce. I doubt very much if there is more than a very small minority in this house who read the proceedings upon which the applications are based and upon which we have to vote.
Like the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Bridges) who just preceded me, I happen to be a member of the Anglican communion. While it is true that the church to which we belong does not believe in divorce, in the last few years there has been a liberalizing of the views regarding divorce until to-day in Great Britain the Anglican church will remarry the innocent party in a divorce case.


Hedley Francis Gregory Bridges: Not in Canada.


Thomas Miller Bell: That, I think, is something which might be remembered in this house. But what I was going to say is this, that with the large number of unhappy marriages, my personal view is that it is the greater crime to keep two people tied together living in what has often been described as a 63260-90
hell, than it is to dissolve that marriage. I think it is worse for the children who are brought up in such a home than it is to allow those children to be looked after by, we will say, the innocent party, upon direction of a judge in a proper court of law where all the evidence has been submitted and reviewed. I think, too, that to keep a man or woman tied indefinitely to a chronic alcoholic is to make life a hell, and that cannot lead to a higher morality in any country. I believe that where there is venereal disease on one side it is again a hell to keep the innocent party tied in such circumstances.
To-day we are at the conclusion of a great war, and I remember what a padre told some of us-I believe the Minister of Public Works was one of the party-who rode with us from Glasgow to Edinburgh, of the condition which he found in 1941 among a percentage, small it is true but still a percentage, of the men overseas. He told us on that occasion that when the war ended we would be faced with a problem. Well, this parliament is faced with a problem and we are not doing anything in particular to cope with it.
Those of us who know something about the conditions to which some of the men who served overseas have returned realize that this parliament is faced with a problem. It is true my hon. friends in the province of Quebec who belong to the Roman Catholic church believe that under no circumstances should divorce be permitted, and I agree that so long as they are members of their church they should abide by its'discipline. I am not complaining of their view because of their religion. I am suggesting to them, however, that there is in the province of Quebec a minority which does not accept that doctrine, and I believe that the rights of minorities should in all respects be recognized and protected, just as we wish to protect the legitimate rights of our Roman Catholic compatriots in the province of Quebec and elsewhere.
I suggest to my hon. friends also that the minority in that province have a right to have their views considered. No one is compelled to sue for divorce, but where individuals believe that divorce is warranted and it does not conflict with their consciences, surely that minority has a right to the exercise of a conscientious conviction in respect of the relief to which it believes it is entitled.
If the province of Quebec does not-and I do not think it will-establish a court of itself, as the other provinces have done, to which these cases may be referred, then I suggest, since we were asked a few minutes ago what the solution is to be, that there



Canadian Wheat Board
should be a federal court to which applications could be made, to which a minority could go if the majority in that province does not believe that its conscientious objections would permit it to establish a provincial divorce court.
I wish to plead with my hon. friends from the province of Quebec to look at the matter in the light in which I am trying to view *it, not as a believer in divorce but as one who believes that a suffering minority in any province should have the right to divorce if it feels the need of it and if divorce does not violate its own convictions.
I suggest, therefore, that what should be considered is the establishment of a court or the naming of a court already established. I do not know whether that is possible. I have heard it suggested from time to time that once of the courts, such as the exchequer court, might be given jurisdiction in these matters. I do not know what court it should be; but if we have not a court that could give speedy and proper consideration to these matters, then I think it is incumbent upon parliament to see to it that people who are tied together to-day in what is sometimes a living hell are given a proper opportunity for relief from the position in which they find themselves.
Motion agreed to and bill read the second time.



CANADIAN WHEAT BOARD ACT


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Tuesday, May 7, consideration of the motion of Mr. Fair for the second reading of bill No. 5 to amend the Canadian Wheat Board Act, 1935.
Hon. J. A. MacKINNON (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: We have had considerable discussion on the bill introduced by the hon. member for Battle River (Mr. Fair) and I do not think he has left any doubt in our minds as to his object in its introduction. But I am sure, speaking as a layman and from legal opinion that I have personally sought, that the bill goes much farther than the hon. gentleman intends.
I do not believe that the bill* in this form should pass. Although there has been considerable discussion of it, I submit that before we allow it to pass certain aspects of the situation should be discussed at length. I am ready, Mr. Speaker, to make a statement on the bill pointing out where in my opinion 
it will destroy necessary marketing agencies of the Canadian wheat board in western Canada, and I am quite satisfied that the hon. member for Battle River would be equally opposed to that happening.
I cannot possibly say before nine o'clock what I should like to say on this bill. If I did begin it would be merely a matter of my partly finishing what I have to say and the hour for private and public bills would have expired. However, I am prepared to offer a suggestion. I have not heard anything like this said before, but it seems reasonable to me, and I am not speaking as a lawyer. I would suggest having this bill referred for further consideration to the committee on agriculture if that were acceptable to the other parties in the house and to members on this side, and to that end I would, be quite prepared to curtail discussion here and before that committee make the speech which I wish to give in the house. I know that I cannot take a poll of everyone in the house to see whether or not-


John Bracken: I would suggest that the minister make his speech here and we will decide wrhether to send it to the agriculture committee or not.


James Angus MacKinnon: I thought I made it clear to the leader of the opposition that I have only seven or eight minutes to make a speech that will take me fifteen or twenty minutes.


John Bracken: I would be agreeable to giving another day to it.


James Angus MacKinnon: May we call it nine o'clock, Mr. Speaker? I move the adjournment of the debate.


John Bracken: May I ask the leader of the government when we shall return to this subject?


Mr. MACKENZIE:: Next Tuesday evening.


John Bracken: I do not want to be responsible for allowing this subject to be talked out.


James Angus MacKinnon: I have moved the adjournment of the debate.


Mr. FAIR:: I am sorry, but I shall not be able to be here Tuesday evening. I do not want this matter to be taken up until I have an opportunity of expressing my views.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: We shall accommodate you.
Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.

Supply-Agriculture

The house again in committee of supply, Mr. Golding in the chair.



DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

[Stage Direction]
1. Departmental administration, $163,190.
Mr. CHARLTON:: I am sorry the Minister of Agriculture is not in his seat at the moment. It was encouraging this afternoon to listen to the minister's remarks regarding agriculture. However, I find it difficult to understand the position taken by other members of the government with respect to that department. During the past six years farmers across Canada have made a magnificent contribution to the war effort. The war is now over. Demands are being continuously made by various groups for price increases, and those increases are being granted with the result that production costs of farmers have increased considerably; yet with two exceptions no change has been made by the government to help the farmer. The exceptions are butter and hog prices. These are the only two exceptions in the face of these terrifically rising costs. It
would appear that this government has forgotten the promises it made prior to the last election when we as farmers were led to believe we were rather important people.
I hold in my hand some interesting figures which were taken from the estimates for 1946-47 and 1938-39. They reveal the probable trend of thought on the part of the government in relation to agriculture. As I say, these figures are taken from the estimates. They show the amount of estimate for each department, the increase in each department, the percentage of increase, then the amount of the estimate in that particular department in 1938-39, prior to the war, with the exception of eight departments, which I shall name. By the way, with the permission of the committee I should like to place this table on Hansard.


William Henry Golding: Has the hon. member the unanimous consent of the committee to place the table on Hansard?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Yes.


John Alpheus Charlton: The table is as follows:



ESTIMATES 1946-47

[Stage Direction]
Department	Total	Increase	%	1938-39	Agriculture 	$ 19,429,713	00	$ 2,213,744	00	11-4	$ 9,160,532	35Auditor General 	472,656	00	49,501	00	10-4	476,405	noCivil Service 	558,950	00	63,180	00	11-3	376,795	00External Affairs 	4,322,955	00	751,482	00	17-3	1,047,435	00Finance 	593,066.563	51	93,557,460	06	15-7	189,757.628	39Justice 	7.218,516	09	365,383	67	5-0	5,566.888	31Labour 	23,015,044	00	564,332	34	2-4	863,331	00Legislation 	3,486,448	00	747.778	00	21-4	2,433,580	00Mines and Resources	18,827,400	00	4,856,623	00	25-7	14,251,850	89National Defence 	104,793	40	4.597	98	4-3	34,034,364	42National Health and Welfare...	295.653,586	00	63,221,407	73	21-3	56,689,653	00National Revenue 	26,061.527	00	2,758,866	00	10-3	12,356,389	00Public Works 	36,006,747	00	14,710,826	00	40-8	12,997,625	88Post Office 	60,455,057	00	156,607	00	*2	35,941,334	65Prime Minister's Office	95,073	00	27,193	00	29-6	62,405	00Privv Council Office	647,002	00	223,725	00	34-5	54,115	00Public Printing and Stationery..	204,569	00	4.182	00	2-0	168.360	00Insurance 	209,445	00	8,690	00	4-1	794,490	00Government owned Enterprises..	1,902,635	00	341,510	00	12-6	2,986,756	94Loans and Investments 	72,490,700	00	16,400,700	00	22-7	1,177,500	00Royal Canadian Mounted Police..	11,739,269	00	3,895,216	00	33-1	6,273,073	06Governor General and Lieut.	5,300	00	238,612	66	2-2	232,391	66Secretary of State	1.125,810	00	128,580	00	11-4	755,410	00Trade and Commerce	11,768,294	00	3,174,393	00	26-9	8,443,625	8229,751.195	00	4,370,219	93	14-6	20,829,214	7595.819,937	00	13,039,949	00	13-6	Fisheries 	4,079,660	00	229,360	00	1,957,840	00
The only departments that show a smaller percentage of increase than the Department of Agriculture are the auditor general's departs ment, the labour department-I might say in regard to labour that in 1938-39 the estimates were S863.331; this year they are $23,015,044;
63260-90J
because of that terrific increase betwen 1938-39 and 1946 one would not expect a large increase in this particular year-the Department of National Defence, the Post Office Department, public printing and stationery, insurance and the governor-general and lieutenant governors.
Supply-Agriculture
[Stage Direction]
With these exceptions the increase in the Department of Agriculture is less than any other department of government.
Most people across Canada realize the importance of agriculture, and most people expected an increase in the expenditures of the Department of Agriculture. But if we are ever to come to the point where we shall have balanced budgets in this dominion we must save somewhere. With the terrific increases in other branches of government to as high as 44-8 per cent in some cases, while in agriculture the increase is only 11-4 per cent, it does not seem that agriculture is getting its fair proportion when one considers its importance. Agriculture has always taken a back seat, and it appears from these figures that it will continue to do so. I wish the minister success in convincing other members of the government of the importance of agriculture to this country.
Most hon. members will have some idea of the present butter situation because of having had to do without it for some time in the House of Commons restaurant. The reason for the scarcity is quite obvious to me if not to other members. The price of milk for butter and cheese production in the United States is practically double that which is paid here. The United States buyers, therefore, can well afford to pay the high prices they are paying for dairy cattle. This price range is so high that it is almost impossible for a man to refuse it. Just last week a United States buyer paid as high as $185 for a grade first-calf heifer. Is it any wonder then that the number of dairy cattle exported to the United States up to May 2 of this year was 16,332, while the total in 1945 was only 11,452? If this government would allow a reasonable increase in the price of dairy products, thereby enabling the farmer to make a reasonable profit for the extra work involved in dairying, the sales of these cattle to the United States would shortly show an appreciable decrease.
Yesterday the minister mentioned an increase in milk production. Yes, there has been an increase in milk production, but not anywhere near the proportion that the consumption of whole milk has risen. I could name a number of instances in my own riding where large producers were forced out of milk production because of lack of labour. Then, again, I could cite dozens of cases where men who previously had sent milk to concentrated milk plants, powdered milk plants, and cream to creameries have now, with this huge increase in the consumption of whole milk, the opportunity for which they have been waiting for years, that of getting into the *whole milk trade. That is happening all across
(Mr. Charlton.]
Canada. It is not only happening in my own riding. It is a general condition, and I contend that that is the reason for the decrease in the production of butter, which is obvious from the figures the minister showed us yesterday with respect to Ontario, particularly. In 1939 the production of butter in Ontario was 88 million pounds. That was the high year. In 1945 it was reduced to 77 million, a difference of 11 million pounds.
We all realize that Ontario is the most highly industrialized province in the dominion, and we would expect the consumption of whole milk to go up there more than it has in other provinces. I might say that that increase has been quite a bit better than 50 per cent in Ontario. So that we would naturally expect that that milk had to be stolen from some other branch of the industry. The fact that creamery patrons have taken much less for milk separated and going to creameries is an obvious indication of where it would be lost. I contend it is impossible to control prices and stop inflation during an obvious scarcity. There are always people who want the article badly enough that they will gladly go out and pay black-market prices. They will continue to do so, so long as any product is in short supply, notwithstanding the fact that many officials of the department at Ottawa claim that there is very little black-marketing in Canada.
Take beef cattle, for instance. Reported marketings thus far this year are 52,839 head short of the same period in 1945. The minister would not suggest that beef cattle production has gone down that much. Where are those cattle? The very fact that retail butchers are paying higher than ceiling prices for beef carcasses, and still making a reasonable profit-or they would not be doing it-leads one to the belief, as was stated by the minister at page 1246 of Hansard that "by having the price levels determined by competition" is the proper method of correcting the situation. Another method is by removing restrictions on butchers killing their own beef and pork, commonly known as the quota system, and thereby releasing the strangle-hold which the large packers have on the industry.
Under present price controls I understand the retail butchers get a little better than $40 spread on a 600-pound carcass of beef. I leave it to the judgment of hon. members to. say whether that is a fair spread or not. I contend that the price to the retailer could go up two cents, without increasing it to the consumer.
It would appear that most of the terrific spread between producer and consumer prices

Sup-ply-Agriculture
is caused by the consumer demand for service, i maintain that it is very unfair for all consumers across this country to have to pay for the service that a few expect. If certain consumers demand these extra services, why should they not pay for it themselves, without making a blanket charge to all?
This brings to my mind two striking examples. Two years ago I happened to be in a hardware store in the city of Brantford talking to the manager, when a lady telephoned in for an eleven-cent pane of glass. The manager later told me that she lived almost two miles from the store, but she wanted it delivered immediately. I think all hon. members will realize that the cost of delivery would be two or three times the cost of the glass.
Something similar occurred when I was visiting at an apartment house in Toronto. About ten-thirty or eleven o'clock at night the people I was visiting wanted to buy a brick of icecream. They telephoned the drugstore, and that 25-cent article was delivered- I do not know how far. But somebody has to pay those delivery costs. It is not always the consumer who pays it; most often it slaps right back in the face of the producer.
We had an instance recently of what we may expect when subsidies are removed. I have in mind specifically the canning crops. Subsidies have been removed on these crops, and price increases allowed the canning industry in lieu of payment of subsidies. The price increases allowed the canning industry were as follows:
Per dozen cans cents
Peas, 20-ounee can (all grades) ..	11
Corn, 20-ounce can (all grades)..	15
Corn, 14-ounce (vacuum-packed,
whole kernel)	 15
Tomatoes, 28 ounces (all grades)	32
Tomato juice, 20 ounces (all
grades)	 9J
True, as I said before, the canners are supposed to pay the same price to the producer as was paid last year, including the subsidy. But are they compelled to? I do not believe they are. That is left to the discretion of the farmer, as to what he can get for his product. In any event the farmer is not getting any more than he did last year. The consumer, however, will be asked to pay at least two cents per can and probably up to five cents or even six cents per can increase on some products.
If this is any indication of what the farmers can expect, when these subsidies are taken off other products, then one can hardly blame the dairy farmers for accepting the high prices which they are receiving for dairy cattle to-day. Unless some drastic action is taken
very shortly, it is probable that production will drop to a point which will seriously reduce our exports to the United Kingdom.
James Garfield Gardiner: I should like to answer a few of the questions raised by the hon. member who has just taken his seat. I was not at all surprised by the line of argument presented in the earlier part of his speech, in view of the fact that my hon. friend has not always advocated the policies he is now advocating.
The situation which has existed in connection with agriculture estimates is one which is very well understood by most hon. members. The suggestion was made that the present government, and more particularly the present-minister, is to be criticized for not obtaining a larger proportion of the treasury funds for expenditure upon agriculture. I should like to refer the hon. member to the records of the past. During the period the Liberal government was in office between 1921 and 1929-30 there was a constant increase in expenditures upon agriculture until the provisions made in the last year the Liberals were in office were for the highest expenditures upon agriculture that we had had up to that particular time.
In 1932-33 the estimates for agriculture were reduced from a previous $11,000,000, to which amount they had been built up under a Liberal government, to $8,660,000. The next year they were reduced to $8,203,000, and the next year they were reduced to $7,395,000. I took over the department in 1935-36, and by 1936-37 the estimates had been increased to $15,553,000, or double what they had been in the last complete year that the preceding government had been in office.
I was invited to Toronto during the third year that I had had the privilege of administering the affairs of this department and I was met with a full page in the Toronto Globe and Mail. I have just forgotten the heading that they used to run at the top of that page, but at the bottom was a coupon which could be cut off and sent to the government at their suggestion without any expense to the treasury because it was considered to be government business. We were getting those on our desks in the House of Commons at the expense of the Post Office Department. The protest they made on that occasion was that I had provided for the enormous expenditure of $20,000,000 on agriculture. That criticism was carried on by the opposing party of that time right down to the day that war opened. This year the comparable expenditure with 1936-37 is over $17,000,000.
Supply-Agricul ture


John Alpheus Charlton: Why was there the terrific drop from 1936. when I believe it was $15,000,000 to $9,160,000 in 1938-39?


