1948-05-04

Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to table order in council P C. 2013, of May 4, 1948, under the Public Service Rearrangement and Transfer of Duties Act, transferring certain powers, duties and functions vested in the Minister of Reconstruction and Supply with respect to civil aviation, meteorological and radio services under the Radio and Aeronautics acts to the Minister of Transport.



SPECIAL COMMITTEES


Hon. LIONEL CHEVRIER (Minister of of Transport) moved:: That the name of Mr. Baker be substituted for that of Mr. Tremblay on the special committee on veterans affairs.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Hon. COLIN GIBSON (Secretary of State) moved:: That the name of Mr. Harris (Grey-Bruce) be substituted for that of Mr. Robinson (Sim-coe East) on the special committee to consider amendments to the Dominion Elections Act.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. J. McCANN (Minister of National Revenue) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 228, to amend the Excise Act, 1934.
He said: This bill to amend the Excise Act, 1934, is designed primarily as an economy measure. For many years past, malt has been subject to duty at the point of production, that is the malt-houses. It is now proposed to assess the duty as the malt is received at the brewery. The cost of administration is greatly in excess of what it will be if we do not attempt to collect the excise tax on all malt 5849-227
and then make refunds to those who use it in industry. None of these uses in industry, other than in the breweries, has ever yielded any federal revenue. It is believed that the control heretofore exercised should now be relinquished. This has been the experience in other countries, and Canada is the only English-speaking country, so far as is known, that maintains this system.
This bill, therefore, is designed to remove that control and to place it at the point where the revenue actually accrues, namely at the breweries, and to amend the Excise Act to bring this into effect.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.


[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. J. McCANN (Minister of National Revenue) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 229, to amend the Customs Act.
He said: Mr. Speaker, this bill is designed to give effect to undertakings embodied in the general agreement on tariffs and trade adopted at the conclusion of the second session of the preparatory committee of the united nations conference on trade and employment, especially article VII of the said agreement. This article defines principles for the determination of stabilized customs valuation which the signatory countries undertake to accord to importations of goods from each other. The bill revises or deletes such sections of the existing law as are repugnant to the agreement, and also removes certain sections which, by reason of changes in conditions, have become obsolete.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. 0. WHITE (Middlesex East): I should like to direct a question to the Prime Minister. Inasmuch as the London Little Theatre group and one of its players have won top awards at the recent dominion drama festival in Ottawa, thus establishing London, Ontario, as the cultural capital of Canada,
Inquiries oj the Ministry
[Stage Direction]
will the Prime Minister lend his support to the establishment of a national theatre and a national library?
William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not know whether
the reason my hon. friend has given is the only one that should govern, but personally I have always been in favour of a national theatre, and I should like to see one established.



SCRAP METAL


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. T. J. BENTLEY (Swift Current):: I should like to ask the Minister of Trade and Commerce a question. Are Canadian steel producers importing scrap metal? If so, is the government paying a subsidy on such scrap metal?


Right Hon. C. D. HOWE (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: Canadian steel producers are obtaining scrap metal wherever they can find it. It is one of the scarcest of raw materials today. A certain amount is being imported, much of it from distant countries. Shipments from long distances within Canada as well as import shipments can qualify for subsidy, under certain conditions. The maximum subsidy payable is $10 per ton.



HOUSING


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. W. TIMMINS (Parkdale):: I should like to ask a question of the Minister of Reconstruction and Supply. What procedure, if any, has the department set up to co-ordinate building construction financing under the National Housing Act with the new Ontario housing development act, 1948?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I have yet to learn of any procedure being set up for the carrying out of the Ontario housing development act. As soon as I find that there is such a procedure, I shall be glad to co-operate to the best of my ability.


Mr. SMITH (Calgary West):: Let us hope he means it.



LABOUR CONDITIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. J. A. MacKINNON (Acting Minister of Mines and Resources):: Yesterday the hon. member for Nanaimo asked a question regard-

ing certain ships' crews on the Pacific coast. The crew of the C.G.S. Parry was asked to sign ships' articles on the basis of last year's wages pending the receipt of a schedule of rates for this year from the Department of Labour. This they refused to do. The schedule of rates for 1948 was received from the Department of Labour on April 29, and after one or two minor points had been cleared up it was approved today, to be effective January 1, 1948. Officials of the department in British Columbia are being notified to that effect. The rates set by the Department of Labour provide for increases of from $15 to $20 per month in most classes of ships' crews.


Mr. G. R. PEARKES (Nanaimo):: May I ask a supplementary question? Do the same conditions apply to the Wm. J. Stewart, the other hydrographic ship?


James Angus MacKinnon: These rates apply to both ships.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Are they looking for goldeyes out there?


James Angus MacKinnon: We do not have to go to the Pacific coast for goldeyes.



POSTAL SERVICES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. PATRICK H. ASHBY (Edmonton East): May I ask the Postmaster General if the postal services have a motto today and, if so, what is that motto?
Arthur Leroy Smith: The postman rings twice.


Hon. ERNEST BERTRAND (Postmaster General):: I think I shall have to take that learned question into consideration.



THE BUDGET


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. ALAN COCKERAM (York South):: I desire to ask a question of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) and in his absence I shall ask his parliamentary assistant to answer. My question is based upon a leading article which appeared in the Toronto Daily Star of last night written by Mr. Robert Taylor and dealing with the budget. My question is this: Has Mr. Taylor been privileged to have a preview of the budget speech to be delivered by the minister at some date in the distant future?

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Mr. R. W. MAYHEW (Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Finance):: No, he has not.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Monday, May 3, consideration of the motion of Mr. Abbott for committee of supply.
Mr. L. R. BEAUDOIN (Vaudreuil-Soul-anges):: Mr. Speaker, some reference was made last night to the cost of our embassies and their usefulness, and that prompted me to look up the record. The annual report of the Department of External Affairs informs us that Canada has twenty-eight diplomatic missions and seven consular offices abroad in addition to the permanent delegation to the united nations, the military mission in Germany, and the liaison mission in Japan. There are 38 posts abroad, and some 800 other employees. The total estimates for the department amount to less than $10,000,000. It is a very small sum having regard to the magnitude and delicate responsibility of the task performed by the department.
In this interdependent age the channels kept opened and busy between Canada and its neighbours, both close and distant, are necessary for the life of a sovereign nation. The enlightening statement of the minister, the volume of well-weighed information which permitted the minister not only to depict the international scene to us but to arrive at decisions wrhich aim at averting war, constitute ample proof of the importance and value of our observation posts abroad and the high degree of co-ordination of our diplomatic operations.
Apart from sending a delegation to united nations last fall, during 1947 Canada was represented at 68 international conferences and meetings. In that same year Canada became party to 17 multilateral agreements and to 27 bilateral agreements. No matter how impressive these accomplishments might be, they represent only part of the work performed by the various branches of the department. Compared to the cost of a war, a few millions of dollars spent as a premium against war is indeed the very best investment this country can make. The minister has already stated that his department observes a sense of proportion in its expansion, and that should assure the country that the government is not under any delusion of grandeur.
While speaking about the work of the Department of External Affairs I wish to pay a special tribute to L. B. Pearson, Gerry Riddell and Escott Reid, and others with 5849-2274
whom I had the pleasure of working, for their good judgment and devotion to duty. They rate with the best diplomats, and they serve Canada well.
I would like to bring to your attention the name of Mr. Bruce Williams, with whom I was more closely associated during my stay in New York. We were partners on the third committee. He is a man of great ability who will certainly work himself up within a very short time to higher stations, and I wish him well.
A great deal has been said in this debate about social justice being the best deterrent to communism. I fully concur in that view. The united nations charter is filled with provisions which, if implemented, would inevitably bring about a higher order of social justice. We must, however, create the atmosphere of good will which will facilitate the institution of needed reforms. By following the course set by the right hon. minister of external affairs (Mr. St. Laurent), we are moving in a position to achieve those aims. Unfortunately, but necessarily, the set-up must include a show of strength, a plan of resistance against aggression.
At the international level we cannot move forward unless the threat of communism, which denies all justice and freedom, has disappeared. At the national level, we could and we should do better. This government is I think doing all it can, but only at the speed which co-operation and other factors permit, having regard to our complex constitutional system.
The social security measures proposed by this government in 1945 have been acclaimed all across the country. Some of the measures it was possible for this government to enact alone. Others necessitated agreements with the provinces. It is unfortunate that agreement could not be obtained. The guilty ones bear an enormous responsibility. Had these measures been enacted two years ago, as they could have been, no one can tell how instrumental they might have been in eliminating the advance of communism in this country, but in my view they certainly would have taken us a long way toward that goal.
In New York, on January 28, 1947, His Eminence Cardinal McGuigan of Toronto declared as reported in a special article by the New York Times correspondent published in the Montreal Gazette:
. . . that Canada's current socialization measures were among the best defences against what he termed the clever, insidious tactics "of Canadian communists and their fellow-travellers.
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Because of this realistic attitude among Canadians, he said, the country is adjusting itself in a well-ordered way to the post-war world.
We shall pursue that course of adjusting this country in a well-ordered way to the postwar world, removing obstacles as quickly as possible.
We know that we cannot be free alone, in an environment of enslaved neighbours. If freedom is to survive in Canada, it must be preserved elsewhere. Without freedom, we cannot enjoy and develop the spiritual and material wealth we possess. What we must bear in mind in this matter of a total preventive war is not the cost but the objective, namely, peace and security for countries with governments of the people, by the people and for the people.


Mr. WILLIAM IRVINE (Cariboo):: Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to have this opportunity of expressing my views on the matter now before the house. It is probable that the desire of so many to speak on this issue does not arise from any conviction on their part that they can solve all or any of the problems which confront the world today, but it does mean that we are seized with a sense of the great importance of the questions which confront the various nations and which directly or indirectly affect our own. It also means that we feel obligated to express our own views and those of the people we represent in this house.
I am sure we are all grateful to the right hon. Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. St. Laurent) for his masterly .presentation to the house of a complete picture of the international scene. I think it may be said almost for the first time that Canada now has an international policy although there are some phases of that international policy, as I see it, which perhaps make it worse than having no policy at all. Nevertheless it is well that we have recognized the necessity of taking an active part in international affairs, and having a policy of our own in regard thereto.
I will mention a few outstanding features of present world conditions as I see them. For instance, the economic plight of Europe and of the world in general; the deplorable situation in Greece, Korea and China; the failure to find a basis for a peace treaty with Germany; the great need on the part of all nations to protect mankind from another world war, and the present tendency, which we see everywhere, to widen the breach between the two great leading nations of the world in -such a way as to lead ultimately to the third world war which we fear so much.

I do not intend to deal with these important matters individually. I move at once to what appears to me to be the heart of the matter in international affairs, and that is the way of life practised by the two most powerful nations in conflict in the present situation- communism as practised in Russia and capitalism as practised in America.
These ideologies are clashing, and practically all the other nations in between. these two either already are or are gradually becoming satellites of one or the other. These things are happening through military or economic pressures, and needless to say all the emotions which the traditions, cultures, prejudices and fears on both sides can summon have been called into play in the battle of propaganda and diplomacy which has raged continuously, especially between these two contending forces, since the cessation of hostilities in world war II. In consequence an international hysteria, rather than that reason and good will which might have been expected from nations who fought side by side as allies in the greatest war of all time, has dominated international affairs. As a very natural consequence every constructive move toward peace, every sane proposal for the reconstruction of world economics, has been blocked, and the united nations organization, in which the hopes of mankind reposed, has been weakened to the point of ineffectiveness.
The Marshall plan, so-called, the assistance of which the countries of Europe need so very much, cannot be freed from the bedevilment of the present diplomatic conflict; for no matter how much Europe needs that help, the plan provided an opportunity for those in a position to give that help to use it, if they so wished, in their power policy and in their struggle to gain privileges or to gain points against contending nations.
I do not say, of course, Mr. Speaker, that the United States of America, which is the nation privileged to be in a position to render the help to which I refer, will use it in this way; but I say the opportunity is there, and those on the other side who know the opportunity is there are afraid of it. During the Italian election, some people in high places in the United States went so far as to intimidate the electors of that nation by stating that if they did not vote in a certain way there would be no help forthcoming to them from the economic assistance expected from the United States of America. That sort of thing, that sort of feeling, which is whipped up and stimulated by all kinds of propaganda, cannot be expected to lead to anything other than distress, hate and futility.

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In spite of the present deadlock in the international field I do not believe that war is likely in the near future. I do not believe, for example, that Russia either wants war or is in a position to wage war. I do not believe that the people of the United States want war, although they are in a better position to fight one successfully than Russia appears to be. In addition there can be little doubt that the destructive possibility of war in the atomic age has a sobering effect on all the nations of the world.
While these observations may be accurate in the main, they do not by any means preclude war. If things go on as they are going, war will be ultimately possible at least. Of course, we blame Russia, and Russia blames us-that is to say, the capitalist democracies. I should not like to be a judge of where the largest part of the blame should fall. The make-up of the star actors in the present world tragedy is too good to permit ready recognition of the actors; and history will have to pass judgment on what has taken place in the world during the last two years.
There are no doubts about the fact that there are real differences between the Russian way of life and ours. There are enough of those differences to bring about friction among human beings carrying on the ordinary affairs of life; but a good deal of the friction, a good deal of the fear and the hate so manifest during the past year or so, has arisen over alleged occurrences and actions which have no basis in fact at all.
I provide just one example of that, Mr. Speaker, and it is a striking one. I am going to quote from a special article from the New York Times to the Globe and Mail of April 11, which reads as follows:
The famous "Protocol M", allegedly containing communist information bureau instructions for action by German communists, has been proved to be a forgery, it is learned from a completely reliable source.
The British intelligence service, which had been hoodwinked originally into considering the protocol a genuine document, discovered that it actually had been prepared by an anticommunist German. After careful detective work the author of the document was tracked down and arrested.
It may be recalled that considerable fuss was made last winter when the protocol was first foisted upon the British, who released it to the press in all good faith, convinced of its genuineness.
This incident is characteristic of one phase of the present-day nervousness and suspicion in Europe. A network of forgers and falsifiers- some clever and some not

is busily peddling allegedly secret documents to embassies, intelligence officers, ministries and newspaper correspondents.
The market for such "phonies" is probably better today than ever before in history.
Hon. members will recall that when that protocol was made public, newspapers all across this continent wrote editorials upon it. The editorials written were not such as to further the cause of good feeling and good relationships amongst nations. I point out to you, sir, that this is only an example of that sort of manufactured evidence which sometimes is used with great effect by the press and others who may be better informed about the origin of these things, and who use it with devilment in their minds rather than with the idea of presenting the truth.
Our fears and our hates of the Russian revolution subsided during the years of war; our differences went to sleep on the battlefield drenched in the blood of Russians, of the British, the Americans, and all the people of the allied countries. I cannot, even in these days of estrangement and bitterness, forget the Gargantuan efforts and prodigious sacrifices of our Russian allies at that time. Nor did we stint our praise of their valour and their powers then. I presume they praised the American, the British, the Canadians, and the rest in similar fashion. They could not have been blind to the unsurpassed heroism of the British navy and the British merchant marine who plied the North sea and the Arctic despite submarine and bomber. Surely the failure to retain some modicum of that fellowship, generated in the hell-fire of a common danger, is the greatest failure of all. I hold in my hand the inscription on a scroll which was sent to the Russian people just at the close of the great war. The scroll was signed by many dignitaries of the city of Toronto in Massey hall, and it was written by none other than Doctor E. J. Pratt, Canada's distinguished poet. I want to read it:
We have marched with you under allied banners,
That we might freely till our soil for bread, And slake our thirsts at the same natural fountains;
For to that end we counted up our dead.
Have not our streams-St. Lawrence and the Volga
Attested in these years their sisterhood?
Have not our seas-the Atlantic and the Caspian-
Savoured the salt and iron of our blood?
And we would march with you in peace tomorrow,
To an horizon starred with steady goals,
Where granaries await our mortal hungers. And the deep-quenching wells invite our souls.
I am fully convinced that many things that the Russians believe and say about us are not true.