James Garfield Gardiner: This afternoon I explained why there had been some decrease in expenditures during the war period. I can tell my hon. friend that no other government in the history of the dominion has expended anything approaching one-tenth of the money that has been spent by this government in recent years in order to maintain agriculture in the position in which it is at the present time among the industries of this country. As a matter of fact, at the height of mutual aid, in order to increase the returns to the farmers we were paying $520,000,000 in connection with purchases in Canada. If we were to take the amounts paid in connection with the subsidies my hon. friend has been speaking about we would find that they run into hundreds of millions.


John Alpheus Charlton: Is the minister suggesting that these subsidies which are paid directly to the farmers are for the benefit of the farmers alone?


James Garfield Gardiner: Producers' subsidies are paid directly to the farmers, or they are paid through the creameries and other distributors.


John Alpheus Charlton: They are paid directly to the farmer.


James Garfield Gardiner: They are paid directly to the farmer to increase the return he would receive for the food which he produces.


John Alpheus Charlton: The reason was to keep down the cost of living.


James Garfield Gardiner: It might be partly to keep down the cost of living, but it was largely to give the farmer a higher return than he would have obtained for his surplus products from any country in the world.


John Alpheus Charlton: Without increasing the cost of living.


James Garfield Gardiner: Subsidies do not keep down the cost of living because they require the people to pay higher taxes. When you pay higher taxes your cost of living goes up. Subsidies did not keep down the cost of living of people generally. The purpose of the subsidies was to provide the farmer with more money for the food that went to Britain than Britain could afford to pay.


John Alpheus Charlton: And to keep up production.


James Garfield Gardiner: Naturally it kept up production. But if we had employed the same number of farmers on our farms, if we had had the kind of weather that we did have, we would

have had the same production. H subsidies had not been available the farmers would have had to take a lower return. I do not think hon. friends opposite should be criticizing this policy because one of the last acts of the Conservative government before they went out of office in 1935 was to pay a subsidy on cheese of, I believe, a cent and a quarter a pound. In principle that was exactly the same thing that this government has done, although this government has gone farther dn that direction than any other government we have ever had. The result is that expenditures made upon agriculture are much higher than anything that has been made in the past. It has just been pointed.out to me that the hon. member asked why the figure had dropped to $8,900,000 in
1942-43.


John Alpheus Charlton: No, to $9,160,000 in
1938-39. That was prior to the war.


James Garfield Gardiner: I think my hon. friend has obtained a figure which is not comparable with those given. The total expenditure in the following year was $11,816,000.


John Alpheus Charlton: I took my figure from the estimates of 1938-39 and I do not think I made a mistake in copying them.


James Garfield Gardiner: Then something has been left out, either the supplementary estimates or the statutory expenditures. I can get the year's figures. In any event I question if there was a drop of that kind in that year, but there was a drop in 1942-43 to the figure which I gave.
The point I rose to make was that this government has expended more money on agriculture than any other government that has ever been in power in Canada. During the periods that a Liberal government has been in power the agriculture estimates have gone up year by year, but each time we have had a Conservative government in power in recent times these expenditures have gone down year by year.


Mr. FERGUSON:: With better results.


James Garfield Gardiner: The results are better because the people elected a Liberal government.


John Alpheus Charlton: The only time that any other government has been in power in this country in the last twenty years was from 1930 to 1935, when we were experiencing the worst depression the world had ever known. The minister would not expect expenditures to be increased during that period.


James Garfield Gardiner: I would have thought that when agriculture was suffering its worst depression was the very time for the government to spend more money on agriculture.

Supply-Agriculture


John Horne Blackmore: Mr. Chairman, first of all, may I say that I have found the discussions that we have had on agriculture on several occasions here very interesting.
I wish to commend the minister for the amount of money which has been spent in subsidies which have kept up prices to producers in agriculture and enabled farm income to be held at a much more satisfactory level than it would have been possible to hold it without subsidies. I have heard several members in different parts of the house during this session say that the- principle of subsidy was unsound. I do not believe that. I believe that the government is on the right track, and before we are finished I believe that we shall find far more money being spent on subsidies, that we shall be employing the principle of subsidy in a far greater degree than perhaps the members of the house could now contemplate with calmness.
The only thing that the members in this group would criticize with regard to subsidies is the way in which the government would propose to get the money with which to give the subsidies. This group would maintain that the standard of living of the people of Canada throughout Canada, agricultural, industrial and all other workers, ought to depend upon the capacity of this country to produce and deliver goods and services, and upon nothing else. Money should be the handmaid of production. Production should not be the slave or servant of money.
Such having been said in a general way, I wish to point out to the minister three things which have occurred in 1946 affecting his department, which I believe are not in the best interests of agriculture and not in the best interests of this country. These matters have all been mentioned before; I wish to express my opinion on them now. I do not wish to accuse the minister of being to blame for them.
The three things I have in mind are, first, the 12J per cent increase in the price of agricultural machinery; second, the increase in the price of gasoline, and third, the unsatisfactory manipulation ofjoeef nricesjiuring the last several weeks. The minister and I have had discussions at various times in the past regarding the beef policy. I am not quite sure whether the minister was the author or the victim of that policy, but I have a strong suspicion that he was the victim, just as the beef producers were. Those three things are, I think, altogether undesirable for Canadian agriculture and will have repercussions that members of the house will, I believe, be sorry to learn of in the days to come. They should be offset.
How inadvisable was the increase in the price of agricultural implements to the farmer we may judge by contemplating the following list of average retail prices and index numbers on an eight-foot grain binder in the Regina area between 1913 and 1945. A number of hon. members have placed on the record lists of these prices, but this list contains additional material of real interest to the members and something that has not yet been put before the committee. The list was prepared by the dominion bureau of statistics, prices branch, and was sent to me by Mr. H. T. Greenway, chief of the prices branch, in a letter dated May 8, 1946. The list follows:
Dominion Bureau of Statistics, Prices Branch.
Average retail prices and index numbers of an eight-foot grain binder, Regina area, 1913 to
Year	Price	Index
1913	 $194 (a) 100
May I interpose this remark, that the index number is something new, something different from what I have seen in these price lists. This index helps one to get a more comprehensive and consistent picture of the whole progress of prices of agricultural implements. We start then with 1913, when the price was $194 and the index 100. In 1923-the bureau of statistics advised me that they did not have the figures for the intervening years-the price had risen to $288 and the index was 148-5. The figures for the following years were: Ypar	Price	Indexfool	
$313 00 (a)	161-3mod	.	287 50 fa) 148-2The price was beginning to go down: Year	Price	Index1926	
$287 50 (a)	148-21927	"!]]!'	
287 50	(a)	148-21998	
287 50	(a)	148-2i9$9	;;;;;	
28750(a)	148-2
During those years the index and the price remained the same. Then came a further drop:
Year
1931
Price	Index
$283 00 (a) 145-9 283 00 (a) 145-9
Then there was a further fall:
Year
1933
1935
Price $278 00 266 50 266 50 266 50 284 50
Index
137-4
137-4
At this time there was a change in the kind of binder and we come to a different way of
computing the figures: Year	Price	Index1936 	$291 50	(b)	146-61937 	291 50	(b)	146-61938 	311 75	lb)	156-8313 50	(c)	
There were two figures given for 1938; I
will explain why later.
Supply-Agriculture