Mr. GIBSON (Comox-Alberni):: Did you get a reply to that? I ask just for information.
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William Irvine: I do not know whether there is a reply. I am equally convinced that many things which many of us say and believe about the Russians are just as false as some of the things they say and believe about us.
I turn to Edmund Burke, the great British liberal, to find an historical parallel in reaction to revolution. The words I am about to quote from him were written with reference to the French revolution, and while no doubt they were true as a superficial appraisement, they give no inkling at all of the nobler and better things which emerged despite the wild uncontrollable passions which were then let loose. Burke says:
France has bought undisguised calamities at a higher price than any nation has purchased the most unequivocal blessing! France has brought poverty by crime! France has not sacrificed her virtue to her interests but she has abandoned her interests that she might prostitute her virtue . . . France, vThen she let loose the reins of regal authority, doubled the licence of a ferocious dissoluteness in manners and of an insolent irreligion in opinions and practice . . . France, by perfidy of her leaders, has utterly disgraced the tone of lenient council in the cabinet's princes and disarmed it of its most potent topics. She has dark, suspicious maxims of tyrannous distrust . . . They have found their punishment in their success . . . Their cruelty has not even been their base result of fear. It has been the effect of their perfect sense of safety, in authorizing treasons, robberies, rapes, assassinations, slaughters and burnings throughout their harassed lands.
I believe that if we change the word "France" to "Russia" we shall have what many people are saying and thinking today about Russia and about her revolution. But Burke changed his mind, and he was a big enough man to admit that he had done so; for shortly afterwards, with reference to the same subject, he wrote:
If a great change is to be made in human affairs, the minds of man will be fitted to it; the general opinions and feelings will draw' that way. Every fear, every hope will forward it; and then they who persist in opposing this mighty current in human affairs will appear rather to resist the decrees of Providence itself than the mere designs of men. They will not be resolute and firm but perverse and obstinate.
And so with the fear of those things which were regarded as so vicious. Those who had abandoned the interests of France in order to prostitute her virtue, now appear to have been instruments of the decrees of Providence.
However low our estimate of the Russian way of life may be, and I have no doubt it is quite low in many respects, their revolution did mean an improvement for them. At least they thought so, and I believe that in reality

it was. They identified all the evils of czarism, from which they had suffered prior to the revolution, with capitalism, and therefore they are just as much afraid of our capitalism as we are of their communism.
The Russian people think they gained by their revolution something which they would rather die than give up. Some of us, all of us I think, feel that during the centuries, in our struggle for liberty, we have gained something which we would rather die than give up; and as things are presented to us now, it appears that Russia must either die or give up some of the things she believes in, or we must either die or give up some of the things we hold so dear. I believe that history will prove that neither the Russians nor the western democracies need either die or give up the things they hold dear.
On the other hand, there are features of our wray of life which we ourselves do not want and which we are struggling day by day to eliminate, and no doubt there are in the Russian way of life features which we certainly do not want and which even the Russians themselves may not want, and which they may be struggling to get rid of and ultimately will get rid of, just as they got rid of the czar.
A world war, however, to determine which of these two ideologies shall dominate in the world, would be in my view the greatest of all great tragedies of all time; for in such a war, whichever of the two was victorious, it would mean that there would be foisted on the world a system which the peoples of the world would not want-because there are elements in our system which we do not want, while there are elements in the Russian system which we do not want and which perhaps they do not want.
Perhaps there is not enough knowledge and good will among men today for us to discover that desirable synthesis between these two extreme ideologies without our fighting it out on the battlefield, as has been the custom in the past. I hope, sir, we shall be able to struggle through to that synthesis without a third world war.
I think it might be possible mutually to agree to let each system demonstrate its ability to serve human needs and to leave history to judge between them. There is an old parable, which most of us will remember, about the tares and the wheat being allowed to grow together until the harvest. I see no reason why Russia should not be permitted to go ahead with her system in Russia and do the best she can with it for her people, and why we in this country and in the United States and other countries should not proceed with our systems that we like best and do the same

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thing. I prophesy that, if that can be managed, fifty years from now the world will take neither what we have now nor what Russia has now.
I say therefore that it would be nothing short of tragedy if we were to fight another world war over something that nobody wants. The people of the world will ultimately want planned economic security, which Russia proclaims, whether she obtains it or not; but they will also demand that political liberty which we proclaim but which we have scarcely yet attained.
Security with freedom is the objective of the human being today. Those two constitute the policy of democratic socialism.
I should like now to turn to a writer with whom I have heartily disagreed but with whom in this particular I have some modicum of agreement. I refer to Walter Lippmann. He says:
The beginning of wisdom on the Russian question is, I believe, to recognize the historic facts, that the division between eastern and western Europe, the rivalry between Russia and the nations of the west, did not begin with Marx, Lenin and Stalin.
He goes on to say in substance that the rivalry would not end if the Soviet regime were overthrown; that this rivalry, which has so recently become a problem to America, has been a problem to Britain for a hundred and fifty years. But he goes on to say-and this is the part I particularly desire to quote:
We must give up the notion that the choice is between one world, in which the Russians are our partners, and two worlds, in which we must annihilate the Russians or they must annihilate us. I do not believe that we must annihilate the Russians or fight them; that we must have either a perfect peace or a total war. I believe that the best policy is to recognize that the rivalry will remain, and not to think it could be abolished by the united nations or even by a victorious war.
I do not agree that rivalry between Russia and America must needs be of a permanent character. But I do agree, and for somewhat different reasons, that the smaller democratic nations who are being pressed by both Russia and the United States do not have now to perch themselves on either horn of the dilemma. I believe that in doing so they are jeopardizing the great cause of peace and that they are refusing to face the issue.
I have in my hand an editorial which appeared recently in the Ottawa Citizen. It says:
Today Washington, out of fear of Russia and communism, is backing the reactionary parties everywhere-in China, in France, in Greece, in Turkey, and above all in Italy . . .
That is a point of view which it is hard for us to escape accepting at the present moment.
I should like to advance the idea that the democratic and socialist countries of the world should make an attempt to hold the united nations together in spite of all the disappointments and the seeming futility of the past years. I believe they should endeavour to take a position which will stand between these two extreme powers, and try at that point to promote the principles of security and freedom. I believe that those nations should declare themselves as being opposed to the worst features of American capitalism, with its tremendous centralization of wealth, with its monopolistic control of the means by which the people of the nation must live, with its periods of poverty and unemployment and all the evils against which we are struggling here. I believe that those nations should refuse to endorse that system in toto, and should also refuse, as they are doing, to endorse what has been called the totalitarian attitude of the communists in refusing to grant to their peoples, as we are led to believe they do, the political freedom which means so much to us in this country and to the people in the other democratic countries of the world. I think these nations should fearlessly reject the worst features of both those systems and be prepared to accept whatever best there may be in them. Today I know there are some, even in this parliament, who advocate a union of nations outside of the united nations. To do that, I suggest, means that the united nations is dead, and that we are forming what will ultimately be only another military alliance which will endeavour to operate as the balance of armed strength between the two great military powers of the world. Whatever else should be done, therefore, I believe we should stand by the united nations organization.
I notice that the minister in his speech declared emphatically that there could be no co-operation whatsoever with Russia. Viewing the evidence over the last few years, I must admit that there appears to be a great deal in what he says in this regard. But that is not the end of the question. I do not think it is fair to say that such co-operation cannot be made possible under any circumstances. In the first place I should like to point out to the minister that we co-operated with Russia during the war; so far as I know, it was fairly effective co-operation. I should also like to point out that we have been trying to co-operate with Russia in the united nations, and at
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least in one instance-which I believe the minister mentioned in his speech, although he did not quote it as an example-co-operation was secured; I refer to the Palestine issue, which was dealt with by the assembly of the united nations. I say therefore that it is possible that co-operation may be ultimately achieved, even with Russia. To abandon the hope of it simply means that we are opening the door to ultimate war. For if Russia is bent upon conquest of the world, as we are told is her aim in forming her group of satellite nations, and is bound to deprive the world and all nations in it of their liberty-I say, if that be true, and if it be impossible to cooperate with Russia in any way to mitigate their intentions or to prevent that kind of thing, then there is only one course for the world, and that must be war. I see no way out of it; and at the present time I think it is much too soon to say that war is the only alternative.
As a matter of fact I noted also what I think was a sort of defeatism on the part of the minister when he said this, as reported at page 3444 of Hansard:
No one should expect, for instance, the machinery of the united nations to produce a solution for problems on1 which the two most powerful nations of the world may have diametrically opposed views that cannot be reconciled.
This is exactly what we expect the united nations will do. It is their job to find the solution. Anybody can throw up the sponge and say: It is hopeless; let us go home and make cannons. Apparently that is the policy to which Canada is now committed, if I read aright the arguments of the Secretary of State for External Affairs as reported at page 3449 of Hansard, where he advocates the formation of a defensive group of free states which would not be, he says, a counsel of despair, but a message of hope. He goes on to say:
It would not mean that we regarded a third world war as inevitable, but that the free democracies had decided that to prevent such a war they would organize so as to confront the forces of communist expansionism with an over-whe'.ming preponderance of moral, economic and military force and with sufficient degree of unity to ensure that this preponderance of force is so used that the free nations cannot be defeated one by one.
If it ever comes to the point, Mr. Speaker, where it is necessary to stop the expansionism of the communists by military force, I hope we shall have the preponderance of moral, economic and military force to do it. I have no objection, in a world such as that in which we live today, to the making of certain preparations for any eventuality. I think they properly should be made; but to say that we

must abandon ourselves to that, and that the idea of co-operation is a hopeless one, means that the united nations is done, that we are entering upon another great race for the building of armaments and preparation for war, and that the next war may be counted as being only so many months or years away.
It is said that even the beasts of the forest which ordinarily prey on each other, herd together when they are overtaken by a forest fire. Surely it is not too much to hope that nations of human beings will be able to find some basis of co-operation before we are herded together in what would be much worse than a forest fire-an atomic war. That would be worse for the people of the world than any forest fire has ever been for the animals of the forest.
The minister referred to the dynamic power of democracy. Perhaps that is the weakest part of the whole position so far as we are concerned. Of course there is some dynamic power in our love of political democracy and the extent to which we enjoy it. When anyone threatens to take that away from us, we are prepared to fight for it if necessary, and properly so. But that is not much when measured in the light of the whole democratic idea. There is a great dynamic force in the coalbeds of Alber.ta; but they are not of much use until the coal is actually dug and used to develop energy. Until our democratic principles are actually applied there can be no dynamic force from them. We shall have to dig them up out of the dreams in which we have locked them.
Our democracy is largely one of sentimentalities. If we had a democracy which was vitally active in the economic forces of this country there would be no speeches made in the House of Commons in fear of communism -none whatsoever. It is because we lack that dynamic force that we are afraid of communism. And we are afraid of communism. We might well be, when every effort to release the democratic dynamic is blocked by reaction, and the people are offered instead the sentimentalities of abstract principles.
There is just as much need for democracy in work, democracy in income, democracy in opportunity to work, democracy in opportunity for education, democracy in opportunity to enjoy health, democracy in opportunity for leisure, democracy in opportunity to have a sense of security as there is for democracy at the ballot box. Show me the man who has work to do, work that he likes to do, work which ought to be done in the interests of himself and his community; show me the man who has an income for doing that work

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sufficient to meet his requirements of life, show me the man who has his family and his home and who lives comfortably, and who has the opportunity to maintain the health of his family and to give them an education, the man who has a little of the leisure required to enable him to enjoy the better things of life-show me the man who has in addition to these essentials a sense of security, and I will show you a man who can neither be made a communist nor wants to be a communist.
I say our fears of being upset by a thing like that means that we have not the dynamic urge in our boasted democracy. The weak part of it lies just there. While we talk about it, while we are even ready to fight for it, we have not got it. I make a plea for democracy in economies in Canada, and then there would be no need for us to be afraid of communism at any time.
I could spread out that idea and say that if we are careful now not to give hostages to reaction, but to put into operation the economic ideals of democracy between nations, and to give access to the natural resources of the world by making them available for the use of all peoples, if we will follow those economic ideals of democracy we shall have the same success in the international field as I predict in the national.


Mr. J. H. BLACKMORE (Lethbridge):: Mr. Speaker, a good deal of beautiful idealism has been expressed in this debate. I do not suppose anyone would quarrel with any of the remarks made by the hon. member (Mr. Irvine) who has just taken his seat. He delivered a beautiful speech, full of statements which might mean very much, and might not mean very much-unless we have some idea of how to achieve the objectives he envisaged in the statements he made.
I have listened to the speeches delivered in the hope that someone would tell us how we in in this parliament, we in Canada, ought to proceed in order to be able to attain these beautiful objectives. I have listened most earnestly for someone to tell me just why it is we are in this deplorable state of affairs. I fear I must have been out when any suggestions of the kind to which I have referred were made, because thus far I have not heard one statement which would indicate why we are in the condition in which we find ourselves, or how to get out of it.
I know that for anyone like me to presume to answer questions which have not been touched upon by any of those who have preceded me is, in a way, a somewhat foolish procedure. But sometimes one has to attempt 5849-228
even the foolish. We are all agreed that we are faced with grave danger in the world, everywhere. Every nation is faced with it. We have the danger of global war such as that from which we have just emerged, the danger of slavery which we see rolling upon us like a tidal wave, and of which we see all too much even in our own midst under our present system. We see the danger of starvation which is facing people not only in the devastated countries but even in our own and in the United States. The number of people who right now in our own country are wondering where in the world they will get the money to make ends meet during the next six months reflects no credit upon us.
The general feeling of mankind is one of fear of these dangers, and, as the minister pointed out, a "lack of trust" in everything. Men have ceased to trust themselves: far too many of them have ceased to trust even God.
The general situation which faces us in Canada in so far as we differ from the rest of the world poses for us four questions for which we are all struggling to find an answer. What direction shall we as a nation seek to steer ourselves into? Shall we aim at greater and greater independence as a nation and seek to grow up fast to compete successfully with such giants as the United States? Shall we seek closer co-operation with the other members of the British commonwealth? Shall we drift into absorption in the United States, which the United States seems all too ready to see come about and to help to achieve? Shall we seek submergence in some gigantic, ill defined uncertain entity called the united nations? I think every person in Canada would like very much to have the right answer to those four questions.
Now may we turn from the general situation to seek to discover, if we possibly can, something of the cause of this situation. What is the material immediate cause of this general situation which everywhere prevails? What should be done about it? First, by the world, if we are free to advise the world? Second, by the United States? Third, by the Dominion of Canada? May I now answer briefly the four vital questions which I have raised.
The immediate material cause of the general situation is the United States of America. If you want to know where lies the cause of the distrust in men all over the earth, look to the United States of America-the United States, with her enormous productive potential, with her rich and varied resources, with her large population, with her greater and greater self-sufficiency, with her tremendous
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degree of industrialization, with her vast accumulated wealth, but with her faulty domestic distribution.
Notwithstanding the fact that this nation is far wealthier than any other nation that ever existed on the face of the earth, she has as many people per hundred within her borders who are on the verge of starvation and who are filled with dread as we in Canada have. There is something radically wrong with distribution in the United States -the United States, with her gifts to which I have referred; the United States, determined to sell abroad all that she possibly can, but equally determined to buy as little from abroad as she possibly can, particularly of any commodity that she does not especially need; the United States, guided by fallacious principles of trade and finance, and with a grossly misinformed people. I hesitate to put into words my impression of the general standard of knowledge of the people of the United States.
To think that an electorate with so little information, so little understanding of the things that really make or mar the peace and prosperity of mankind is charged with responsibilities such as the United States has been forced to assume by reason of her development through two wars; to think that, is to think oneself onto the border of dismay. To think that uninformed people can tmn out of office, and do turn out of office, any public official in the United States, no matter how much knowledge and understanding he may have, fills one with great apprehension indeed. How important it is that such an electorate should be well informed!
When we reflect that the United States, in addition to all these disadvantages, could be controlled by evil schemers deep within the United States administration, then I believe even the most generous, the most charitable, the most conservative of us, must think of the effect there would likely be if a dangerous monster should come to be at large among the settlements of the world.
There will be those, and I fancy the majority of the members of the house and of the country will be among them, who will wonder why I have said what I have about the United States. I say that after due consideration and some study. I say that notwithstanding the fact that I was born in the United States, and I love the United States dearly. But there is no use failing to face the facts as they are. We must be realistic.
What should the nations do about the general situation? First, I would say to those who might happen to be interested, that they

must learn the truth about the United States as soon as possible. Everyone should. Second, they should refuse to sign any binding agreement until they know the full truth about the United States and that agreement. Third, they should co-operate with the British commonwealth for mutual protection. Fourth, they should learn with all possible haste the true principles of money, production, distribution and trade. Fifth, they should guard their national sovereignty as they would guard their lives. Sixth, they should become as nearly as possible self-sufficient, and at the earliest possible moment.
I base these bits of counsel upcm the reading I have done during the last fifteen years, particularly with relation to the dreadful experiences that men had in the depression and those that led up to the war.
What should be done by the United States about the situation? If there should be in the United States an official generous enough to read these remarks of mine, I offer some suggestions in plain humility and good will and with love. First, reform your monetary system immediately in accordance with the monetary theories of Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln, two of the greatest patriots you ever had, men who were well informed and wise. In other words, implement the principles of your divinely-inspired American constitution as regards currency, coinage and credit. Thus you will be able to replace your debt-financing system with a credit-creating system. Then United States dollars both at home and abroad will correspond with your production and will not depend upon the amount of money you may or may not be able to squeeze out of the taxpayers or borrow from your lending institutions.
Next, revert to the lend-lease or mutual aid system for helping the shattered people of Europe and the dependent neighbours who must for some time look to you for help. In doing this, use debt-free dollars, not dollars which add to the tax burden on your people, do as Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson would have done.
Next, devise a method of internal distribution to raise the living standard of your people to something like the standard which ought to obtain in the richest nation on earth.
Next, adopt in practice and in fact, as well as in theory and in talk, the policy of "live and let live" towards all men everywhere in the world.
Now what should be done bj' Canada? First of all, become as nearly self-sufficient as possible, and that as soon as possible. This business of depending on people outside for the

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necessities of life, such as coal and gasoline and steel and other things you must have, is unsound and must be abandoned if you hope to survive, Canada.
Next, draw closer to the British commonwealth for co-operation and security, developing imperial preferences, and, if the opportunity offers, developing the sterling area of financing.
Next, insist upon guarding your sovereignty over freedom of action. You had all the trouble you could deal with when you were free to choose among all men. What will be your chance to survive if you become restricted at every turn by artificial hindrances which could come as a result of signing ill-considered international treaties?
Next, adopt a system of internal distribution to raise the living standard of your people somewhere near to what it ought to be in a nation capable of producing $3,500 worth of goods and services for every family in 1935, a nation w'hich could produce $11-8 billion worth of goods in 1944, or $900 for every man. woman and child in Canada.
There will be many who will question what I have said with regard to the United States. With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall revert to the question whether or not the United States is the main immediate cause of distrust and anxiety.
I have in my hand a volume published in 1929, written by a man named Ludwell Denny. I do not know* how good an authority Ludwell Denny is, but all you have to do is read about a hundred pages of his book and notice the documentation in almost every line to be convinced that he needs no degree or high-sounding position to be a man whose words are worth paying attention to. This book is called "America Conquers Britain." So America was at the job of being a menace to the world back in 1929 and has been in the game for years. I judge therefore that I have not been unjust to her. Let me read, from the last page of this book, words which have tremendous meaning, I think, for people in the wrnrld today:
We were Britain's colony once. She will be our colony before she is done; not in name, but in fact. Machines gave Britain power over the world. Now better machines aTe giving America power over the world and Britain. We are not content with the richest country on earth. Geniuses of mechanical efficiency, we cannot organize an equitable distribution of our national wealth.
That is serious point No. 1. It goes on:
Instead we exploit nations less rich. There may have been some excuse for Britain on her poor island to go imperialist. There is none for us with a near-continent upon which to thrive. But we are not without cunning. We shall not make Britain's mistake. Too wise to try to govern the world, we shall merely own it. Nothing can stop us. Nothing until our financial
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empire rots at its heart, as empires have a way of doing. If Britain is foolish enough to fight us, she will go down more quickly, that is all.
Of course American world supremacy is rather horrible to think about-quite unthinkable, as they say of an Anglo-American war. But American supremacy can hardly be worse than British and others gone before. Our weapons are money and machines. But the other nations of the world want money and machines. Our materialism, though not our power, is matched by theirs. That is why our conquest is so easy, so inevitable.
W'hat chance has Britain against America? Or what chance has the world?
There will be those, of course, who will say, why quote the words of this man. But I think every man who reads steadily through the 407 pages in this book will be convinced that in speaking as Mr. Denny does in these closing words he is in no way exaggerating or misleading the world. May I, before leaving the passage, comment on four statements made therein? I will repeat them and then comment:
. . . we can not organize an equitable distribution of our national wealth.
That is exactly the thing that is wrong with the United States, and that is exactly what makes her such an all-forbidding horror to the world. She does not know how to give her own people the good things she can produce, but she can force them on other nations to destroy their economies and wreck them. Again he says, "But we are not without cunning." Well, Mr. Speaker, that was clearly demonstrated in the Bretton Woods agreement, in the Washington loan agreement, in the united nations charter and in the Geneva trade pacts. It was clearly demonstrated there that she was not without cunning, and that she is determined to use that cunning ruthlessly and unscrupulously. Again:
Nothing until our financial empire rots at its heart, as empires have a way of doing.
May I make this comment in passing. If it were not for the fact that there is a chance that the financial empire of the United States will rot at an early day, our position in the world might indeed be hopeless. But there is that chance, and who is to say that out of that chance may not grow our greatest hope for freedom and independence in the future?
Finally:
American supremacy can hardly be worse than British and others gone before.
That statement I challenge head-on, unequivocally. For the British, when they expanded and sold to the world, never refused to accept goods in return. The result was that no matter how deeply the Argentine might go into debt for her railroad, or any other nation go into debt for goods which she bought, she always knew that if she could produce goods and offer
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them to Britain, in return Britain would receive the goods in cancellation of the debt. The United States refuses to accept such goods. Therein lies another aspect of the terrible danger which is the United States today.
America wrecked the world in the great depression. There were several fundamental causes of the great depression; with these I should like to deal.
In the first place, the thing that brought on the great depression was the cessation of the American foreign lending which cessation began in real earnest after the middle of 1928. The United States had lent huge sums of money to other nations of the world with which to buy her goods. From these loans other nations obtained dollars with which they bought United States goods which gave the United States markets. When the United States ceased to lend these vast sums, the dollars were no longer available to buy United States goods, and when the United States people were unable to sell their goods, their confidence in their general economic structure fell and the depression came on. Second, the suspension of immense United States expenditures on tourist traffic in Europe in 1928 and 1929; third, the suspension of remittances home by European immigrants in the United States; fourth, the sharp upward revision of the United States tariff, the Hawley-Smoot tariff in 1930; fifth, the adoption of the gold standard by European countries. England, as an example, went back on the gold standard in 1925, committing thereby one of the greatest blunders in her history. Sixth, the tremendous weight of United States economy. The United States production and money income in 1929 were equal to that of all the rest of the world together. Seventh, the fact that the United States banking system began to withdraw money from circulation in the United States until the amount of money in the United States fell from $23 billion in circulation in 1929 to only $15 billion in 1934. Eighth, the fact that the United States knew of no means whereby they could put into the hands of their consumers the purchasing power needed to enable United States consumers to buy the $5 billion a year worth of United States goods which that nation had been selling to European countries in exchange for the money the United States had been providing the European countries with which to buy United States goods.
These eight occurrences, all of them except one, took place within the United States, and were matters over which only the United States had any control whatsoever directly or

indirectly. We must therefore consider that the depression was a purely United States affair.
Besides the wreckage resulting from the United States-produced depression, America had already gone far toward destroying the economies of other nations by industrial aggression, as is so well pictured in the book "America Conquers Britain" by Ludwell Denny.
Still some will say: Are you sure now that these statements you have made are accurate? Hon. members will desire to have evidence which will be unimpeachable in respect of these facts. There is a document which I am very happy to have had drawn to my attention; it was prepared in the United States and submitted to the United States administration in 1943. It was issued by the United States Department of Commerce, Jesse H. Jones, Secretary, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, O. P. Hopkins, Acting Director, and is entitled "The United States in the World Economy", the international transactions of the United States during the interwar period; prepared in the international economics and statistics unit by Hal B. Lary and associates, with a foreword by Wayne C. Taylor, Under Secretary of Commerce. I imagine that if there is anything authentic to be found in the world, this document is probably authentic and can be accepted as such. Hon. members will be interested in hearing some of the things which are in the document. It is revealing. In the foreword at page VI the following appears:
The functioning of the American economy as a whole presents some of the most baffling problems. On the solution of these problems, through maintenance of a high and reasonably stable level of economic activity in the United States, the interests of this country and of other countries are most clearly and indisputably united.
A world economic structure organized on the basis of equal treatment and with large scope for free enterprise cannot be maintained in the face of such reductions in the supply of dollars as have occurred in our international transactions in the past. Unless the supply of dollars is more adequate to meet foreign requirements, other countries will assuredly insist on their rights to exercise a close selective control over the use of the amounts available and to promote more intensive relations with third countries under preferential trading arrangements. Unless dollars are made available with greater regularity than in the past, it would be both unjust and unwise to demand the removal of restraints and controls largely designed to protect the internal economies of other countries against external shock and pressure.
That passage shows completely clearly that what I have said is right. It shows that for

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the United States to try to cause the world to sign such a document as the Geneva trade treaty, for example, or the Bretton Woods agreement, is for the United States to commit an outrage. That is exactly what she is doing.
I shall read another paragraph from page Y:
The conclusion that emerges most , emphatically from the survey is the fundamental importance of maintaining conditions conducive to a more stable and ample flow of dollars in our transactions with other countries. The most essential of these conditions lies not in the field of foreign economic policy as such but in the attainment of a more fully and more smoothly operating domestic economy-the major determinant of the volume and course of our purchases of foreign goods and services. In addition, a more adequate supply of dollars should entail both a freer flow of imports and a renewed and sounder participation of American capital in international investment.
Then, further down the page:
It would be tragic indeed if the United States, after a period of renewed full participation in the world economy, were to permit another abrupt fall in the supply of dollars to disturb the recreated international commercial and financial mechanism, whether through increased trade restrictions, through the misbehaviour of foreign investment, or through the improper functioning of the domestic economy.
The more hon. members weigh these statements and the more they read the document from which these statements are extracted the more impressed they will be with the truth of what I have said.
I should like the permission of the house, Mr. Speaker, to put an important section of this document on Hansard. Would there be any objection to that? Two and a half pages of this document give the facts which support the statements which I have made.


The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr. Golding):: Has the hon. member the permission of the house to put these pages on Hansard?
Mr. ST. LAURENT: I have no particular objection, but I think it is a bad practice to be putting on Hansard anything but a picture of what has taken place on the floor of the house. I would deprecate seeing that practice extended, and I think the hon. member will agree with me. There are other places where a written report is no picture at all of what goes on on the floor of the house, and I do not think we should move in that direction. The house is usually very generous in extending for a few minutes the time an hon. member requires. If what the hon. gentleman wishes to put on Hansard is of sufficient importance, perhaps he will read it.


John Horne Blackmore: I am afraid it will take all the time I have and perhaps a little bit more.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: The hon. gentleman
realizes he will have to form his own estimate as to which is more important, what he himself has to say, or what he proposes to quote, and he will act accordingly.


John Horne Blackmore: I take that to be a refusal of permission for me to put it on Hansard. That is unfortunate because, in the words of the writer of the report, it supports the statements which I have made.
Let me say that in my opinion the United States could again wreck the world just as it wrecked the world in 1929. America wrecked the world in 1929 through her domestic policy and her foreign policy. She has not changed her domestic policy: she is still running under the debt system of finance. All her wages enter into cost of production, all her revenues are raised by taxation. She has no system of distributing consumer purchasing power to enable her consumers to consume the nation's production. She depends on foreign trade as the main method of distributing her goods internally. She uses high tariffs.
Under these circumstances she is in just as grave a situation today, just as unstable and undependable as she was in 1928-29. All realistic well-informed people are aware of that and are full of anxiety lest there be another terrible depression. She has made no real improvement in her conditions.
There are striking things which could be adduced but which time will hardly permit, but I should like to read two or three extracts from a statement which appears in the May 1, 1948 number of Labor, a prominent United States paper:
Though the nation is now at the peak of prosperity. many thousands of Americans are "at the brink of starvation." That disclosure highlighted an appalling report issued this week by Oscar R. Ewing, chief of the federal security agency.
Further on:
"The plight of many of our aged who are no longer able to make ends meet is pitiful in the extreme," Ewing explained.
Still further down:
"We spend too much, think too much, talk too much and depend too much on our material strength, and meanwhile, at our national peril, we are ignoring our human resources," Ewing warned.
I will quote no more. The quotations show that the United States has not changed her ways.
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The American administration in respect of foreign policy is carrying on exactly the same as that which wrecked the world. The American administration is determined to expand trade at all costs, hers or any other nation's. Right after this wonderful report was turned in to his administration, a year later, in 1944, Roosevelt, in a broadcast in the month of October, made the statement: "I intend to find jobs for 60,000,000 Americans by trebling our exports." If United States exports are trebled, where will other nations find places in which to sell their exports. Yet that was an announced policy of that leader of the American administration, and I presume his successor has followed it.
The American administration insists on an unconditional most-favoured-nation clause in spite of the fact that America forced Japan into war by insisting on the most-favourednation clause. It seeks to destroy the British preferences. It insists on non-discrimination which renders other nations virtually helpless in obtaining the necessities of life. It insists on the gold standard, and it is opposed to barter.
These facts are illustrated clearly by the Bretton Woods agreement *which the American administration browbeat other nations into accepting. The United States administration is determined to wreck sterling, which is the only really modem and essentially expansionist monetary system in the world, a system based on goods and credit and on commercial co-operation among the nations. The United States is determined to substitute its own obsolete monetary theories based on gold and debt and commercial cutthroat competition among the nations.
No remark of any American leader having public confidence in the United States justifies us in hoping that the United States is beginning to understand the causes of war.


William Henry Golding: Order. I must remind the hon. member that his time has expired.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Go on.


John Horne Blackmore: If the house is kind enough to endure this a little longer, there are a few more things I should like to say. America gives no evidence of realizing how ruinous have been the policies she has followed. Every move she makes and has made throughout the decade now closing indicates her determination to continue prosecuting policies identical with those that wrecked her, and with her the world, in the great depression.

Her stand on Bretton Woods indicated failure to understand the facts. I will not read what I have here, but hon. members wrho desire to read it can find the statement made by Henry Morgenthau at the meeting before they adopted Bretton Woods; they will find it at page V, the first paragraph, wherein appears a declaration indicating the failure of the United States to understand trade realities in any degree.
Her stand on Geneva and the Havana treaties indicates the same attitude entirely, utter failure to appreciate realities in the world at large.
Now the question is: What shall Canada do about it? Shall Canada seek independence, or co-operation with Britain, or absorption into the United States, or subservience completely to the united nations? Just what is involved?
I would say: Let us seek earnestly to change our financial system and our policies with respect to domestic and international affairs. Let us seek co-operation with the British and with other states willing to co-operate with us. Let us seek for greater imperial preferences and greater use of the sterling area.
Let us seek to cultivate and regulate the private enterprise system for production whereby we shall be able to increase production abundantly to supply the needs of our own people and help to support those people of the world who may need our assistance.
As regards the united nations, what shall we do?


William Henry Golding: Order. The hon. member has exhausted his time.


John Horne Blackmore: I understood I might have two or three minutes more in which to finish what I have to say.


William Henry Golding: With the consent of the house, but I notice that some hon. members are calling "time," and the hon. member has exceeded his limit.


Mr. FAIR:: The last speaker had forty-five minutes without interruption.