Year	Price	Index1939	
$320 75 (c)	160-51940	
336	25	(e)	168-21941	
336	25	(c)	168-21942	
352	00	(c)	176-11943	
352	00	(e)	176-11944	
352	00	(c)	176-11945	
352	00	(e)	176-1(a)	One October pay.(b)	New type binder-one October pay.(c)	New type binder-alemited, oil bath-[DOT] cash price.
This addition of 12^ per cent in the price of the agricultural implement to the farmer takes place on top of the $352. This means that there is an added price of $44 to that binder, raising its total price to $396. I have not computed the index number, but the price, $396, as compared with $194 in 1930 is a matter which I believe is very serious, and I am sure the minister feels that way too.
I am not entering into any argument as to whether or not the price of agricultural implements should have been raised. I am not competent to enter into that discussion because I do not know the costs of the machine companies. Until I do know those costs and the difficulties which the companies face I am not competent to pronounce on this matter. But I believe I am competent to pronounce on this proposition: that that additional cost should not have been paid by the farmer. If it had to be paid it should have been paid by another subsidy, an extension of the principle which the minister, I think, will be accorded honour in history for having introduced and expanded to so great an extent.
I am going to put some more details on the record which will explain this price series which I do not think the committee ought to be troubled with. But I think the committee would like to hear the letter which accompanied this set of figures:
Dominion Bureau of Statistics Prices Branch
Dear Sir:
Ottawa, Canada, May 8, 1946.
In compliance with your telephone request, we have prepared the enclosed statement of retail prices and corresponding price index numbers of an 8-foot grain binder, covering the years from 1913-1945 inclusive. I regret, however, that we do not have a year-by-year record from 1914 to 1922.
You will note that it has been necessary to use three sets of prices during this period-
These prices will be indicated by alphabetical letter in the record.
-due to changes in the construction of binders being marketed. The price index numbers, however, give a fair indication of the increase which has occurred, because in each case where a change in the type of binder has been intro-fMr. Blackmore.]
duced we have been able to obtain overlapping quotations for old and new types of binders involved in this comparison.
Yours very .truly,
H. F. Greenway,
Chief of the Prices Branch.
The thing which aggravates the inadvisability of implement price increases to farmers at the present time is the increase in many other costs that the farmers have to pay. Prices of other commodities have risen. The Searle index compiled and issued by the Searle Grain Company of Winnipeg as given in the April 17th number of the Searle letter informs us that the prices of 147 articles which western farmers buy have risen from 100 in 1914 to 159-8 on April 17, 1946. I think the members of this committee ought to contemplate those rises with deep apprehension and the greatest concern. They help to indicate why the condition of our farming population, in spite of all the efforts of the minister-and they are commendable-is not happy in many, many cases, and why it is that, in spite of the war in which prices have been high, the minister actually reported this year that the average income of farmers throughout Canada was $2,000. Those increases of price must somehow or other be controlled, f suggest to the members of the Progressive Conservative party, the C.C.F., and the Liberal party who are here listening that it is extremely important that we try to determine a way to deal with these increases in price. Our C.C.F. friends have one answer, and Social Crediters have an answer which probably is different from theirs. But I submit that these changes in prices could hardly have been prevented by government ownership of industry


An hon. MEMBER:: Explain.


John Horne Blackmore: I am suggesting it. I am not going into great detail. When the time comes I will go into plenty of detail; to-night, I believe it would probably not be in order to do so.


Mr. ZAPLITNY:: We have plenty of time.


John Horne Blackmore: My hon. friends will get all the explanations they want if they will just wait. But let me leave with the committee the thought that one of the serious problems facing this country is how to overcome the adverse effects of this gradual rise in the prices of things like picks and doubletrees and shovels and gloves and boots and other commodities constituting the 147 items which western farmers must buy.


James Garfield Gardiner: Shirts and pants.


Mr. MacNICOL:: Far more than that.

Supply-Agriculture


James Garfield Gardiner: You have forgotten Mr. Ashby's shirts and pants.


John Horne Blackmore: Before leaving this matter let me say it is well to remember that the increase in the price of those 147 items since the outbreak of war in September, 1939, has been 22 per cent. There is no doubt that the farmer has been a victim of inflation.
May I turn for a moment or two to the prices affecting beef. Our whole structure of prices as it affects beef ought to be reviewed and revised most carefully. Once more, I am not imputing any of the blame for these prices to the minister, and perhaps those administering those prices have done the best they could. But it is my duty as member of parliament for my constituency to tell the committee what the effect has been upon beef production in my riding. The prices on beef during the years 1942 to 1945 inclusive have not been conducive to the maximum beef production in Canada. In 1942 the prices destroyed the confidence of producers in my constituency. I do not believe that confidence has ever been thoroughly restored, and what happened in the last six weeks has given another serious blow to confidence in the production of beef. In fact, beef prices in 1946 would appear to be a deterrent to full and confident participation by feeders in beef production in the future. Between
11,000	and 12,000 beef are estimated to be in my constituency ready to be marketed by the middle of June. If the men who are feeding those beef between now and the marketing of beef in the middle of June lose money on the beef, there will be many a plate in Can-ade next year without a beef steak which would have been supplied with one had prices been more wisely managed.
It must be understood that when men put money into beef in the fall and then put good money into feed of various kinds, and devote long hours of hard work coupled with great anxiety in the production of beef, and then because of price manipulation are forced into a loss where they had counted on a gain, they will react just as members of this house would. Their attitude will be, once bitten, twice shy.
I have in my hand a letter from a prominent beef feeder in my constituency, dated April 17, 1946, Lethbridge. From that letter I will read one short paragraph:
The fact is that feedlot cattle cannot be produced at present ceiling prices. To discount this fact or the importance of the feedlot in the production of meat tonnage is unjust and is wilfully or ignorantly out of accord with the facts.
Those are pretty strong words and they come from a well-informed man who has great 63260-91
experience and who to-day is finishing in the neighbourhood of from 5,000 to 7,000 cattle.
So much for the objections or criticisms I have to offer. I wish to protest against the increase in agricultural machinery prices to be paid by the farmer. I wish to protest against the increase in gasoline prices. I wish to protest against the undependable manipulation of beef prices. I am not prepared to enter into the matter of determining scientifically exactly what is wrong at the present time, but something is wrong and it must be made right.
What can be done in the future? I believe hon. members have put their finger on the difficulties. It is easy to say what is to be done; the problem is how to do it. In the first place, prices must be made equitable in agriculture. In the west we are using very commonly among the farmers the expression " parity prices." No one has ever defined "parity prices" with complete satisfaction, but generally the idea is quite clear that the farmer should be able to get enough from his production to enable him to buy a fair amount of the produce of other people who produce goods for him.
That principle must be discovered and must be applied throughout the country. There must be parity prices as between agricultural products and the goods which^farmers buy. Then there must-be stability of prices. It must be obvious to anyone that when the price of potatoes, let us say, is likely to be down to 35 cents a hundred one year and up to $1.25 in the next year and down again to 80 cents, no one can possibly participate with confidence in the production of potatoes. And potatoes would be only one of the com-_ modities.
Surely, if agricultural implement manufacturers can have a stable price for their product over a series of years, the farmer should be able to have a stable price for what he produces. This principle of stability must be established and maintained. The government has gone a long way in the endavour to establish that, and it is worthy of commendation for it. But much more must still be done, and I am sure the minister does not disagree with that. His problem would be the very question I have raised: how to do it, how to get the money to do it.
There is another matter that must be established and that is dependability of markets. If I am in the potato business and I propose to raise five acres one year and I can sell all my product and the next year I find I can sell the product of only one acre when I have raised five, obviously I am in a pretty precarious position. My father used to say to me when I was a boy, "Son, if I could be sure of selling my potatoes at fifty

Supply-A griculture

cents a hundred I would raise ten acres every year and I would feel quite secure." I do not suppose fifty cents would be sufficient now. That was back in the nineties and the early years of this century. The trouble was that some years you could not sell your potatoes; some years you could not even give them away.
We must establish stability of market. The question will be raised: How can you do that? There are two ways in which it can be done and our generation has pretty well indicated to us how it can be done. The first is this. We must see to it that the people are enabled to buy all of a given commodity that they can consume. Then what is surplus we must manage to put on the world market under a mutual aid scheme if needs be, under an UNRRA arrangement if necessary. Fluctuations in production from year to year could be taken care of through the world outlet. If we undertake to trade all our surplus we may be in difficulties. We can never be sure that we can trade off all that we can produce in a given year; but I do not think the time is likely to come, at least in our lives, when it will not be possible to distribute our surplus under mutual aid or under an UNRRA scheme.
The question will then arise: How will you pay for all that you distribute through mutual aid? Once more the problem is one of finance, and if you can produce enough in the dominion, and a sufficiently wide variety of commodities, it will be possible for you to keep your standard of living at whatever level your production will justify and also render available to the world your surplus. I am not going to go into great detail on that tonight. I may have more to say as the session progresses.


John Ritchie MacNicol: We want to end the *session some time.


John Horne Blackmore: I could not catch what the hon. member said.


James Garfield Gardiner: He wants to end the session some time.