Mr. STANLEY KNOWLES (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on just two phases of the question of external affairs which is now before us. I enter the debate only because, in my view at any rate, I have something to contribute with respect to the two phases of the question to which I shall make reference.
First of all, I wish to say a few words about the move in the direction of western

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union, Atlantic union, or a regional association, whatever one may call it. Then I shall say a few words about the rivalry in the world today between communism and western democracy.
With respect to the first of these two questions, I should like to read a paragraph from a speech made in this house on March 26, 1945, as recorded at pages 209 and 210 of Hansard of that year. The question before the house at that time had to do with the sending of a Canadian delegation to the San Francisco conference. I quote:
Let me put it in this way. I feel that there are three fundamental conditions which are basic to the success of a world organization, and I trust that the San Francisco conference will see to it that these three basic conditions are met. First of all, if a world organization is to succeed, it must have authority to enact international law. In the second place, such an organization must have authority to enforce that law. In the third place, it must have the capacity to retain the authority vested in it by the consent of the governed.
I confess, Mr. Speaker, that the paragraph is taken from a speech which I made on that occasion; and without quoting further from it, I may say that I went on to develop each of those three points in a speech every word of which still holds true.
Some might think that one who laid down such high principles as those would be perfectionist in his approach. I made it clear in that speech that, although I was an idealist, I was not a perfectionist. I indicated my belief that government at the international level was the only hope, and I dared to believe that, some day mankind would reach that point. But I also said this:
Our delegation must bring back the best charter they can, but the first consideration is that the delegation bring back to Canada a charter, even if it is not absolutely perfect, for the next parliament of this country to consider, and I trust to ratify.
I wish to make it clear that conditions in the world today do not leave room for mere perfectionism. But they call for idealism, and I feel that we should be reminded from time to time of principles such as those I have just quoted; for, after all, we are not going to have any effective international organization until we achieve those principles.
I should like, however, to apply those principles in a practical way to the situation which is developing at the present time. I am afraid I cannot go along with those who say the united nations has failed and therefore we should throw it overboard completely and launch out on a new program for some other organization in the attempt to achieve world government. Rather, I feel we must
try, within the framework of the united nations, to do that, namely, to move in the direction of government at the international level. The position of the party to which I belong is clear in that regard. In a statement on foreign policy which our national council issued recently, we said:
The C.C.F. reaffirms its belief that steps should be taken to develop the -united nations into an effective organ of government at the international level.
As I have already said, I should like us to apply that vision, if you will, or those principles which I have already stated, to the practical situation that is before us at the present time. What we have now is the feeling on the part of the government, and on the part of many other western countries in particular, that we must take advantage of articles 51 and 52 of the charter of the united nations and develop regional associations.
I agree. Further, that is the position of the group to which I belong, which has been expressed so well by the recent statement of our national council. I quote again:
The great strides now being taken toward the economic and political union, of the western European democracies are the most encouraging factor in the present world situation. Such regional associations are provided for in the charter of the united nations.
In a moment I am going to read another paragraph from that statement, but before I do so I want to say this. My concern about this move in the direction of regional associations is that we move forward and not backward. If these regional associations are merely military alliances, if they are simply a case of reviving balance-of-power politics, we are receding from the position the world achieved when it adopted the charter of the united nations. But if, on the other hand, in setting up these regional associations, we move forward toward something that approaches government at the international level-at least within any regional association to which we belong-we shall be keeping to the letter the terms of the charter of the united nations and we shall also be bringing into being something better.
I believe it was an hon. member on the government side who said last night that the united nations provided a floor for world relationships, but not a ceiling. In other words, it is our duty to see to it that we do not take any retrograde step, but we are completely free to take a forward step. That indeed is the position of this group with respect to any association of nations that we make within the framework of the united nations as provided
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for in articles 51 and 52 of the charter. The position of our party again is clear:
The developing west European union is not, and must not he, a mere military alliance. It provides for close economic co-operation between the member nations, such as the planned use of raw materials and man-power and the formation of a customs union. Canada and the other nations of the British commonwealth should plan their trade and resources to strengthen this union of democracies.
Not only was that point well developed by my leader, the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell), when he spoke a few days ago in this debate, but the strength of the position that he took has been recognized by the press of this country. I have before me one editorial, but there are many others that have responded to the positive note which the leader of the C.CfF. sought to inject into this debate with respect to this whole question of regional associations. I suggest that hon. members should not take too much for granted about these articles 51 and 52 of the charter without referring to them once in a while. As I read article 51, it seems to me that it provides for nations getting together on a military basis, only in the event of armed attack. In other words, if we are using articles 51 and 52 to develop military alliances that are only military alliances-in the absence of armed attack-we are violating the spirit of the united nations charter. Article 51 of the charter reads in part as follows:
Nothing in the present charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a member of the united nations, until the security council has taken the measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.
I need not read the rest because it does not get away from the spirit of that first sentence. On the other hand, although mere military alliances within the framework of the united nations would be against the spirit of the charter, article 52 provides for the kind of thing that we refer to in our C.C.F. national council statement and the positive stand that the leader of this group took the other day. Let me read a part of article 52:
1.	Nothing in the present charter precludes the existence of regional arrangements or agencies for dealing with such matters relating to the maintenance of international peace and security as are appropriate for regional action, provided that such arrangements or agencies and their activities are consistent with the purposes and principles of the united nations.
2.	The members of the united nations entering into such arrangements or constituting such agencies shall make every effort to achieve pacific settlement of local disputes through such regional arrangements or by such regional agencies before referring them to the security council.

3.	The security council shall encourage the development of pacific settlement of local disputes through such regional arrangements or by such regional agencies either on the initiative of the states concerned or by reference from the security council.
Then there are other paragraphs-both in this and succeeding articles-which I shall not take time to read, but they develop the idea that it is wholly in keeping with the charter and principles of the united nations for nations to group themselves together for positive purposes to attain peace and human accord.
Therefore I come back to the paragraph I quoted at the outset of my remarks, from my own speech of March 26, 1945, when I suggested that an effective international organization would have to have the authority to enact international law, authority to enforce that law and the capacity to retain the authority vested in it by the consent of the governed. If, because of present difficulties, we cannot get full implementation of those principles in the united nations at large, I would hope that in any smaller grouping to which Canada is a party we might make a serious effort to achieve the implementation of those principles, looking toward the day when we might extend further the area in which they would apply.
I know there are members in the house who will say that is visionary. But I submit that the people of this country and of the world at large, are looking for their leaders to be men of vision and to take us, not back into the war and misery that power politics and military alliances produced in the past, but forward into some hope of peace on earth and good will amongst men.
I leave that, to turn to the other matter about which I said I wanted to say a few words. I shall pick my words as carefully as I can, because I know how easy it is to be misunderstood when one talks on this subject.
Almost every member who has taken part in the debate-at least all of those who have referred to the conflict between communism and western democracy-have said that the real way to combat communism is for democracy to do a better job. I wholly and completely agree with that view; it is absolutely right. But, Mr. Speaker, I have felt that in the minds of many of those who have made that statement -and some of them have said it in so many words-there has been a smug satisfaction that democracy is doing a better job, and that therefore the battle against the menace of communism is won. It is that smug satisfaction that everything is all right in our society which, I suggest, is one of the greatest dangers at the present time.

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Last evening, when my colleague the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Stewart) was speaking on this matter, he said something to the effect that the worst fifth columns in this country were slums and disease. A member of the group to my right who was sitting near me-and I need not mention his name, because no one w-ill take objection to it- turned to me and said, "Are there no slums in Russia?" I said, "Yes; in fact I have seen them."
That brief conversation which took place right here in the House of Commons, part of which is recorded in Hansard and part of which was off the record, points up the very thing I have in mind. We too easily make comparisons between absolute conditions. We are too ready to make comparisons between housing in Canada and housing in the Soviet union, between the clothes we wear in Canada and the clothes worn by the Russian people, between the food we have to eat and the food they eat -between our whole material standard of life and their material standard of life.
I happened to be one of very few members who have had the privilege of visiting the Soviet union. Two years ago I spent a short time in the city of Moscow. I am the one who knows this-and let no one interject it before I say it-that, having been in that country for only eight days, I am not an expert on life in the Soviet union. But I can verify the fact that our economic conditions in this country and the standard of living for the masses of our people are definitely better than those of the people of the Soviet union. So far as I am concerned, hon. members do not need to read books to prove that to me; I have seen it.
To be fair. I must say that in some other phases of life, particularly in the arts, the Russian people are away ahead of us. We do not come near them in the development or enjoyment of the theatre, in all its various branches. They have a culture that is very interesting. I felt, from what I saw, that they are ahead of us at least in the extent to which they make medicine available to their people; and they are ahead of us at least in their eagerness with respect to education.
I am not going to go into those phases of Russian life at greater length. I just wished to say that much to give a fair picture; indeed every time I have talked about my visit to the Soviet union I have tried to report both the black and the white. Every country, indeed, has both. At the present moment, however, we are not discussing those things in respect of which they may have made greater advances than we have. Today I am accepting and verifying the fact that economically, so far as
our material standard of life is concerned, we in Canada are definitely ahead of the Soviet union.
The tendency on the part of the people, when they know that, is to sit back smugly and say, "You see, we are delivering the goods better than communism; we are doing a better job and, therefore, ipso facto, the battle against communism is won."
The point I wish to make is this, that people do not make comparisons in that way. Our people in the cities, towns and rural sections of this country do pot compare their standard of living with the standard of their counterparts in the Soviet union, or vice versa. What the people of Canada do is to compare their standard of living today with what it was a few years ago. What they are interested in is the progress which will be made in Canada within the next few years. Similarly the people in the Soviet union compare their standard of living, not with the better standard in the outside world-which I confess they do not know much about-but with what their conditions were, ten, twenty or thirty years ago, or back in the days of the czarist regime.
The result is that, even with material conditions that are admittedly poor in the Soviet union, one will find there a people who have faith in their regime, and tremendous hope for the future. It is almost a religion with them; you can feel it. One is amazed at their faith when he sees the physical conditions roundabout; but against that faith in the future, despite their poor economic conditions, one has to set on our part a fear of the future, a sense of frustration and a sense of futility and hopelessness in the minds of our people, despite our better conditions. It is because of that I feel there is particular merit in the last paragraph of the statement which the C.C.F. national council prepared, which says:
The blind fear of another world war must be translated into dynamic social action which will bring to a war-torn and hungry world the bread, the freedom and the peace which are the right of all its peoples.
The Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. St. Laurent) said something similar to that in his speech, when he called for the full use of the dynamic of democracy. The hon. member for Cariboo (Mr. Irvine) has pointed out that that must be something more than words. The point I make is this, that when the various parties in the house-whether in the house or out in the country-call for better housing conditions for our people, when we call for plans to take care of the health of our people, when we call for adequate old age security, when we call for democracy in industrial relations, not just begrudgingly giving a

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little bit here and there, but democracy to the full; when we do that we are asking for something more than just those things in themselves, we are asking for that which will give our people some sense of hope for the future, some feeling of dynamic interest in the job that we are trying to do in this country, some confidence that we are on the way to better things.
I agree wholly with all of those who have said that the only way to combat communism is for western democracy to produce something better. I agree wholly-and as I have said already I am one of those who, at least to myself, can verify it-with the statement that in terms of material conditions our standards are higher; but I doubt if anyone can gainsay my statement that we have not that sense of dynamic confidence, that sense of hope which is so important if we are to win this battle. The place for it to be won is in our own country, in the minds and hearts of our own people. Our job is here at home; let us get on with it.
When hon. members state their belief that what counts is democracy delivering the goods I call upon them not to follow that up with smug satisfaction that we are already doing that, but rather to put everything that we have into improving our conditions, into giving our people the confidence that next year and five years later and ten years from now things will be just that much better in this country than they are now. Never mind comparisons with absolute conditions in the Soviet union; never mind comparisons with conditions in the United Kingdom or the United States; what counts is the progress we are making here.
I am satisfied that if we will put some real energy into, and show some real vision in connection with, improving our own social conditions, we will build up in our people a faith and confidence that will completely get rid of this fear of the menace of communism that exists today.
I just wanted to talk on these two things. I hope that in the developing of regional associations we will do our best to move on to government at the international level, and I hope that in this struggle against communism we will really strive to solve the social problems that we have here at home. That is our job, let us get on with it.


Mr. E. G. HANSELL (Macleod):: Mr. Speaker, I have a few words I should like to say in this present discussion of Canada's position in this complicated world and the foreign policy which this country now holds. I am happy to take part in this debate on foreign policy, because it is a source of satis-

faction to me to find such a list of speakers as we have had during the several days of debate on this important subject. I think it shows that we are interested not only in our own local affairs but in the relationship of Canada to the rest of the world and the relationship of other nations of the world to Canada.
Perhaps the reason for this more than usual interest in international affairs is that great world problems are facing us today, problems of such magnitude that to solve them or not to solve them may mean the difference between the survival of our present civilization and the extinction of that civilization from the universe. The solution is not an easy one, as the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. St. Laurent) has already told us.
Most of us who have taken part in this debate I think do so as mere infants, as babes in the woods trying to find our way through the darkness of international complexities. In the face of such problems, our diplomatic statesmen appear to me to be like the little boy who took the clock apart to see what made it tick, only to find that it was impossible to put it together again.
I listened with tremendous interest to the speech made by the minister of external affairs in opening this debate. At the time I thought it could be labelled an historic speech, one of great significance, but I cannot avoid feeling that it was not without its weaknesses. In analysing the minister's speech, I do not believe I could do better than was done last night by one of my colleagues, the hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Hlynka). He told the house that the position of the government could be set out under eight main headings. I am not going to repeat what he said last night because it was too well done, but I should like to enumerate those headings.
1. There was ,the announcement by the government of a definite foreign policy.
2.	More emphasis had been placed upon Canada's national sovereignty.
3.	There was a dispelling of the "one world" dream.
4.	The government had taken a definite stand against communism.
5.	The re-vitalizing of democracy in Canada.
6.	The end of the policy of isolationism.
7.	The recognition and a return to a balance-of-power arrangement.
8.	Canada's internal and external armed
security.	_	_
I mention those eight headings which were diagnosed by my hon. friend, and I emphasize that, while these eight headings indicate

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the government's present external or foreign policy, the Social Credit group in this house have been advocating these same eight things ever since we came here in the session of 1936. For thirteen years we have been telling the government these things, and at last they are beginning to listen to us. I do not know whether it is the force of our arguments that has brought them to a realization of the truth, or whether it is the force of world events and circumstances. Perhaps I had better say the latter because I want to be as modest as I can. But at least it gives us a little heart and the hope, Mr. Speaker, that eventually the government will adopt some of the other things we have been advocating. Although we have been right throughout all these years, we have been either criticized or smeared or ignored. You see, over the years we just were not quite in style; we were not wearing the political new look, so no one bothered to look at us. But whether we were in style or not does not worry us very much. What we have been advocating over the years may not have been very popular, but I say this, and I trust it will ever remain so, that we would rather be right than popular.
I wish to refer for a few moments to one or twp weaknesses which I believe appear in the minister's declaration of April 29 when he opened this debate. It was an historic speech, but any speech, even one by so competent a speaker as the minister himself, will naturally contain some weaknesses. One of its greatest weaknesses was, I believe, that the minister failed to recognize that socialism as a way of life is but a mild form of communism.


An hon. MEMBER:: Tut-tut.


Ernest George Hansell: I knew someone would
say "tut-tut" but I am going to ask the minister, does he believe there is any difference between ultimate socialism and communism? That is a question I wish he would answer when he closes the debate, if he does so.
I want him to answer another question. If communism ever gets a grip on this country as it did in Czechoslovakia, through what channels will it have to work to accomplish its ends? I say that the only body through which it can work to accomplish its ends is the socialism that is being preached in this country today, and let us make no mistake about that. The only answer that the minister can give to that question is that the only door at present open through which the communists might secure power through constitutional and peaceful means is that door
which is being proclaimed as a gospel today in Canada and is known by the self-contradictory term of democratic socialism.


An hon. MEMBER:: Oh!


Ernest George Hansell: Those little tut-tuts have changed now to grunts and groans. That is also what I expected.
There is another question I would ask the minister. Should the communists ever gain power in Canada through constitutional and peaceful means, would there be any difference between the social order then in Canada and the social order as it is now in any of the Russian satellite states? I ask that question, because the only difference I can see is that one branch of socialism is preaching, "We will gain our ends by peaceful and constitutional means," and the other is saying or has said in the past, "The only way in which it can be accomplished is by revolution." Of course the Tim Bucks and the Labour Progressive party and those very open institutions which are honest enough to expose themselves and say, "Yes, that is what we once believed," may have changed their tactics and may now be saying, "We do not believe we can accomplish our ends in Canada by a revolution. We would if we could, but we do not believe we can do that now. So we must take some other tack; we must use some other method." Now what method are they going to use except infiltration into our present organizations in this country-and I mean all of them-and by taking the open door of socialism today? That is exactly what happened in Czechoslovakia. We have heard a great deal about the democratic socialism that was being practised there. But it was only the door through which the communists could enter, as they did, and they did it well.
What I am saying, Mr. Speaker, is that we have to be determined in this matter, and we have to speak the truth. We must say we are a democratic country, believing in free institutions, in free enterprise, in individual initiative, in opportunities for the individual to aspire to greater things. Either we believe in that true democracy, or we are going to the left and we believe in opening the door to a communist regime in Canada. We have to say one thing or the other. I say that the minister himself and the government must be very pronounced in this respect.
Let me read a passage from the minister's speech. At page 3441 of Hansard he said, referring to Czechoslovakia:
They were steadily and sturdily rebuilding their economy on a basis of democratic socialism. Yet their liberties have been ruthlessly wiped out by a Soviet-inspired communist fifth column.
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There is an indication there; I may be reading an inference in these remarks which is not intended. I do not want to do that. The minister can say it is not there, if he wishes, but in reading it I find an indication that the minister himself believes that there is such a thing as democratic socialism, and that such a thing is an inviting thing for Canadian people to have.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Hear, hear.


Ernest George Hansell: The minister goes on to say-


Mr. JAENICKE:: What have they in
Britain?


Mr. WYLIE:: Not very much.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Is democratic socialism in Britain an open door to communism?


Ernest George Hansell: It may be. How do we know? Who is going to say?


Mr. GILLIS:: The British people.


Stanley Howard Knowles: They have said it pretty strongly.


Mr. SPEAKER:: Order.


Ernest George Hansell: I will say this, in Great Britain Mr. Attlee and Mr. Bevin have been able to hold the line; that is all. How long they will be able to hold the line I do not know. I will give credit to Mr. Attlee and to Mr. Bevin, but I think you have to understand the British to get this. Mr. Attlee and Mr. Bevin may be socialists; they are, but let me say this: they are Englishmen first and socialists second. I think that is the answer to my hon. friend the member for Winnipeg North Centre.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Who is a Canadian first.


James Horace King: Order.


Ernest George Hansell: In his speech the minister vent on to say this:
Those in each free nation who love freedom ;hould draw the clear lesson of the tragedy of Czechoslovakia. That lesson is that it is impossible to co-operate with communists. They do not want co-operation. They want domination. Communists will pretend to co-operate with non-communists just so long as it is in their interests to do so.
Then the minister goes on to indicate these things that divide the democratic parties of the free states by whatever names they call themselves, Socialists, Liberals, Catholics, Conservatives, Progressive Conservatives, and he says this:
. . . are as nothing compared with the gulf that separates them all from the communists.

I have placed a question mark after that statement, because I am saying that in Canada there are forces, disguised, if you please, as very loyal democrats., loyal to the democratic institutions of Canada, who are preaching a false philosophy that is playing into the hands of the communists. These men I call .parlour pinks. I named them the other day; I attempted to name them on the floor of this house. May I say this to the minister and to the house: I have no objection to these men having the freedom of discussion. I have no objection to their going out and discussing philosophically and in other ways the advantages of that type of socialism which they preach, even though they use some other terminology to explain it. I have nothing against their doing that. That is their right by virtue of the fact that we live in a democracy; but what I do say is this, when they go out to preach it let them not parade as something else. What we need is enough courage to call the enemy out on open ground and put a plaster on his back so that everyone knows who he is and what he is. Believe me, Mr. Speaker, when you do that, when you trample on somebody's corns someone will holler, and then the old smear machine gets going.
I do not want to refer to personal incidents; I am quite willing to forget them, but" when I made that speech in the house the other day and the hon. member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot) put on Hansard the list that I did not get unanimous consent to put there, the next day one or two editorials were levelled at us. The Vancouver News-Herald exercised its liberty and called me anti-Jew. If that is not part of the smear bund I do not know what it is. There is one thing I will challenge the News-Herald or any other paper to do, and that is to look over my record in Hansard or on any public platform or at any time during my ministry in my private profession. I will challenge them to look over anything; they can go through my files; they can dig out all my old sermons if they like, and I shall challenge them to find a single, solitary statement that I have ever uttered against our Jewish friends. As a matter of fact, if they take time to do it they will find many a sermon that I preached on their behalf.
I could write to the News-Herald, I suppose; but let them go to it; this is a free country, but let these men not be blamed when someone comes out and labels them for what they are. I say to you, Mr. Speaker, there are two classes of people in this country. There are those who love their country for what it is and for what they believe it can be made

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into. There are others who love their country for what they can get out of it. What we need in Canada is men in public service who will not be afraid to spot the enemy and tell the people who they are. If they can survive it, all right, but woe betide the day when any man's mouth is going to be shut. They cannot do so today because our laws, in matters of democratic freedom, give a man the right to speak the truth. So they think they will shut his mouth by all sorts of smears. Well, let them go ahead and some of us will take it, but we will spot the enemy and name them, and if they can survive, all right.
Now, Mr. Speaker, my time is going. I got off the track a little bit there and I want to get on to the main track. I believe that the government, in combating this menace, must come clean on this issue in Canada. Let them not say, "We have no use for communism but we should like to see democratic socialism". I say that ultimately there is no difference.
I am not saying that these men are not good men. They are my friends. I am not saying that they are not good men, but what I am talking about is the idealism of what is known as democratic socialism. I say that you can preach against communism, and the communists do not mind that particularly. They have many parlour pinks to do their job for them. You can speak against democratic socialism, if you like. It does not make much difference; it is only a ripple on the water; but you name the birds that are trying to put it over and they will pop up immediately and say, "Oh, but these are very fine citizens".
Well, they may be law-abiding citizens, but that which they are proclaiming is the very antithesis of our democratic way of life, and instead of preserving our free institutions they will open the door for this evil thing to enter. And when the door is open, then it is too late. Let us make no mistake about that.
I now come to the speech of the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell), the leader of the socialist party in Canada. I have read it with considerable interest and scrutiny and I say that no communist intellectual could have given a better speech in this house. It is open for any man to analyse. Many terms are used which I believe to be merely oratorical platitudes. Democratic socialism is one. You cannot talk about a planned economy and freedom in the same breath. Let us make sure of that.
It is quite easy to repeat a lot of oratorical platitudes, but let us analyse them. You cannot plan freedom, because the very moment you plan freedom, freedom ceases to be freedom. Freedom is no longer freedom when it must run according to a plan.


Mr. MacINNIS:: Why are there so many laws to protect it, then?


Ernest George Hansell: I must ask the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar one or two questions. I would not be so intent upon this if he had not given his speech in the name of his party and concluded by saying so. Let me quote what he said at page 3456 of Hansard.-.
But I do not think we should ever forget that the devastated and war-worn people of western Europe have realized that capitalism as we have known it in North America cannot be revived; for the destruction wrought by both war and the nazi regime scuttled capitalist ownerships in Europe, and indeed scuttled it also in parts of Asia.
Then he said we have to remember that no rehabilitation of the war-torn continent of Europe could be undertaken without the generous economic help of the United States.
Well now, if that makes sense to him it does not make sense to me. He wants capitalism, as we know it in North America, to be destroyed in Europe; and yet he said, let us not forget that the same capitalist country is the one that is coming to the aid of the other.
Again, he refers to Greece. When the leader of a party rises and speaks in this house I think he should make suggestions as to what he would do with the present situation, right here and right now. He went over past history. It is all right to say we would have done this a year or two ago and we would not have done that, but what does he want to do right now?
Here we have the situation as it is in Greece. Let me ask him this; If he were sitting on that side of the house would he withdraw support from Greece and permit communism to walk in there and destroy capitalism as it is in Greece? Let him say whether he would or not. Does he prefer communism in Greece to capitalism? If he does, then he would suggest that we withdraw our aid. If he does not, then we had better rush some more aid there, or that is surely what will happen.
He said something similar with reference to China. We have read a good deal about the regime of Chiang Kai-shek, and perhaps it is as bad as we have read. I do not know. We will grant that it is, for the sake of argument. But even though it is, would he withdraw support from China today under present conditions? Let him answer that. He does not answer it.
He makes these statements and they read well to those who never analyse them. Then he goes across the country as though he were some great statesman. My goodness I If he
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withdrew support from Greece and China there would be two more nations that would become satellites of Soviet Russia.
Then he speaks of Palestine, and he speaks of it in terms suggesting that the united nations should have had an armed force ready to go there and implement its decisions by force. Very well. Let me ask him this question. Right now, in order to enforce the decision of the united nations in Palestine by putting an army in there, would he recommend that Canada conscript men for that army, or would he recommend that Canada should now put on a recruiting campaign to get forces to augment any force that the united nations might have?
If he is the leader of a party which is bidding for power to run the country, let him make his pronouncement on these three matters.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to go a step farther. We have heard much in this debate about the issue between communism and democracy, about the possibility of one world and that possibility fading. We have heard that described. Let us get right down to absolute bedrock, fundamental language. It is all right to use the terminology "communism versus democracy". But the fight is one that involves more than that. Believe me, Mr. Speaker, the fight is between a materialistic atheism that is attempting to take hold of this world and rule God out of His own universe, and the Christian way of free men. That is the issue in the present world's cold war. Make no mistake about that. That is the issue, and we shall never understand it until we think of it in those terms. The forces of evil are not playing around somewhere; they are real. The forces of evil are not out on a midnight spree; they are out to wreck humanity in the process of overthrowing God from the earth which He Himself created. Their whole program being used today is the program of atheistic materialism which most people call communism.


William Henry Golding: The hon. member has exhausted his time.


Ernest George Hansell: I wonder if I could go on until six o'clock? Five minutes is not of much use to anyone.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Go ahead.


William Henry Golding: Order. The hon. member's time is exhausted.
[Mr. Hansell.)
If the house consents to allowing the hon. member to continue, he may do so.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Go ahead.


Ernest George Hansell: I say that is the vital issue. The line of demarcation is becoming more clear-cut all the time. Let us make no mistake about that. I know the Christian forces in the world have perhaps not been alive to the issues. I am a clergyman by profession, but I am quite certain that many clergymen in this country do not know that is the issue. I am confident that if the issue were actually known, such tremendous powers would arise in this country on behalf of the people that they would speak with a voice which was certain and would give new life, new vitality and strength to, shall I say, the all-conquering force of Christianity. The forces of Christianity have largely been rendered impotent. They do not need to be. One thing I am certain of is this. The Christian church is the very embodiment of the life of God Himself that cannot possibly fail. The difficulty is that in eventually succeeding we may find it necessary to go through terrible times of sacrifice, which I believe can be avoided.
I was happy to hear a minister talk about the re-vitalizing of our democracy. I am glad to hear it, but when are we to start? That is the thing. We had better start now. One of the ways of re-vitalizing democracy is to see that people are rendered free from fear of insecurity. I do not want to get on to another issue; but that is one thing which will prove to the rest of the world that a nation can have its economic security with its absolute and optimum freedom-no coercion, no unnecessary controls, none of this procedure that will take men's freedom from them, but one augmenting their freedom with a glorious security that this country is able to give. That is one thing that I think will be the answer to communism; and even that will not stop them; because if communism is what I think it is-and I believe it to be the embodiment of fiendish and evil forces; I am not saying that against men now, because, as I said the other day, men can be fooled into the thing-the communists are out for world domination; and why should they not be? For we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers; against the rulers of the darkness in this world and against spiritual wickedness in high places. May we pray that the glorious victory will be ours.
At six o'clock the house took recess.

Railivay Act
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.



RAILWAY ACT


[Stage Direction]
Mr. STANLEY KNOWLES (Winnipeg North Centre) moved the second reading of Bill No. 6, to amend the Railway Act.
James Horace King: Mr. Knowles moves,
seconded by Mr. Castleden, that Bill No. 6 entitled "An act to amend the Railway Act", be now read a second time. Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the motion?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Carried.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Carried.


James Horace King: Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the motion?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Carried.


Mr. BRADETTE:: Explain the bill.


James Horace King: I shall put the question.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Question.


Clarence Gillis: Question.


Mr. RALPH MAYBANK (Winnipeg South Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to speak upon this bill, if the mover does not.
This is the bill which came before the house once or twice before. I do not know whether there have been some changes in it this year. I do not think so; it seems to be the same as before.


Stanley Howard Knowles: It is identical.


Ralph Maybank: I thought so. And it has received a considerable amount of approval in a number of quarters. Anything I have said about it in the past by way of approval I now repeat.
Last year, however, a similar bill was referred to the committee on industrial affairs. As I understood it at the time, that procedure was taken by general agreement. It seems to me that what was done last year would be the better course to follow this year. The mover of the bill, and those of his party who were present at that time, felt that that course was satisfactory.
In effect the bill is to remove certain disabilities from men who go on strike. That is not just the way in which it is expressed, but that is about what it comes down to, and I am quite sure that is what the hon. member has in mind in connection with this amendment.
I am not taking exception to the principle embodied in the bill, but perhaps the idea underlying it can best be seen by consideration of the circumstances which have given rise to it. I do not know how many members in the house will recall the very bad industrial war in Winnipeg in the year 1919 which lasted some few months. It came to be known as the Winnipeg general strike. That strike started as an ordinary industrial dispute between certain trade unions and their employers; and perhaps it was the fashion of the day to engage in sympathetic strikes. That sort of thing has occurred from time to time. There is a pattern, of course, in these industrial troubles; and that was the pattern of things at that time.


An hon. MEMBER:: Not cricket.


Ralph Maybank: Well, I do not know what was meant by that interjection. I thought perhaps the hon. member was offering some criticism respecting those who had engaged in the strike. I realize now, however, that that is not so. I had begun to respond by saying that at this late time, and so far away from the scene, it would scarcely behoove us to express any criticism. I realize now, however, that that is not what the hon. member meant.
At any rate that strike in Winnipeg came to involve nearly all men engaged in what we might call journeymen's work. Indeed, a great many other types of people who are not ordinarily organized in trade unions were likewise in the strike. Everything was paralysed in that city for quite some time.
For the benefit of any who have thought of that as a sort of bloody incident-because I recall at the time that eastern papers reported that the streets out there were running with blood-I should like to remark, for the benefit of any who have harboured any such ideas over the years, that that is entirely wrong.


Mr. HARRIS (Danforth):: Name the papers who made that report. I remember it very well.


Ralph Maybank: I do not think I can.


Joseph Henry Harris: I am sure you cannot.


Ralph Maybank: I believe, as a matter of fact, reference was to-


Joseph Henry Harris: Fiction; that is what it is.


Ralph Maybank: Well, my hon. friend may take objection to what I have said about papers having made such statements. I feel quite confident my recollection is correct,
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although there is always the possibility of its being faulty on that point. There is no need to quarrel about the matter. The hon. member can have his own way, so far as I am concerned.


Joseph Henry Harris: All right.


Ralph Maybank: In any unimportant matter, such as the controversy that he has attempted to institute, he may have his own way; that is, on any unimportant matter.


Joseph Henry Harris: That was a very important matter.