John Horne Blackmore: The hon. member is always fair and I think he will grant that I have not used overmuch of the time this year. Fair prices must be maintained by the principle of subsidy. Even the labour on farms, which was complained of by several hon. members in the course of the debate, must be taken care of by a wage bonus. This afternoon an hon. member-I have forgotten which one-said in effect that he could not possibly pay $100 a month to a man to milk cows. Every hon. member of this committee will agree that it cannot be done.


An hon. MEMBER:: It is being done.


John Horne Blackmore: No ordinary farmer can do it. If he is operating on a large basis with many cows, a lot of mechanization and all that kind of thing, under ideal arrangements, he may be able to do it; but the ordinary farmer who milks five or six cows, who is the kind of farmer that will produce the greatest quantity of milk in this country, or to whom we must be prepared to look for the greatest quantity of our milk-


Mr. GRANT:: It would not take a man a whole day to milk five or six cows.


John Horne Blackmore: A farmer could not afford to pay $100 a month to do it. That is the point under discussion.


Thomas Vincent Grant: He would work at many other jobs besides milking cows.


John Horne Blackmore: If the farmer had enough things for him to do, all of which were likely to give him a profit, he could afford to do that; he could afford to pay him $100 a month, but the ordinary farmer has no such setrup that would enable him to give a man $100 a month on his farm. At the same time everybody agrees that the man ought to have $100 a month for working on a farm. If $100 a month is not forthcoming a man will not be able to prepare himself to support a family.
The question that arises is: how are we to sqlve this problem? I suggest in all sincerity that the only solution is going to be a wage bonus, a supplementary allowance to farm labourers over and above what the farmer can afford to pay. The orthodox economist will immediately find himself affected much as he would be if a galvanic needle were thrust into his spine. The important thing for him to bear in mind, however, is this: Can the dominion of Canada produce enough goods of a sufficient variety to enable her to pay the man who works on the farm milking cows and thinning beets and doing other things, $100 a month? The answer must be yes. If that is possible, then we must devise a financial system which will reflect the physical realities of our productive capacity and enable us to do financially what we can do physically.
There is one more thing which will become necessary in order to guarantee a stable market. I said a moment ago that we must first of all be able to enable all Canadians to buy what they need of our produce, our potatoes, our eggs, our apples, our coal. Hon. members know how low is the average income of the wage-earners of Canada. What a disgrace to the Canadian people our wage rates are! We are in danger right now, as hon. members

Supply-Agricul ture
know, of a serious strike, almost dominionwide. What for? For the privilege of having something like $125 a month. The sum of $125 a month is not too much for men engaged in steel work.


Mr. McKAY:: Not enough.


John Horne Blackmore: It is not too much; that is the point. It is not more than this dominion can pay in the way of goods. There is no doubt in the world that this dominion can produce enough eggs, butter, cheese, lumber and other things to pay these labourers $125 worth of such goods a month for producing steel. The thing we lack in our present concept is a financial mechanism to render our physical capacities financially possible.
I submit it is on the financial aspect of our economy that we must concentrate our attention. When we do that we shall find that it will be financially possible for us to distribute to the consumers of this country such an amount of purchasing power as will enable them to buy their full requirements of the goods we are able to produce, thereby guaranteeing our agriculturists a stable market so far as home consumption is concerned. This must be done. If not, then we must resort to a method of deliberate distribution of consumer purchasing power; and we might just as well acknowledge first as last, that the present financial system simply will not distribute that purchasing power.
Our C.C.F. friends, with whose expressions I often have a lot of sympathy, are fond of blaming the whole trouble on private enterprise. Well, private enterprise will produce the goods. There is no doubt about that. Private enterprise will produce the goods; it will produce the coal-


Eric Bowness McKay: It is not doing so now.


John Horne Blackmore: The reason is that it cannot sell at a fair price. Get producers a fair price and a certainty of selling and private enterprise will produce all that this country can possibly use and enough for it to distribute abroad under a mutual aid system. The difficulty lies in the financial mechanism. I hope that all the members of the C.C.F. organization will come to recognize this soon enough so that they will not waste their time and the time of the people in these critical days thinking about a solution that is not a solution. Let us keep our minds concentrated on the real difficulty which confronts us. The real difficulty-


An hon. MEMBER:: We thank the hon. member for his help.


John Horne Blackmore: You're welcome, and you need the help. The real difficulty is financial. It must be obvious.
63260-91J	1
Our farmers must have equitable prices, which means not only a fair price for the things they produce, but also a fair price for the things they buy. There must not be a steady rise in the price of these 147 commodities all up through the years in the future as there has been since 1914. That simply must not be. There must not be any more increases in the price of agricultural implements or of any other thing which the farmer needs. We must set about finding how to overcome the difficulties. When we overcome this disparity between the price of the things farmers sell and the price of the things farmers buy so that with the money they derive from what they sell they will be able to buy a fair portion of the things available for purchase, then we shall have prosperity, we shall have equitable prices. The thing can be done. We can produce enough in Canada to do it.
Then we must have stable prices going on from year to year. In the memory of every member of this committee there was the wildest fluctuation in the prices of such stable commodities as wheat. There is to-day in the price of many commodities. Why should there be any such fluctuation in prices? A bushel of wheat will feed just as many men to-day as it did fifteen years ago or fifty years ago. It will feed quite as many men a year from to-day or ten years from to-day as it will feed to-day. Its price ought to be stable. It is for us to determine the means whereby to make it stable so that from year to year we shall know, and not only shall our producers know what they are going to get, but our governments are going to be able to calculate with some measure of accuracy what they may expect to derive by way of income from our producers. We shall be able to put our whole economy on a business basis, so that we shall have a chance to know where we stand. Everybody will grant that that is a wholly desirable objective. Let us determine by what mechanism we can attain that objective. We must have stable markets. We must know from year to year how much we can sell, and how much we can dispose of. To say that is impossible is, I think, a reckless remark; for certainly in any age which has heard the Atlantic charter advocate that all men should be guaranteed freedom from want, it should not sound absurd to propose that we should be able to render available to the people who need our goods and services, whatsoever in Canada we may have left over, after having provided for the needs of our own people.
Once more the objective must commend itself to every member as being physically possible. Once more our primary task is to determine the financial mechanism by which
Supply-Agriculture

to make it financially possible. So once more the problem is one of finance. It is not one of production; it is not one of ownership.
May I say just a word about labour, to which I have already referred. I am sure every hon. member is deeply concerned about the labour situation throughout this country. Everyone recognizes, for example, that the seamen's union is not asking for anything unreasonable. Everyone recognizes that the C.I.O. is not asking for anything unreasonable. There may be extremists, but they are exceedingly few in number and I have not met them. They are just asking for a common-sense standard of living that any right-minded individual would freely grant that they have a perfect right to ask. It must be conceded by all that we in Canada are able to produce all the goods necessary to provide a standard of living which, say, -$125 a month would buy. If we do not solve that problem of the reward for labour, then our whole economy can be disrupted, with grievous consequences to agriculture, and to everyone else. We must determine how to solve that problem.


Mr. BARRETT:: Mr. Chairman, it is evident, after listening to the discussion in the committee yesterday and to-day that the farmers in this country are not very happy. We have heard many speeches, some of which were most entertaining, and all of which were interesting and instructive. They have been delivered by hon. members from all groups in the house, and representing widely separated sections of the country. The main theme in all of them seems to be that the condition of farming in this country is not satisfactory. All are agreed that unless it is satisfactory, the condition of other groups in the country will be jeopardized.
But when we begin to inquire into the causes of unrest in agriculture we become embroiled in a mass of facts and figures which, to say the least, are confusing, and which at one time seem to prove one thing and at another, something else. In the end they really do not prove very much of anything.
For this reason I hesitate to use figures at all, because I realize there is some truth in the old saying that figures lie and liars figure. However, I think I am quite safe in assuming that all hon. members in the committee, no matter how we may differ in our opinions about certain things, have enough confidence in the integrity and sincerity of each other to believe that no one of us will deliberately use figures with the intention of misleading. 
I have been trying to find a common base upon which to compare the income of farmers with that of other groups in the community. I was deeply interested in hearing the hon. member for Lethbridge use the year 1913, because recently a friend of mine gave me a graph of considerable interest. This graph, which I had not seen before, had been prepared by the Department of Pensions and National Health in 1937, and showed the index numbers of farm prices and industrial wages, taking the year 1913 as a base of 100.
Up to that time I had found that in some tables the period 1926-1929 was used. In still others I found the period 1935-1939. However, this was the first time I had seen the year 1913 used as a base. It seemed to me that whereas in that year industrial wages and farm prices were at exactly the same level, for that reason it was a fair year to take. I extended the graph from 1937 up to 1944, the last year for which I could get figures from the Department of Labour showing index numbers for wages.
I do not propose to draw any definite conclusions from the graph, because I am not an economist, and I do not know what the proper relationship is between the two lines which are shown. I frankly admit that as a farmer I look at this matter from a farmer's viewpoint. I dare say, however, that until I get other facts I cannot draw any definite conclusions. My only purpose in drawing this graph to the attention of the committee is to see if we can find out just what these figures imply.
For instance, we find that the index number of farm prices up to 1920 was above that of industrial wages. In comparison with the year 1913 when there was a base of 100, farm prices rose to 258-8 while industrial wages went only to 205-5, representing a difference of 53-3 points. In 1921 farm prices dropped 22-3 points below -wages, and they have been below ever since.
Surely there should be a more fair relationship between prices and wages than the figures I have mentioned would indicate. The period 1926-29 is usually considered the period in which we enjoyed most normal conditions, and in that year the difference was 28-7 points; that is, the index number of farm prices was 28-7 below that of industrial wages. During the thirties both farm prices and wages dropped disastrously, but in 1932 farm prices went to a low of 25 points below the 1913 figure, while wage rates were still 72-1 above the 1913 base. And in 1933 when wages were at their lowest point they were 63-3 points above the 1913 level.

Supply-A gricul ture
By 1939 wage rates had risen to 191-9, while farm prices had not quite reached the 1913 level, the index number standing at 99-6. In 1941 the index of farm prices was 109-3, while the index of wages was 218-6, or 109-3 points above farm prices. In 1944, owing to subsidies, farm prices rose to 160-9, but wages rose to 263-9, or a difference of 103 points.
As I said before, these figures do not necessarily prove anything unless we have many more related facts and probably they cannot be used to much advantage. However, they do give us a long-time picture of the trend of prices and wages. They are quite interesting .when taken in conjunction with the cost of living. With the permission of the committee I should like to place on Hansard this graph and the figures that go with it.


William Henry Golding: Has the hon. member the permission of the committee?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Agreed.


Theobald Butler Barrett: The graph and figures follow:
Index numbers of wholesale prices of farm products and industrial wages 1913-1946 with 1913 = 100.
Total Indus-
Can. trial Farm Wages Products
1913 	
100	*0	100	*0	1914 	
110	[DOT]8	101	[DOT]3	+	9-51915 	
124	[DOT]3	102	[DOT]1	+	22-21916 	
143	*3	109	[DOT]2	+	34-11917 	
207	*5	125	*1	+	82-41918 	
211	*9	147	[DOT]0	+	64-91919 	
233	*1	172	[DOT]9	+	60-21920 	
258	8	205	*5	+	53-31921 	
164	*8	187	[DOT]1	22-31922 	
138-	*5	174	*8	-	36-31923 	
127	[DOT]6	179	*6	-	52-01924 	
139'	[DOT]1	181	*9	-	42-81925 	
160'	[DOT]5	180	*0	-	19-51926 	
159	*6	181	*1	-	21-51927 	
162'	'2	185'	[DOT]2	-	23-01928 	
158'	*4	187'	[DOT]1	-	28-71929 	
158'	*8	190'	*4	-	31-61930 	
127-	*7	19L	>9	-	64-21931 	
86'	*1	185'	[DOT]4	-	99-31932 	
75-	1	172-	1	-	97-01933 	
79'	*8	163'	3	-	83-51934 	
92'	*6	164'	*8	-	72-21935 	
99'	*6	169'	'8	-	70-21936 	
109-	6	172'	*7	-	63-11937 	
139-	3	185-	6	-	46-31938 	
116-	1	191-	1	-	75-01939 	
99-	6	191-	9	-	92-31940 	
103'	8	199'	*4	-	95-61941 	
109-	3	218-	6	-	109-31942 	
126-	9	235-	1	-	108-21943 	
148-	8	254-	8	-	106-01944 	
160-	9	263-	9	-	103-01945 	
165-	1	1946	January	
166-6February	
167-4March	
167-4
See graph on following page.
As I say, these figures show an interesting picture when taken in conjunction with the cost of living index. Taking 1913 as a base with the cost of living at 100, we find that the cost of living increased to 128-4 in 1939, while industrial wages increased to 191. This represented an increase in real wages or, as we usually term it, the standard of living of 49 per cent. Thus the long-time trend of real wages increased about two per cent a year.


Mr. WRIGHT:: Does the graph indicate the wage rates or the actual wages received? It does not mean very much if a man is being paid $1 an hour and he can work only one hour a day.


Theobald Butler Barrett: 

At the outbreak of war in 1939 farm machinery prices were seven per cent above the 1926-29 period, while prices of farm products were 'Still 36 per cent below that level. During the war farm machinery prices were frozen and prices of farm produots rose; but in spite of that fact, in spite of the bonuses that were paid, those prices were only ten per cent above the 1926-29 level, while farm machinery prices were 16 per cent above. Most of the

increase in farm prices was on account of bonuses or subsidies which came out of the national treasury and part of that was taken out of the farmers' own pocket.
The recent increase in the ceiling of machinery prices will increase this discrepancy because it will put those prices about 23 per cent above the base period, while farm products, even with all the bonuses and the recent increases in prices of hogs and butter,

Sup-ply-Agriculture
will be only 12 per cent above, as is shown by the following official figures of the bureau of statistics.
I have here a table entitled, "Index numbers of prices of farm machinery and prices of farm products." This was put out by the dominion bureau of statistics with the figures being converted to the 1926-29 level. It shows farm machinery prices and. farm products prices as 100 for 1926-29. By 1939 farm products had dropped to 67-7, while prices of farm machinery had increased to 106-8. During 1942, 1943 and 1944 prices of farm machinery stood at 120, while prices of farm products were 81-7, 95, and 101-9 respectively. I should like permission, Mr. Chairman, to put the whole table on Hansard.


William Henry Golding: Has the hon. member the permission of the committee?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Agreed.


Theobald Butler Barrett: 
Mr. ARCHIBALD:: There is just one problem I wish to bring up at the present time. It arises out of a letter that I have received from the Bulkley valley, between Prince George and Prince Rupert. I will read the letter so that the Minister of Agriculture can give me a reply when he speaks later. The letter says in part:
The world is clamouring for wheat. Still the dominion government practically prohibits the Bulkley valley farmers from growing wheat and oats. The dominion government pays over $8 a ton for freight on pats shipped from the prairies to the Bulkley valley and Skeena river, plus more than $8 bonus per ton on wheat. As everybody knows, it is hard enough for Bulkley valley farmers to compete with the prairies growing wheat, but with the bonus against them it just stops them growing grain.
If it was to help the chicken farmers, why not bonus eggs instead? What excuse is there to pay the freight on oats to the lumber camps? Is the price of lumber too low?
I would ask the minister, is there not some way of bonusing the farmers in that section so that they may supply the needs of that area? They have the land available, and if they were given the bonus rather than the railways they could produce at a fair return to themselves.


George Hugh Castleden: There is one point which I think the Minister of Agriculture has not covered in his remarks. I believe he was present at the food and agriculture organization meeting in Quebec City last October, where the need was expressed for the promotion of human welfare and for saving the world by providing it with the necessities of life. Noel Baker, the head of the British delegation, said at that conference that it was hunger that made Hitler. That conference did recognize the necessity for the food-
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producing countries of the world tackling the problem of planning production in a worldwide way. Sir John Boyd Orr said:
If the nations of the world are going to get together to feed the peoples of the world, they must increase the production of our most important foods.
In many cases the production must be more than doubled.
In the face of that, the situation in Canada is alarming. During the past few years we have had hundreds of thousands of our men over in Europe, while food production was being carried on in this country in a noble way by those who remained on the farm. They did a great job. The fact that Canada can produce and did produce the food she did is one which no one can doubt. But -to-day there are more people here to do the work, and people better qualified to do the work. There is a tremendous demand for food production in Canada to-day. Yet we are faced with a butter shortage, shortages of other foods, and with rationing. At the same time we have 260,000 people unemployed in this country.
There is something seriously wrong when we have the power to produce, and when we have those unemployed seeking work and yet are not getting the needed production, because irrespective of what the minister said in regard to production in the years from 1942 to 1945 he will have to admit that in 1946 we are facing a serious reduction in food production all along the line as compared with the corresponding months of 1945. There must be a number of factors causing this reduction. What is needed at this time is a study of those factors which are causing a reduction in our food production at the very time when we and the whole world need food as never before. If we are to save this world we shall save it through food production to-day. If the united nations organization is to be successful it must be built on the basis of a world where the people who produce the food must receive a return that will pay them for their labour. If the nations who need our food cannot pay for the produce we are selling, let the facts be presented to us and then we can decide upon the next step.
As has been said by a previous speaker, there is evidence in everything which emanates from farm organizations, whether in expressions of opinion or formal resolutions, that those engaged in agricultural production are not satisfied. There are factors which are definitely working against the production of food, and it is our duty to study what those factors are and decide upon a solution. I will submit to the minister one or two points