Ralph Maybank: That would appear to be sufficiently unimportant for him to win the argument. He can take such pleasure out of it as he wishes.
I was endeavouring to say, before the hon. member insisted upon interrupting, there was a view at the time that the conditions resulting from this industrial warfare were much worse than they actually were.
At any rate, eventually the strike came to an end and the men were taken back to work. It was a disastrous affair for Winnipeg. The public of that city were divided for many years after. Each person was either a pro-striker or an anti-striker; there did not seem to be any middle ground for the citizens. It was probably not until pretty close to the 1930's that the scars began to heal.
There were men employed by the Canadian National Railways and men employed by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, those being the two largest employers. There were a great many other fairly large employers of labour, and there were many people employed by the government.
All of these were out on strike. Eventually they were all, or nearly all, taken back to work. Many of these organizations had pension schemes of one kind or another, or else such schemes were instituted afterwards. As time began to heal the scars, these men who came back to work were given the same rights by most employers as if the strike had not taken place. A notable example of fair dealing in this respect was the position taken by the Canadian National Railways. They instituted a pension scheme not long after, and this interruption from work was not counted against the men.
I do not know just what the situation was prior to that with respect to pensions. I fancy there wrere several different pension schemes, because of the fact that the Canadian National Railways is a sort of conglomeration, anyway. I believe there was a Canadian government pension scheme, a Canadian Northern pension scheme, a Grand Trunk pension scheme, and
[Hr. Maybank.]
so on. However, as the house probably knows, a pension scheme has now been instituted to cover all the employees.
This hiatus did not affect the standing of the men. Again the government took the same position with respect to its employees. Most, if not all, employers-in fact I think all-who had superannuation schemes did not count this strike period against their employees.
An exception to the rule was the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. The Canadian Pacific at that time had a voluntary pension scheme. In fact at that time there were not many contributory pension schemes anywhere. It was held that the pension payments by the Canadian Pacific were ex gratia payments; there . was no contribution of any kind by the employees. That was the position taken by the railroad.
In order to qualify for this so-called gratuitous pension, an employee had to be steadily employed for a certain number of years. Whenever a break in service like this occurred it would wipe out all rights or, as the railroad would have said, all privileges with respect to such a scheme.
Some years later the Canadian Pacific instituted a contributory pension scheme. Men who had taken part in that strike or in any strike were not eligible to count their time from the commencement of employment with the railroad. At the -time of the institution of the new pension scheme there was a large number of men who were -too old to get into the scheme. By reason of that fact and by reason of the broken period in their employment, they were completely shut out of any possibility of pension.
Hon. members can readily understand, whatever might be the right or wrong of this matter, that a great deal of hardship was imposed on a large number of men. I know men personally who had worked for the Canadian Pacific from away back about the time it started in Winnipeg. There was one man I worked with myself on the railroad who told me that he had worked in Winnipeg on the rails before the connection was actually made across the river from the east. That man was the oldest employee on the railroad and he lost all possible chances of a pension as a result of that strike. I suppose his would be the most outstanding case of hardship, at any rate of any that I know, but there was a large number of such cases.
The men always took the position, and personally I think they took it with justice, that despite the fact that this was not a contributory pension scheme, it was something in which they really had a vested right, because

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they found that whenever they undertook to negotiate a wage agreement this pension scheme was brought into the picture and used to offset the demands or requests for wage increases or other changes in conditions of a beneficial nature.
I do not consider it necessary for the purposes of the matter before us to go into the question of whether they were right or wrong, but I have always believed that there was much justice in the position the men took with the idea of having a vested right in this pension. At any rate, they never did get any rights or privileges under the old scheme by reason of having gone on strike. The only ones who could get any rights were those still young enough to enter into the new pension scheme.
As I understand the underlying idea of the bill before us, it had its genesis in the condition of affairs resulting in the Winnipeg general strike. The position in which those Canadian Pacific men were at that time denied them a right in any so-called voluntary or gratuitous pension scheme, as well as in any other pension scheme under which payments for benefits would be made. However, that is hardly necessary to be in the bill, because that would be something in the nature of a contract in any event.
Viewing the situation as I do, I consider it desirable that something should be done to take care of a situation like that, should it arise any time in the future. We cannot do anything for these men of whom I have been speaking. The underlined parts of the bill give an idea of its scope, and if we skip some words it looks as though it would read something like this:
In the administration of a pension plan dismissal followed by reinstatement will not disqualify a railway employee from any retirement or pension rights or benefits to which he would otherwise be entitled.
The first comment I should like to make in passing is that I do not feel at all sure that what I understand is desired to be effected by the sponsor will be effected by what is written into this bill. In case I am right about that, it would not be too late to get the right words in, because I suppose this could be done in committee. Without going into the matter in detail, it seems to me that the section in the hon. member's proposed law will not do what he desires to have done. I would draw attention to the words I read, "followed by reinstatement". I have the fear that if the phrasing of this law is left as it is now, the result will be re-employment and not reinstatement; in such cases as I have
described with respect to Winnipeg or any strike where the men are beaten, it would turn out to be re-employment, not reinstatement. We would be running into law troubles about the exact meaning of the word "reinstatement". In view of the fact that we have at our hands the whole wealth of the English language, any changes that might be made to effectuate what is desired should be made. We should not lightly pass legislation without giving the fullest possible consideration to that aspect of the matter.
There is a further comment I should like to make. I do not think this belongs particularly to the Railway Act; I think it belongs to our general body of labour law. This sort of protection for workmen should exist for those in the shoe industry, the textile industry and so forth, as well as for those in the railroad industry. If that is admitted-and I feel quite certain that anyone who is supporting the idea underlying this bill will admit it-surely it would follow as a natural consequence that the proper place to have this kind of protecting law is in the general labour law of the country. I think we were all agreed on that last year, and it was on that account that the subject matter of a substantially similar bill was referred to the industrial relations committee.
My understanding at that time was that the bill, with whatever changes it was thought should be made in it, would be incorporated in the general labour law. Pursuant to that understanding which existed in the house at that time, it is my recollection that I moved that the bill should not then be read a second time but that the subject matter thereof should be referred to the industrial relations committee for study and report. It is my clear recollection, whatever the motion actually was, that there was an understanding that something of that sort should go into the general labour law, which is where I think this law should be.
I am going to make bold to offer the same resolution this year in the hope that the bill will go to the industrial relations committee for further study there, and if it can be incorporated in the general labour law, I suppose the mover would withdraw his bill. I do not know just what the procedure would be in such a case, but I fancy that something of that sort would take place. Last year when I made my motion it was because I understood it was completely acceptable all round, but from some remarks which have been made I gather that there may be some change in the situation at the present time, and I do not want to move that the subject matter of the bill be referred to the industrial relations committee unless there is pretty general agreement that that is what ought to be done. I think there is only
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one way in which to get effective protection of this sort for workmen, and that is by almost complete agreement on whatever reasonable compromise seems necessary under the circumstances. I refrain, therefore, from making the motion now, though that was my intention when I rose. Perhaps some other disposition will be found.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Mr. Speaker, I am very much in favour of the principle of the bill. In answer to what the member for Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. May-bank) has just said, I am inclined to think a reference of the bill to the committee on industrial relations would probably not be of any particular value, owing to the fact that, granted that we did put it in the labour code, it would give no authority over persons other than those who come under the dominion parliament in respect of labour matters. However, that is a technical point. Perhaps if the committee had the bill before it, it might be argued that it should1 apply to those persons over whom parliament had jurisdiction, such as the railway employees.
I am going to make a suggestion to the mover, to which I hope he will give consideration. May I also say to the house that I think the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre has given us a full and accurate account of what took place in 1919. I personally know many of these men of whom he spoke and who lost their positions and are now running elevators or doing sit-down jobs. I am not blaming the railways for that. After all, in those days, there was not a fund to which the employees contributed. The whole thing was done purely by the railways themselves, and the men knew they would lose the rights they had if they took the action they did. It is too bad, nevertheless that was the arrangement.
I agree entirely with the view expressed by the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre, as to the word "reinstatement". I suggest to the mover, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) that "reinstatement" is a big word. I am not going to vote against it or anything like that but I would point out to him that to retain it in the bill would probably be doing an injury to the men who have been discharged, for the very simple reason that certain benefits may follow from their reinstatement which might make the employers very slow to rehire those persons who need rehiring, who need their wages to buy food, and so on. However I am not going to quibble over that.
I think the mover is quite wrong in the next line, which says, "a temporary lay-off on account of reduction of staff"-that is all right

-"or absence due to an industrial dispute, strike or lockout". I think he should add, before the words "strike or lock-out", the word "legal". What I have in mind is this, that he with myself and others are on a committee which is now trying to draft a labour code, and certainly, so far as I am concerned, I want lock-outs and strikes to be declared illegal if they do not follow the conciliation procedure which the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) has set up and with which we are all in general agreement. In other words, I say this, that a person who engages in illegality of any kind, be he employer or employee, is not entitled to legislative benefits given by the parliament of Canada. I think if my hon. friend will consider that, he will probably agree with me.


Thomas John Bentley: Would you also put the wrord "legal" before "lock-out"?


Arthur Leroy Smith: Yes, certainly.


Thomas John Bentley: Would not an illegal lockout be very hard on employees?


Arthur Leroy Smith: It would. In other words, I do not want the company to benefit from any illegal lock-out, nor do I want the employees to benefit from any illegal strike. I hope I make myself perfectly clear.


Thomas John Bentley: Quite.


Arthur Leroy Smith: I carry that further. I am opposed to what is well known as the sympathetic strike and will seek in any and every jurisdiction power to outlaw the sympathetic strike.
We will say that two men opposite own a plant. They have a legitimiate industrial dispute. Two other men across from them own a plant and they have peace; no industrial difficulties about wages, conditions of work or any of these other things. I say it is the antithesis, the opposite, the complete negation of collective bargaining that our people should strike when we have no difficulty. Therefore it comes to this. The sympathetic strike is not a strike against the employer. It is the negation of collective bargaining because we have nothing to strike about; we are at peace; therefore the sympathetic strike becomes a strike against the people of Canada. So far as I am concerned, I intend to try to outlaw it-that- is a big, wide word-to make it illegal in every way that I can.
The same thing applies to lock-outs; because, believing as I do in collective bargaining, the minute I admit a sympathetic lock-out or strike I deny the very principle which I have been supporting all my adult life in connection with organized labour. Therefore I sug-

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gest to the sponsor of this bill that perhaps he should give it a bit more consideration and add the word "legal". If he does that I shall go with him all the way, because perhaps no one is blameworthy.
Many of us have seen these men who, as the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre so well put it, just because they had reached a certain age were unable to engage in a contributory scheme, and now they are out in the cold. I know some of them are seventy years of age and so on, and there just is not anything they can do. I am not blaming the railway. Why? Because the railway was ex gratia, if you like, giving money to persons who did what?-who observed certain conditions. That is exactly what they were doing. Others, misled, perhaps, did not observe those conditions, and therefore it would have been quite wrong for the railway to have tried to take the pot that they had set up, while there were men still there who were able to share it and enjoy it. You are not taking anything from the railway; you are taking from those men who lived up to their contract and are giving it to those men who did not live up to their contract. I am anxious to support the sponsor of this bill to see to it that such a thing shall never happen again; but I commend1 to his consideration that the board word "strike" needs some modification and that it should follow the lines that we are now discussing in a bill which is before the industrial relations committee.


Mr. A. M. NICHOLSON (Mackenzie):: Mr. Speaker, I believe some explanation should be given for the silence of my deskmate, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles).


Mr. MITCHELL:: He has not a cold or laryngitis, has he?


Stanley Howard Knowles: It was a surprise, was it not?


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: I am sure that the fact that he has brought this bill before parliament-*


Ralph Maybank: The hon. member said the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre had been silent right after I finished speaking.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: I said Winnipeg North Centre. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre has performed a valuable public service in bringing this problem before parliament a second time. We appreciate very much the comments made by the hon. member for Calgary West (Mr. Smith). A similar proposal was made a year ago, following which the hon.
member for Winnipeg North Centre discussed the question with the responsible union officials and they were of the opinion that, in view of the fact that railway strikes have not been defined, it would not be necessary to make that change. But I am sure that, as far as the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre is concerned, if the principle of this bill can be accepted and referred to a committee, if it is the considered opinion that the wording should be changed no serious objection would be raised from these quarters.
In view of the fact that it will be seven, eight or nine weeks before this matter can come before parliament again, and in view of the fact that all the ground was covered carefully a year ago, and while there did not seem to be any members of parliament who were opposed to the passage of this bill at that time, yet the bill was killed just as effectively as if hon. members had been opposed to it; therefore, now that the issue is clear and hon. members should be prepared to vote for or against the principle, I should like to move, seconded by the hon. member for Selkirk (Mr. Bryce):
That the question be now put.


Mr. L. PHILIPPE PICARD (Bellechasse):: The intention behind this bill has much to commend it to the attention of the house. Last year we had a very interesting discussion on it. I have great respect for the sponsor, and I deeply sympathize with the fact that tonight he did not feel well enough to discuss the bill in the way in which he would like to.
Nobody in this house, Mr. Speaker, would want to contribute in any way to any injustice that might be done to railway employees, whether by his silence or by wanting to hold up the passage of a measure which he considers might be valuable or helpful to the men.
The retirement or pension rights are known and considered by all of us to be most sacred to any workman. They accrue from toil and hard work and are the deserved compensation at the end of a long life in the service of a company. Every workman must be assured that he will be treated fairly and will be given all possible advantages, since it is not a gift that comes to him; it is an earned benefit from his hard work and from his valuable service to a company, because it often happens that he has been with a company for quite a long time. Any man, after such devotion to a company should, of course, be sure that there will be a body of law or by-laws governing the contribution to a pension or a retirement fund and that he shall not be at the mercy or the fancy or maybe
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the possible injustice of any official, whether we are considering railway companies or any other companies. A man must be able to look confidently to the future and know that his claims to retirement or pension will be looked into carefully.
When we consider this bill, since the intentions of everybody here must be admittedly favourable to the employees, we find that the wording is the most important matter to be considered, because, through the passage of a bill, the wording of which might not be the one that would give the best benefits to the railway workers, we might be working against them instead of for them. Under such circumstances we might all regret our haste, because in sympathizing with the principle of the matter we might be impairing the interests of the workers themselves. Of course the regulations of the railway companies with [DOT] respect- to retirement funds must be considered when we are dealing with this bill, and in my opinion the bill does not go far enough. I will take the different items one by one.
Personally I know of two cases in which railway employees are concerned. They are cases with which I am familiar, and I do not think the bill as it is actually worded would afford any solution for those two cases, because it would not give me any hope of a solution. It may be that at the moment I am at the mercy of some official's interpretation; but, according to the wording of one of these provisions, the two cases I have in mind would have no legal status at all, and the fact that other cases were mentioned and these left out might work more against them than if they were not mentioned at all, if we were relying on the equity and fairminded-ness of the officials who had to decide the question.
In the explanatory notes it is stated:
The purpose of this amendment is to make it perfectly clear that the pension rights of railway employees, "provided such other conditions as are laid down in railway pension plans are met, cannot be lost or abrogated because of a break in service for any of the reasons indicated in the proviso which is added to paragraph (c)".
To this I do not think anyone has any objection whatsoever, and I believe the suggestion made some time ago by the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. Maybank) is quite valuable, that there should be included in our labour laws generally such principles as would govern rules and by-laws with respect to pension or retirement funds.
Is this the place where we should put them? It might be, if we were satisfied that the wording is precisely that which would accomplish

the result desired, but at the moment I doubt it. I will come more particularly to paragraph (c) itself; but, so far as the principle itself is concerned, I think everyone agrees that it would be better to have it in the general body of our labour laws so that it wrnuld govern labour at large, and that principle should be adopted, not in the language of this bill, the general intent of which is expressed in the explanatory notes.
As regards the wording, I do not think I would be doing my duty to the workmen, some of whom I know personally, if I endorsed it as it stands.
Paragraph (c) comes under the general powers granted to the directors to run the company, and what we are doing now is dealing with a paragraph of a section extending those powers. Section 122 provides:
The directors may make by-laws or pass resolutions, from time to time, not inconsistent with law, for
(a)	the management and disposition of the stock, property, business and affairs of the company;
(b)	the appointment of all officers, servants and artificers, and the prescribing of their respective duties and the compensation to be made therefor; and
(c)	the retirement of such of said officers and servants, on such terms as to an annual allowance or otherwise, as in each case the directors, in the interest of the company's service, and under the circumstances, consider just and reasonable.
Now here comes the amendment, the body of the bill:
Provided that in- the administration of any railway retirement or pension- plan, leave of -absence,

We are all agreed that this would be quite acceptable.
[DOT]-suspension,-
That would also be acceptable.
-dismissal followed by reinstatement . . .
That is the point I had in mind when I said a moment ago that in my opinion the bill did not go far enough. I have in mind a case under the authorities of the Canadian National Railways of an employee who has given thirty-eight or thirty-nine years of faithful service to the company as a conductor on freight trains. This man has had a perfect record. He has had no trouble at all and there have been no complaints against him, no marks against h-is record. After thirty-nine years of service he is transferred to a passenger train.
This man has never handled public moneys before. He has had a fair salary but with a large family he has had many obligations, and of course a man may be weak at any age. He commits an irregularity of some sort, but

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so far as the amount is concerned it is negligible. However, the inspectors discover it and shortly afterwards the man is dismissed. He had been exactly three and one-half months as a passenger train conductor. The investigation showed that the amount involved was not $10, but the man was first suspended and soon afterwards dismissed.
After thirty-nine years of satisfactory service as a freight train conductor, in consequence of this error, which I do not wish to condone or to suggest should be overlooked, he is deprived of any pension or retirement benefits, according to certain rules of the company. He is thrown out. He is given no compensation whatever for his thirty-nine years of faithful service. That is in accordance with a company by-law and I am not criticizing it, but this dismissal may not be followed by a reinstatement.
I understand that at the present time under the by-laws of the company there can be an appeal for mercy to the authorities of the company with a view to securing from them some sort of benefit for the -many years of service rendered. The man has no legal rights, but the matter can be argued in equity.
If we state definitely that no railway employee shall be disqualified from any retirement or pension rights or benefits to which he would otherwise be entitled "if his dismissal is followed by reinstatement," we may defeat our own purpose. In this case I mentioned, as well as in others where the amount involved is small, where a man may have made a mistake at the end of a long period of service he -will not be reinstated. It might be said that the fact that we put this condition in might hurt a large number of people. This is not an isolated case. If we definitely put in the words "dismissal followed by reinstatement", we may be hurting a man's chance on a point of equity, because parliament has stated that the condition shall be "dismissal followed by reinstatement."
As an hon. member said a moment ago, even in a case when it would be possible to reinstate a man, do you not think that it would work against him and that he would not be reinstated? In cases like this I think these words, although well intentioned, would not serve the purpose for which they were intended, but would rather work against it.
I have just quoted one case. Another case I have in mind does not concern the mishandling of funds. A man who has served about six, seven or eight years with the company, goes to war and after four years comes back. One day he has a mishap on the railway; he is perfectly sober; everything is perfect in his case. An investigation takes place
and the man is not dismissed. Some time later the head office of his company wants a definite report. The employee is seen walking back and forth near the offices of the company waiting for some other employee. It is not his day on duty; he is off duty. Somebody tells him that the superintendent, or whoever it is, wants to see him. The man goes up and the superintendent who, it is assumed, does not like him very well, talks to him and says, "You took a drink." The man says, "No." A doctor is called immediately to examine the man. The doctor states that the man has had some liquor, but that he was in a condition to handle a train; however, it was his day off. Although this did not happen while he was in service, he was dismissed from the company. I do not want to excuse him for doing that, but he would probably not get reinstatement or at least there would be considerable difficulty in obtaining it.
All these cases to me fall under this simple rule that if the condition is not mentioned, there would be a better chance to appeal for mercy. But if the act says, "dismissal followed by reinstatement," although I may be wrong, I feel it would hurt my two cases.
We now come to the fourth condition, "absence due to an industrial dispute, strike or lock-out." With that I am in sympathy, provided that the strike is a legal one and provided that the strike is not one of those foolhardy affairs which may have happened at times in Canadian industry. That is no reflection on any labour leader, but these things happen.
Someone mentioned some time ago sympathy strikes or jurisdictional strikes. Should we leave the door open for, shall I say, any agitator to come into a railway union and be permitted, without any fear of losing any of his rights, to excite the men and not to have a sense of his responsibility; and in addition to that, not taking any chance of losing any benefits? I think the wording there also is too broad.
A moment ago I said that I did not think the wording went far enough. I think this one goes too far. It says "or absence due to an industrial dispute, strike or lock-out." There should be a qualification to this. With that in mind, I think there should be some way of having such a bill as this, or the principle of it, referred at one time or another to a committee so that it may be carefully considered. The trouble is that, under our present system of just having one hour a week for public bills of private members, we do not have a proper opportunity for discussing the full merits of a question like this. Everyone is anxious and is looking at the speaker with the hope that he may try to finish.
Supply-External Affairs


Clarence Gillis: The hon. member has one minute to go.


Louis-Philippe Picard: That is why so many members here in the house would not want to speak. We talk for weeks on wheat, and the question could be just as comfortably dealt with in less time with less talk.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Question.


Louis-Philippe Picard: This is a most important question. It is not one that should be pressed to a vote at a moment like this, nor should we be anxious to watch the clock and say which way we shall vote tonight.


Clarence Gillis: Half a minute to go.


Louis-Philippe Picard: Every member should have a right to speak on a question like this.


James Horace King: Order. The hour reserved for public bills having expired, the house will revert to the business being dealt with before six o'clock.


Clarence Gillis: Talked out again.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Abbott for committee of supply.
Mr. W. GARFIELD CASE (Grey North):: I am sure, Mr. Speaker, we listened with a great deal of interest to the declaration of policy and the far-reaching address presented to this House of Commons by the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. St. Laurent). I think it is a time when we can afford to reflect, take stock and seek to appreciate, if we can, the position Canada has assumed as a result of the minister's pronouncement. A declaration of policy is not enough. More is required. In other words, it is easy to make a statement of policy, but if we fail to indicate to those to whom we may become obligated the means we intend to employ to give effect to that policy, then we have only partly completed the job.
This afternoon we listened with interest to the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Hansell); and with much that he had to say I am in complete agreement. What I have to say to you now, Mr. Speaker, is said with the kindliest feeling toward those who may be just as sincere in their outlook as I am; but Canada faces a serious situation. I can say this, that no one could believe in communism who does not believe in socialism. In other words, socialism is the handmaiden of communism. While we have had declarations from our

socialist friends, nevertheless they are a fair target, for this very thing we have reason to believe can undermine confidence in our own institutions. Both socialism and communism are destructive in their outlook.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: You know better than that.


Wilfrid Garfield Case: Both advocate the destruction of capitalism; both advocate state ownership and state control. As a matter of fact, I shall be pleased to listen to the hon. member tell me the difference between socialism and communism. So far as I am concerned, there is absolutely no difference, except in the approach -the means to the end. The end result will be exactly the same.
If we ever arrive at the place where we have a socialist form of government, then the next step will be communism. That has followed all down through the ages.


Mr. CASTLEDEN:: Like Great Britain?


Wilfrid Garfield Case: I am not so sure but that Britain is rather vulnerable today, if it were not for the fact that those who have been leading the British government now, in a sense, appreciate the errors of their ways, and are seeking to purge their party of those communistic elements and doctrines. I should be inclined to feel that the situation would be serious for Britain, if that were not so.


Mrs. STRUM:: Would the hon. member permit a question?


Wilfrid Garfield Case: I might be glad to listen.


Gladys Grace Mae Strum: I think the statement just made should be challenged. Would the hon. member consider the socialist government in New Zealand, which has now been in power for thirteen years, and has been given a fair test as a member of the commonwealth; and we will recall that the hon. member has just said there is no difference between communism and socialism. Would the hon. member say that New Zealand is communist today?


Wilfrid Garfield Case: I would say that the New Zealand government is a socialist government, and it has had a very bad effect upon the whole economy of New Zealand.


Gladys Grace Mae Strum: But would you say it is communist?


Wilfrid Garfield Case: As a matter of fact, it has hampered the development of that sister dominion, and many people have left, just

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the same as scores of people will leave Saskatchewan rather than live under the socialist government there.


Gladys Grace Mae Strum: Would the hon. member please give the figures to prove that statement'.


Wilfrid Garfield Case: Just listen to some of the remarks being made by Mr. Jolliffe, leader of the socialist party in Ontario, where he refers to Blackwell's blacklegs, which is not anything more or less than the method employed by the communist party to undermine confidence in our domestic institutions, and in law and order. And if you want to go farther, just follow through and listen to the words of responsible leaders of that party. For instance, Mr. Winch, leader of the C.C.F. socialist party in British Columbia, says that this is not a reform party, but that it is a militant socialist party, and must remain a militant socialist party.
So my suggestion is this-because I at least have some confidence in the people I rub shoulders with; and I have made C.C.F. friends in the house-that if they really are sincere and have regard for the future of Canada, if they have confidence in the future of this country, and if they realize, as I do, that at the present time we stand on the threshold of one of the greatest developments we have ever had, they should take time by the forelock and join the Liberal party. They will become the left wing of the Liberal party or the more radical element of that party.
But if they remain a socialist party, then I say to my hon. friends, that the communist party will undoubtedly destroy you; because only by the methods which you advocate can they hope to set up in this country a communist government. I do not blame the socialists for denying the communists. There is very good reason why Tim Buck and his fellow travellers are urging everyone to support the C.C.F. candidates in the present campaign.
And so I say that the C.C.F. socialists are most vulnerable at the present time. As part of her foreign policy, Canada has opened her doors to thousands of newcomers. They will come to Canada and become part of the citizenry of this great commonwealth. On Saturday last I was in the Union station at Toronto at the time of the arrival of a group of displaced persons. I could not help feeling that there was a duty to be performed. Although there were some there to greet them, I could not help feeling, as they milled about
in the rotunda of the station, seeking some sense of direction, that other arrangements could easily have been made. There could have been someone on hand who could have greeted them, someone who could have worn a badge, someone whom I might have approached in order to learn from where these people had come, and with whom I could have joined in extending a greeting to them.
After all, I suppose one of the chief reasons why the United States has become great is the fact that the people of that country have been great nationalizers. We have had people come to Canada, but we have not been good nationalizers. I could not help comparing the naturalization courts in Canada with those of the United States. When a citizen there takes the oath of allegiance, and becomes a naturalized citizen, one of the Daughters of the American Revolution steps forward and pins an American flag on the lapel of his coat. Inquiries are made about his family and their whereabouts, and calls are made on such new citizens. And the United States has become a great cosmopolitan nation.
I thought a word of greeting to those newcomers, some effort to welcome them, would have been proper. There were many fine-looking young men with a gleam in their eye, indicative of the fact that they had arrived in a great and free country at last, about which they had heard so much.
I thought it would have been well to have had placards, something the same as those used when welcoming our troops back home. Those placards would have been placed at ports of entry and in larger centres, such as union stations and other dispersal points. They could have been printed in the language of the newcomers, and could indicate that the greatest security these people might expect to enjoy would be to learn as quickly as possible the official languages of this country, and to learn something about our great institutions; because those newcomers are a fair mark for the subversive elements referred to at some length by the minister and subsequent speakers.
I say the challenge to Canadians today is to make good citizens of those newcomers. They will play their full part in this land of opportunity. They have come here properly advised, knowing that we offer them an opportunity to assume their responsibilities as citizens and to play their part in the march of progress, if they are willing to work. They will be permitted to build their own homes and to accept the full obligations of citizenship. If we offer those things, then I believe the future has much in
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store for Canada and for Canadians. We owe this not only to Canadian but to world society.
I believe we can afford to become somewhat more conscious of being Canadians. I think we should be more proud of our own community, our provinces and our great dominion.


Gladys Grace Mae Strum: All socialist.


Wilfrid Garfield Case: We have much to be proud of. We are part and parcel of an empire which has played a great part in the onward march of civilization.


Gladys Grace Mae Strum: You are going to have to move out.


Wilfrid Garfield Case: I am going to say to my hon. friend, the lady member, that if a socialist government were elected in Canada I would be one of those who would be the first to recognize that the people had spoken in a democratic way. But by the same democratic process I am going to lend my voice and influence and do all I can to prevent that sort of thing from coming about in Canada.


An hon. MEMBER:: How?


Wilfrid Garfield Case: Well, one method that could be employed is to seek to make known to newcomers and Canadians as well, those institutions that we have which guarantee to us that sense of freedom and security which is not found under any other system of government in the whole wide world. Capitalism and democracy have their weaknesses, but the thing that impresses me most is that some propagandists, those who seek to destroy this system and to introduce a new system, have themselves enjoyed all the advantages of the system they are seeking to destroy.
Under this system we have a higher standard of living than that of any other country in the whole world. You can make comparisons with the United States of America if you care to, but when you get into the deep south or the central states you will find that, on balance, Canadians generally enjoy a higher standard of living. We have more automobiles; we have radios and telephones, and yet there are those who would rob our people of their initiative, the greatest asset that they possess, their pride in themselves, and would delegate to some central authority the responsibility of guaranteeing their future economic security.
Man's greatest security is his faith in God and his confidence in himself. This country with its vast expanse of territory offers a tremendous challenge. People cannot all come here and flock to the large centres to live in the bright lights; they must be prepared to roll back our frontiers, to accept the challenge, to make their way in this land of ours.


Gladys Grace Mae Strum: Where are the homesteads?


Wilfrid Garfield Case: I had a homestead myself.


Gladys Grace Mae Strum: Where are they now?


Mr. BRYCE:: You never stayed on it.


Wilfrid Garfield Case: I had it for quite a long time. I look back at that as being one of the most cherished experiences in my life. I have always felt that the forces which seek to hold you back are the very forces which draw out the best in man. When you get things the easy way you never appreciate the reward which comes only through adversity and hard work.
We can make comparison between daylight and darkness or between winter and summer, because we have the opportunity to appreciate those things, but Canadians have not been able to or have not had' to make a comparison between freedom and oppression. We have always had our freedom and it is the most cherished possession we shall ever have. Very often we treat it too lightly. I think our strength lies in our ability, not only to govern ourselves but to play a part in world government, particularly within the British commonwealth of nations. Their methods and systems of government are in common with ours.
I spoke in the beginning about our declaration of foreign policy and I suggested that it carried writh it an obligation. We are one of the signatories to the united nations pact, and along with others we have agreed to go to the assistance and defence of any nation which may be attacked. I consider that the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Hansell) did a fine job this afternoon. I was anxious to learn what formula the government proposes to use in order that we may honour our obligation.
Surely we are not going to drift along until the fatal day comes when we shall be faced with the responsibility of our obligation to meet a challenge wholly unprepared. In other words, the speech of the minister was a clear challenge and a ringing declaration, but it must be supported by some show of strength. I do not feel that Canada could put on an exhibition which would frighten anyone particularly, but we have the resources to meet the issue in part. With our vast expanse of territory and our far-flung frontiers, it would be almost impossible with our limited population properly to guard against possible invasion. But there is a method which we could employ and which I would recommend to the government.
I believe that if we were to address ourselves to one particular arm of the service we

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could seek to make it as nearly perfect as possible. We have at hand the resourcefulness of the young men who served in a particular branch of the armed services during the war. We could make a tremendous contribution, not only to the defence of our own land but on behalf of the others with whom we have joined in a common obligation. I refer to the ability we have to build up a substantial and sizeable air force. Such an air force could be the eyes of Canada; it could cover our vast expanses of territory, and we would constantly know what was taking place, even in our hinterlands.
While we may feel that we are not large in number, I think we have that sense of responsibility to guard our country and to train our people to defend themselves. The art of selfdefence lends a sense of confidence to anyone, because it is only in knowing how to defend yourself that you may survive. It is not my intention to detain the house at great length, but I wanted to make these observations, the challenge and to accept our full share of responsibility within the limits of our ability to meet them.
I should like to offer encouragement to the C.C.F. socialist party who in my opinion are sincere in seeking to hold off the inroads of communism. I ask them to think seriously and carefully before that disruptive force overwhelms them, before whatever contribution they seek to make will be lost. After all, every idea is worth something. There is much to be gained from ideas. If we exchange ideas we are always richer. I am one who always listens to the voice of reason. I respect other people's opinions even though I act on my own. In the main I believe that the opportunity is here.
There has been no voice raised in opposition to the minister's pronouncement of policy. I think it is a great tribute to the common sense of Canadians and to this House of Commons. In meeting that one main challenge, we are on common ground, determined to play our part with credit and honour to ourselves and with distinction to those who are responsible for formulating policy. I hope we shall always be as closely agreed on foreign policy as we are at this moment. As a matter of fact, Canada is entering a new field, breaking new ground in foreign policy. In days gone by, when the holocaust broke and we were actually engaged in conflict, it was part of our duty to lend aid and we were more or less advised what was required of us. But now we have representation on the councils of the world where we can have some appreciation of what is taking place and guide and govern ourselves accordingly. Come what 5849-229
may, let us be proud and prepared to meet the challenge and to accept our full share of responsibility within the limits of our ability to meet it.