which have arisen in my own experience. We find in the reports tabled by various organizations, in the statistical records, in general information received and from conversations with those actually engaged in the production of food, what are the considerations uppermost in the minds of those who are going out of production.
In proof of what I have said, the figures in the monthly dairy review of Canada issued by the bureau of statistics show, as I believe I stated about a month ago, that the following reductions have occurred in percentages of creamery butter produced in Canada since the beginning of the present year, as compared with the corresponding period of 1945: January, 15-6; February, 18-3; March, 19-6; April, 8-8. The production of cheddar cheese in Canada was 27-8 per cent less than in the same month of 1945; in February the reduction was 36-5 per cent; in March, 35-5 per cent; in April 33 per cent. The figures with regard to the production of hogs have ahead}' been admitted by the minister. I think his explanation is that the production of hogs and cattle, particularly in the winter time, depends upon the amount of feed that is grown; and since the volume of coarse grains grown in Canada was much smaller, there was bound to be some reduction. But the farmers who previously raised -hogs have shown that, even though they had had the feed, they had no inclination to resume this line of production, that they would not bother feeding grain to hogs. That is true in the west, and there must be some reason.
Farm organizations, and particularly the United Farmers of Canada, have urged a more realistic plan to stimulate food production in Canada, Among their recommendations was one relative to farm Jabour. Surely these problems are not insurmountable. If Canada could produce these products in war time she can produce them in peace time. If people who are out of work are reluctant to undertake farm labour there must be something hindering them. Is it the fact that there is no adequate return for their work? What is the solution?
In his speech to-day the minister made a curious explanation as to what in his opinion is wrong with agriculture. He said we all know that people like to grow things, that they desire to produce food and clothing for mankind. If that attitude is an indication of his policy I believe his policy has been wrong. You kill the desire of people to grow things, whether for food or for clothing, if you require them to grow these supplies without giving them the necessary return.

Supply-A griculture


James Arthur Ross: Hear, hear. The profit motive.


George Hugh Castleden: After these long years of drought and anxiety the farmer needs a return for his labour. If you are going to provide it-


Gordon Knapman Fraser: Private enterprise.


George Hugh Castleden: Private enterprise?
Like the grain exchange? Money was made by those who operate on the grain exchange, and the people who consume the products pay more too, but not to the farmer. That is where your trouble is. Nobody will go on a farm and work year after year under those conditions. True, the farmer likes to see things growing; he wants to help in production, but from long experience he has learned that at the end of it all there is no guarantee that he will have something for his labour. Year after year the lack of return on the investment he has in his farm, and the weight of the mortgage he cannot pay back, mean a constant piling up of debt which cannot be met. Finally it means that he must leave the farm, because the mortgage company forecloses, and then it sells the place to somebody else when another crop of farmers comes along. That is your "private enterprise" for you. The chaps who run these mortgage and loan companies lend the farmer money when prices are high and collect when wheat goes down to thirty or forty cents a bushel.


George Alexander Cruickshank: What do you want?


George Hugh Castleden: The farmers of Canada stated in their brief that there must be an immediate cancellation of the federal tax of three cents per gallon on gasoline used for agricultural purposes. They also insisted that there must be an immediate revision of the Income War Tax Act to eliminate inequalities in the application of the act to farming operations. After talking to farmers during the past, year, I do not believe there is one single thing about which complaints have been more general. Cases are cited where a farmer, not being permitted by the laws of this country to deliver his grain in 1942 and 1943. delivered it in 1944, and then the income tax officials came around and collected on the basis of his income from cash sales in 1944 in respect of grain raised and income earned in 1942-and 1943. I suggest, perhaps not to the Minister of Agriculture direct but through him to the Minister of National Revenue, that the time is long past when the government should go into the whole matter of farm income tax and put it on an equitable basis.
The present system is entirely unjust in the light of conditions which have prevailed over so many years. Half the year in the prairie country there is no production. The minister admits that if for four or five years you have crops, you may then expect to go for four or five years with no production.


James Garfield Gardiner: Not "no" production; low production.


George Hugh Castleden: Yes. He also stated the facts when he said that production is so low that it does not cover the cost of operation during those drought years of which he spoke, when the farmer was going into debt year after year. In 1941, 1942, 1943, and to a greater extent in 1944 and 1945 the farmer found he had some income over and above his cost of production. What did he do with it? He turned over the money to pay off his debts; and the figures which have been placed before the house show the admirable way in which he did so. Now he finds, having discharged the debts he incurred in the thirties and early forties, a heavy income tax is placed on him for the years 1942, 1943 and 1944.


An hon. MEMBER:: Then he has to go to the mortgage company to borrow money to pay his income tax.


George Hugh Castleden: Many cases have been reported to me where farmers have had to go to the bank and borrow the money to meet their heavy income tax. I suggest to the minister that revisions of the act in one or two respects would do a great deal to increase agricultural production on the prairies. Number one would be to allow as an exemption on his income tax any debts paid by a farmer which were incurred prior to 1940, in years when he had low production. Secondly, allowance should be made in that income tax form for wages to the farmer's wife and those of his children sixteen years of age and over who are working on the farm. To put the combined earnings of these people, as they are on the farm, on one man and charge him on anything in excess of $1,200 is patently unfair. Similar groups of people living anywhere else and putting in the long hours that are put in by the farmer and his family-the farmer working fifteen hours a day and his wife and children anywhere from ten or twelve to fifteen hours-would not be treated in that way. There must be some justice in this scheme of things if we are ever to get people back on a producing basis. The farmers feel this injustice deeply, and their natural reaction, for which you cannot blame them, is this: "Is it to be said that
Supply-Agriculture

after working these extra hours raising hogs, feeding chickens, raising turkeys, getting up early and milking cows and working the cream separator, no allowance is to be made us? There is only one thing we can do, because it is not worth it; we will simply produce to the $1,500 level and live as best we can, cutting down our hours of labour to ten or twelve instead of fifteen, and in some cases, eighteen."
The farm organizations of Canada have also stated that some action should be taken to halt the practice of sales of flour with mill feeds sold to farmers. In eastern Canada there has been a common practice among people selling feeds to farmers to stipulate that if they want so many sacks of feed they must take so many sacks of flour along with it. Perhaps it was not put exactly in that way, but the farmer did actually have to take flour in order to get feed.


James Garfield Gardiner: It is against the regulations to do that now.


George Hugh Castleden: I believe it is against the regulations now.


James Garfield Gardiner: And has been for some time.


George Hugh Castleden: When was it stopped?


James Garfield Gardiner: An attempt was made to stop it two or three years ago. I am not saying that it has been stopped, but it is against the regulations. You cannot, however, prevent a farmer from taking home flour if he goes to buy feed and he sees flour in the store selling at a certain price. If he wishes to take it home and mix it with the feed which he has. at home there is no way of stopping him.


George Hugh Castleden: That is not the case to which I refer.


James Garfield Gardiner: It is the kind of case.


George Hugh Castleden: I am speaking of actual cases where the farmer has been told that if he wanted to take home feed he must take so many sacks of flour.


James Garfield Gardiner: That was the position taken by the mills for a long period of years, that if you wished to get feed you had to take a certain proportion of flour. I understand it was first instituted by the mills, and the dealers were told that if they wanted half a carload of feed they must fill the car up with flour. At first it was a practice. on the part of the mills themselves and later on, during the war, we had a provision requiring that cars should not be shipped partly filled. That, however, had nothing to do with feed or flour. It was due to the shortage of rolling 
stock to carry all the freight that had to be moved during war time. Some of the boards stated that cars had to be loaded to full capacity. When we attempted to enforce the regulation with regard to farmers taking feed we were confronted with that fact. We were told that if a man wanted only three-quarters of a car of feed they could not sell it unless they could fill the car, and he would take flour to fill it. Of course it was stated that this was carried out to the dealer, who said to the farmer, "If you want to get the amount of feed that you have ordered you must take so much flour"; and the farmer in some cases, I presume, took lower grades of flour home and mixed it with the feed he had and fed it. Attempts have been made to stop that kind of thing, but there are cases where the farmers find it to their advantage to feed flour. They have taken a lower grade of flour, particularly since wheat has gone up and flour has been maintained on the basis of 78 cents. The farmer walks into a shop and sees a bag of flour there, and he decides that it is to his advantage to buy the flour rather than buy wheat at $1.55 or $1.25 a bushel. So he buys the flour and mixes it himself along with the feed he has and he feeds it. I do not know any way of stopping that by law. It is a practice that has obtained.


George Hugh Castleden: I understand that side of it, but there were cases where farmers were practically compelled to take home flour a couple of years ago.


James Garfield Gardiner: That was true some time ago.


George Hugh Castleden: The farmers' organizations wanted it stopped because in many cases the flour was more than they could use themselves. It was a result of the milling industry being overstocked with flour; there was a heavy demand for feed and they did not have shipping space to send it overseas.


James Garfield Gardiner: There was a heavy demand for mill feeds such as bran and shorts, in the United States and elsewhere, which could have been sold to better advantage there, and consequently pressure was put on.


George Hugh Castleden: The fact remains that the world requires that flour to feed people and I hope the practice will be completely stopped. I presume it will be stopped, because there will not be the same shortage, and flour will be in too great a demand throughout the world.
The other department that links itself with food production is not under the minister, but a statement was given this afternoon with regard to the number of veterans. I suggest that the Minister of Agriculture, with the

Supply-Agriculture
assistance of the Minister of Veterans Affairs, give consideration to the fact that there are
18,000	returned men who have qualified as farmers. Everything possible should be done at an early date; some emergency measures should be taken, to see that these men get on their land and get into production for the crop of 1946. In another month it will be too late. I have letters. from my constituency indicating that men have qualified and have been allocated land, but some inspections have not been completed or for some other reason they are being held up. Surely where these men have qualified under the regulations under the Veterans Land Act, where they have proved themselves to be farmers and men of sound judgment, they should be left to choose the land. It should be left to them if they are considered fit to be farmers, having some idea of what an economic piece of land is.
I understand the minister's difficulty and I appreciate his anxiety to avoid some of the errors that occurred under the old soldier settlement board. But here are 18,000 young men, many of them married, who want to get started, and the world is in need of production. I urge the ministers to get together and do all *hey can to wipe out the red tape that is preventing these young men from getting into production, because they should be seeding to-day. Seeding in the west is pretty well on and in some parts practically completed.
A good deal has been said-the subject has been referred to in every speech that has been made-with regard to increases in farm prices. This party has supported the government in its efforts by means of price ceilings to prevent inflation; we are going to stay with the government in the maintenance of prices, and we demand that these prices be not broken. There must be a proper relation between cost of production and the value of the farmers' products. If the government will stand firmly by this principle they will bring security into the minds and hearts of the farmers, and that is something that is valuable. But we will oppose them every time they puncture these ceilings. That position should be made clear. That is why we opposed the agricultural implement increase without a corresponding increase in farm prices. If the farm prices are raised there is an increase in the cost of living and a spiral will be started, as the minister has already said. A proper relation between cost of production and farm prices would give security to the farmer, the thing that is most important to him, the thing that would keep him on the farm, the thing that will attract others to the farm. There are many more people who would enjoy producing and who would like to be producing than are on the
farms to-day, but they will not dare go on the farms because of the lack of security. If security can be guaranteed they will go at it. The same thing applies to the wages that are paid, and also to the cost of living. If there is a proper relationship existing there, there will not be much trouble with labour. If an increase is to be allowed on only one line without a corresponding increase in the other, then trouble can be expected from labour.
We do not believe, as do our hon. friends to the right, that the ceiling should be lifted. We went through a depression following a spiral of prices in the inflationary period and we do not want to go through that again.


Mr. SENN:: May I ask the hon. gentleman a question?


George Hugh Castleden: Yes.


Mark Cecil Senn: Does he believe that there is a proper relationship existing to-day between farm prices and prices of other commodities?


George Hugh Castleden: Not entirely at the present time. But they have not helped it any by allowing a 12^ per cent increase in the machinery which the farmer has to buy.


George Alexander Cruickshank: May I ask a question?


George Hugh Castleden: Yes. I have only a few minutes left. I am always glad to hear from the hon. member for Fraser Valley.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Does the hon. member believe in the socialization of milk?


George Hugh Castleden: Just as soon as milk gets into the hands of a monopoly I would say, yes, take it out.


George Alexander Cruickshank: The hon. member would take it away from the cooperatives?


George Hugh Castleden: Any profits or excess charges made in the operation are divided among the producers. A proper producers' cooperative spreads it around among the producers. There is no monopoly involved in a properly run producers' cooperative. The extra charges are spread evenly among the people.


George Alexander Cruickshank: They would have a corner on milk.


George Hugh Castleden: I would rather have all the people have a comer on something through a true cooperative than a private individual.
Another thing I should like to advocate to the minister is the establishment of the Canadian wheat board as the sole marketing agency of Canada's grain. The thing which farmers dislike to see is the bringing in of an agency such as the grain exchange at the time when farmers are out producing at a minimum re-
Supply-Agriculture

turn themselves, when everybody is doing his utmost to produce at a time when the world is in such a difficult situation. To see an organization like the Winnipeg grain exchange reinstated in the marketing field and start gambling in food would be a bitter blow to the people and would work to the detriment of food production throughout the world. If the farmers are guaranteed that security the minister need have no fear of what Canadian people will do with regard to farm production. Guarantee them a proper relationship over a period of years and you will get the best returns from the farmers. You will get more economic production and you will have the farmer in a position where he can produce economically because he can afford to buy the machinery to produce efficiently. You will have prosperity among the farmers which will give prosperity to the state. You will have a prosperous industry which will not only make the greatest contribution to the welfare of the people of Canada but provide the people of the world the food which is most essential to the maintenance of peace and to the future well-begin of our people. It is the only hope of humanity if it ever expects or hopes to live in a world where there are no wars.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
2.	Publicity and extension division, $154,804.
Mark Cecil Senn: On this item I should like to have the minister state if any new periodicals have been issued this year. Yesterday he made a statement to the effect that last year a certain amount of advertising of one kind or another had been done to assist the farmers in production. Could he give a short description of what is being done there?


James Garfield Gardiner: During the year sixty-five new and revised publications were issued. These included sixteen farmers' bulletins, five technical bulletins, eight circulars, six acts, orders and regulations, seven special war-time production series and twenty-three reports and miscellaneous publications. The statistics covering 1944 and 1945 with regard to these indicate that 850,224 publications were mailed on personal request; 582,056 publications were mailed in bulk for redistribution; 1,330,434 copies of market reports mailed on request; 8,680,738 copies of mimeographed, multigraphed and multi-leafed publications comprising press releases, news notes, market information and leaflets, et cetera, were distributed.


Mark Cecil Senn: The minister did not say what advertising had been done. He said yesterday that a certain amount of advertising had been done.


James Garfield Gardiner: Advertising comes under marketing. We had better take it up there.


William Scottie Bryce: Overseas does not come under the minister's department?


James Garfield Gardiner: Advertising overseas is done under trade and commerce and external affairs.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
[Stage Direction]
4.	Contributions to empire bureaux, $47,397.
George Hugh Castleden: How many empire
bureaux are operating?


James Garfield Gardiner: The original eight
bureaux were organized in 1928. They are as follows: Bureau of soil science, located at Rothamsted experimental station; bureau of animal health, located at the veterinary research laboratory, Weybridge; bureau of animal nutrition, located at Rowett research institute, Aberdeen, Scotland; bureau of animal genetics, located at the university of Edinburgh, Scotland; bureau of plant genetics (crops other than herbage), located at the plant breeding institute, Cambridge; bureau of plant genetics (herbage crops) located at Aberystwyth, Wales; bureau of fruit production, located at East Mailing research station; bureau of agricultural parasitology, located at the institute of agricultural parasitology, Winches Farm drive, St. Albans. Additional bureaux organized since 1928; bureau of dairy science, located at national institute for research in dairying, university of Reading, Shinfield; forestry bureau, located at Oxford. Institutes operating under executive council of I.A.B.: mycological institute, located at Kew, Surrey; institute of entomology, located at British museum (natural history) Cromwell road, London, S.W. 7.


George Hugh Castleden: I understand that each of the various parts of the empire make contributions to the bureaux that are set up in the British isles, is that right?


James Garfield Gardiner: Commonwealth countries?


George Hugh Castleden: Yes.
Progress reported.


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

Questions
Monday, May 13, 1946.