Clarence Gillis: Mr. Speaker, I listened with a great deal of interest to the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. St. Laurent), who placed before the house a comprehensive picture of what the government visualizes in foreign relations for some time to come. The hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) also placed fairly and squarely before the house and the people of this country the position of the C.C.F. group, leaving very little unsaid. But during the last day or two, and particularly today, the debate has taken a different turn, and in my opinion some of the things that have been said require clarification. I shall deal with them briefly and say what I feel about the world of the future and the part that Canada will be expected to play iii it.
I wish to refer to what the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Hansell) said this afternoon, and the hon. member for Grey North (Mr. Case) a few moments ago said that he agreed with what the hon, member for Macleod had placed on the record. I noticed that his party applaused en bloc what the hon. member for Macleod had to say. Personally I do not think the hon. member for Macleod did himself justice this afternoon, nor do I think the hon. member for Grey North did himself justice, in characterizing the social democratic movements of the world as being exactly the same as the communist totalitarian machine that Russia is operating at the present time. That is giving to the house and the country a completely wrong picture and doing a disservice to the people of Canada in the field of foreign relations because, whether they like it or not, the old machine that they are trying to ride, that machine of capitalism as it existed before the war, and the thing they call free enterprise and talk so much about, no longer exists. They apparently fail to realize that in the world of the future the government of Canada in the field of foreign relations will have to deal with a world that has gone socialist, whether we like it or not, and the mechanics of society in this country will accordingly have to be brought up to date.
The talk in which my two hon. friends indulged is not new, but it is dangerous if they are interested in the Canada of the future. They have not learned very much since 1939. In that respect they are following the party line which they took in 1939. I look back over the record and find that, while they
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denounced communism because it is totalitarian and takes away from us the freedoms we have developed and enjoy, they are not so averse to another kind of dictatorship. That was indicated by a speech made in this house in September, 1939, by the then leader of the Conservative party, a man now deceased. He talked exactly as the hon. member for Grey North talked a few moments ago. Let us gee what he had to say about totalitarianism at that time as exemplified by Mr. Hitler, against whom we went to war. It will be found on page 14 of Hansard of September 8, 1939, in the special war session:
But, sir, Germany is controlled at the present time by an unscrupulous egoist. It is true he served Germany well, and had he stopped at a certain point he might well have gone down into history as a great German hero. He raised the German people from discouragement, gave them back their pride after a just but humiliating defeat. Had he stopped there he would have been accepted perhaps by all the world as a German hero. But he did not stop there.
That was in 1939 after Hitler had taken from the people of Germany every last semblance of rights and freedoms as we understand them.


Mr. SKEY:: Under national socialism.


Clarence Gillis: That was the policy of your leader in this house at that time, when he eulogized that particular person. They were not afraid of that kind of totalitarianism, and I warn my hon. friends to my right that the only time I shall be afraid of communism in Canada is when, if ever, the people of Canada should elect a Tory government with that kind of outlook which was the party line in 1939.


Mr. LENNARD:: What was your line?


Clarence Gillis: I will tell you before I get through. This afternoon the hon. member for Macleod said that Britain today was in danger, that the road to communism was through the socialist movement and that Britain today was vulnerable. The hon. member for Grey North agrees with that and he repeated it. Let us take a look at Britain as it was in 1937 and 1938. Who built that fascist machine with which we had to go to war? The Tories of Britain.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


An hon. MEMBER:: Absolute nonsense.


Clarence Gillis: This is from Sir Nevile
Henderson's book, "The Failure of a Mission". This is your own people talking, not the socialists. He was sent to Germany in 1937 or 1938 to make a last attempt to appease

Hitler. This is what he had to say in his book that was printed during the war:
Nor are all dictatorships even if prolonged, reprehensible . . . One cannot, just because he is a dictator, refuse to admit the great services which Signor Mussolini has rendered to Italy; nor would the world have failed to acclaim Hitler as a great German if he had known when and where to stop; if, for instance, after Munich and the Nuremberg decrees for the Jews.
That was his reaction.


Angus MacInnis: That was the Tory line.


Clarence Gillis: Yes, in Britain at that time, definitely; and it was quite all right if, after Munich, Hitler had stopped; the Tories of Britain would have acclaimed him as a great hero. Today Britain still retains democracy. My contention is-and I think the people of Britain knew it-that if a Tory government had been in power for six months or a year after the termination of the war, Britain would have gone through a violent revolution, and all we know in the British empire and try to retain in the way of freedom would have gone with it. The people of Britain knew that. Eleven million Englishmen who went through the war went to the ballot boxes and in their own way changed the government to one which would not only retain the freedoms that they had but purge the system of all its evils and expand democracy. That is what is going on in Britain, but my hon. friends would not understand it.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Clarence Gillis: Let me quote another little bit of something from a paper that is not socialist. Stop and ponder this for a moment. This is taken from the New York Herald-Tribune of February 9, 1948, and reads as follows.
The true allies of democracy in Europe are the socialist parties. They alone give us any hope for the preservation of personal liberty. We have systematically despised and underestimated them, just because we do not want socialism here at home. We have never taken the trouble to understand the historical development of these parties. They alone are capable of forming strong democratic states, and if they perish the hope of democracy will perish with them.
This is not a socialist paper. This is an absolutely true statement.


Frank Exton Lennard: Who wrote that?


Clarence Gillis: It is an editorial from the New York Herald Tribune.


Lawrence Wilton Skey: Who wrote it?


Clarence Gillis: It is true, may I say to my hon. friend.

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36C9


An hon. MEMBER:: It was not George Drew?


Clarence Gillis: No, it was not George Drew. When you talk about rights, freedom, hopes and aspirations, let me ask you this question. The hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) in the House of Commons in season and out of season has been advocating a bill of rights, something written into the laws of Canada that would guarantee certain liberties to everybody in this country. The government of Saskatchewan, which is a socialist government, has a provincial bill of rights. The C.C.F. group in the legislature of Ontario placed that same bill before that legislature, the bill that was so strongly advocated by the hon. member for Lake Centre, and the Tories in Ontario threw it out. How do you reconcile that?


An hon. MEMBER:: We do not need it here.


Clarence Gillis: You cannot have it both ways; you cannot stand up in the House of Commons and wave your arms about rights and freedoms because you are on this side of the house and deny the same things in a legislature where you have the power to put it through.
The only government in Canada that has given the people a bill of rights is the Saskatchewan government, which happens to be a socialist government.


Mr. CARDIFF:: Talk about foreign policy for a while.


Clarence Gillis: I am going to talk about it. I am answering the arguments that you fellows brought out and I am suggesting to my hon. friends over here that they study their history a little farther back than 1945 and read something besides "Social Suicide" written by Mr. Trestrail, because that information is not accurate and is not up to date. You are badly out on your history. I am warning the Canadian people now, and I am doing it in all sincerity, that unless they get behind the united nations there will be trouble. I ask them to recognize the fact that the old machine of private enterprise, that they are trying to hang on to, is gone, whether they like it or not, and they cannot bring it back.
You talk about controls; you say you do not want any controls. What have you today in this country in the way of controls? You have irresponsible controls behind the scenes by people who are not responsible to anyone in this country. For example, I wonder how many hon. members are aware that 95 per cent 5849-229i
of the banking and investment assets are controlled by 183 directors of the chartered banks in Canada, and that all of your economic processes are tied up there. Is there any control there? Why, certainly there is control there. Do hon. members remember the statement made by the former Minister of Finance in this house, who is also a free enterpriser and now Minister of Justice (Mr. Ilsley), in which he pointed out that .price controls in this country had saved for the people $1250 for every dollar spent on them. Who is getting that money today? Canada Packers, International Nickel, Dominion Steel and Coal, and some others. Let us have a look at this question.


William Henry Golding: Order. I hope the hon. member will deal with the question before the house.


Mr. COLD  WELL@: This is a motion to go into supply.


William Henry Golding: The house has been dealing with foreign affairs.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: This is a motion to go into supply, but we are now discussing the foreign policy of the government. It is true that, on going into supply, many questions can be discussed, but they have to be disposed of one after the other. If the hon. member wishes to discuss something that does not arise out of the debate there will be an opportunity of doing so, but this part of the debate should be concluded first.


Clarence Gillis: Mr. Speaker, I sat here this afternoon and listened to the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Hansell) make a forty-five minute speech on the very things that I am now answering. I would not be mentioning those things tonight had he not been permitted to do what he did this afternoon. The hon. member for Grey North (Mr. Case) did exactly the same thing tonight and I am merely putting the record straight.


Wilfrid Garfield Case: I merely commented.


Clarence Gillis: In addition to that, the answers I am now giving dovetail into Canada's foreign policy, because, apart from Canada and the United States, the government will have to deal with socialist governments whether they like it or not, and they might as well begin to understand that. If Canada is to develop relations with other countries which have different forms of government, then she had better stop calling them communist totalitarian machines and the handmaidens of Soviet Russia. That kind of thing
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in the House of Commons is irresponsible and should not be permitted, and somebody on the government side of the house should straighten out the matter.
For the remainder of my time I am going to deal with the subject matter before the house.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: Hear, hear.


An hon. MEMBER:: Superman.


Mr. BURTON:: They do not like their own potatoes.


Clarence Gillis: With regard to foreign relations, as I listened to the discussion in the house I noticed a tendency right across the country, and particularly from some sections of the house, to divide the world into two camps.


Alan Cockeram: The hon. member is not trying to do that.


Clarence Gillis: No, I am not. It is not true; it is not realistic. That attitude suggests that there is no choice for the people of this world except to follow blindly the lead of the United States, or, on the other hand, if you agree with the policy of the United States government you are a fascist and you must line yourself up in either one camp or the other. That is exactly what the United States imperialists want to do; that is exactly what Soviet Russia wants the people of the world to think, and that, if you are divided into two camps, war is inevitable, while they continue their march in the directions in which they want to go. I myself think that is something which should be thoroughly hammered home to the people of the British empire and to socialists particularly and to those who are liberals with a small "1" throughout the world.
There is another choice and it has been clearly indicated by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar. The British empire will in my opinion be the stabilizing influence in the world of the future. New Zealand, Australia, Great Britain have changed the mechanics of society. They are co-operating, and Canada as part of the British empire should be studying those mechanics and preparing herself to make that change and follow it through into western Europe where there is still a chance to set up democratic forms of government which will continue the trend in that direction.
That is the alternative we are faced with in this country. Either you are going to follow blindly the lead of the United States, or you will be placed in the position where you are considered fascist or anti-communist only, because you do not stand for anything and have no program or policy but believe that

war is inevitable. It is not inevitable. In my opinion, and I stated it two years ago, as far as major war is concerned, I am not afraid of it. I do not think there is any possibility of a major conflict between the United States and Soviet Russia. I believe the war has been going on since 1945. It is an economic war. Soviet Russia talked war and the scare of war for the purpose of getting you thinking about that, while she continued to march along and gobble up six or seven little nations which were not in a position to defend themselves.
On the other hand, war hysteria is deliberately promoted in the United States for election purposes and for her own purposes of keeping men's minds thinking along those lines, while she develops the mechanics for the next election. In my opinion, this war hysteria, this idea of inevitable war between Russia and the United States, should be played down at every opportunity. By that, I do not mean that either Canada or the United States should disarm. The only guarantee against war is to be prepared to fight when someone wants to encroach upon your way of life or upon your liberties or territory.
I do not think there is any other way of maintaining peace because, with nations, it is the same as with individuals. They have their quota of bullies. Any of you who have been in lumber camps or in barracks will find that there are always two or three big bullies and they pick on the little fellow who cannot fight back. He gets pushed around, but the fellow who is ready to fight is not. That is as true of nations as it is of individuals.
But this idea of inevitable war is something that should be exploded and not talked about as it has been, because it has been deliberately promoted from both these sources for the purpose of keeping people's minds busy.
I should like to say this about the Marshall plan. It has had a good deal of adverse publicity in certain sections, and the Italian elections have been tied in with it.
It is easy to confuse people; it is easy to confuse members of this House of Commons who are sitting here and have an opportunity to study these matters. But it is much easier to confuse the average man on the street, and if you are not so much afraid of communism you should make an attempt to keep your people informed. The only guarantee in any country for the preservation of liberty and expanding democracy is the vigilance of the people, and if they do not understand and are not kept informed by their public servants it is not hard to take them for a ride.
As regards the Marshall plan and the tying in of that with the elections in Italy, in my

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opinion, as the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis) said, the plan was the greatest charitable gesture ever made by any nation to other groups of nations who were not in a position to help themselves. There is a sum of $22-5 billion being appropriated. That will not all be given away. Much of it will go by way of loan from the international bank; nevertheless the motive of the United States in instituting the Marshall plan has been questioned. I do not care what the motive is. The net result will be the feeding of starving people; and, irrespective of the motive, as far as I am concerned, we are supporting that net result 100 per cent.
If you want to stop the machine you are so much afraid of, that is the only way to stop it. You have to feed people, clothe them, show them that you are interested in them and get them back into production. Then assist them in forming the kind of governments they want themselves, and in western Europe there will be social democratic governments.
I am not a bit afraid of that. Social democracy is the expansion of the system we have today. There is no other explanation for it, because socialism is the logical successor of capitalism, just as logical as feudalism was the successor of barbarism. When capitalism took over from feudalism it was merely the organization of the plants and factories and other things we have today. The system was bom to serve a purpose and it has served that purpose. It has produced everything requisite to life.
The thing that has not been evolved is the system of distributing production back to the people on the basis of needs and making the people comfortable and happy with the things they themselves produce. That is socialism. It is society itself, the people at work. The dominant factor in society under this concept is human rights rather than the dollar sign. No one can disagree with that, and, whether you like it or not, it is inevitable. If that inevitability had been recognized in Europe, Europe would not be in ashes today. [DOT]
What did Hitler represent? Hitler represented the ultimate in capitalism; that is, the boss with the gun at the head of the average person in the country, still making his profits. That is all. The Tories feared social change more than they feared him and, as a result, the country was destroyed and everything with it.
Now you have to start rebuilding, and you will not rebuild the old machine of so-called free enterprise, because it is no longer free. These people here talk about initiative. Where have you the initiative in this country? What initiative have the 27,000 unemployed workers
in the maritime provinces? None. What initiative has there been on the part of the 15,000 of our young people who, every year for thirty years, have left the maritimes and gone to the United States? None. You are all right if you happen to have been born with a silver spoon in your mouth or if you inherited a lot of money, but there is no initiative in the system today. There is no competition. It is just monopoly control from the top, and it is top-heavy.
Someone said here that your home is your castle. I should like you to go to Minto, New Brunswick, and look at the miners' homes there, the tarpaper shacks. Our housing leaves much to be desired, but I will not go into that tonight. I am merely pointing out the inevitability of change in the system, and the reason you are talking about relief for Europe today is that they tried to hang on to something that no longer works. Make no mistake about it. As sure as day follows night, the system will change, whether we like it or not, either by evolution or by revolution.
That is the history of the world, and neither Tories nor the Social Credit party can stop that. They will be by-passed in the process. I do not see them giving much education to the people in the country on the Marshall plan. I do not hear any of them saying anything about what happened in the Italian elections. They say the Marshall plan was used for election purposes. That did not happen. What happened in Italy, as far as the Marshall plan is concerned, and as I read it, was this. There were nine countries who met in Moscow, nine communist parties from nine different countries. They discussed the Marshall plan and decided against it. They said they would have nothing te do with it. Italy was one of them, but when the Italian communist party was running the election it made the statement, for election purposes, that if it were elected it would make use of the plan just the same, after deciding only a short time before that it would have nothing to do with the plan.
Marshall then, making his answer from the United States, said this. He said that as far as he wa3 concerned, if the communists were elected the Marshall plan would not be applicable. What would any one expect him to say? If there was in power a party which it had already internationally been decided was wrong in principle, was wrong in every way, shape or form, would anyone expect him to say that, if they formed a government, he would go in there to assist them? Is that not a natural thing to happen? It is what happened in other elections. I have listened to a good deal
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of this talk about coercion, intimidation and all that kind of stuff in the Italian elections. I have been in many election campaigns, and have not seen any yet where there was not a whole lot of skulduggery, even right here in Canada. I would invite hon. members to go to Cartier when there is an election on.


Mr. HARKNESS:: The hon. member
should come out west.


Clarence Gillis: It is just the same out west. I have in my hand a clipping from the Edmonton Journal of 1938, which gives the line-up on the platform. Here are the characters at this meeting. It was a kind of get-together in celebration of the result of an election. The hon. member for Calgary East (Mr. Harkness) says to go out west, that everything is fine out there. There were on the platform N. B. James, M.L.A. for Acadia; Leslie Morris, Toronto, national secretary of the communist party of Canada; Hon. E. C. Manning, Provincial Secretary, Hon. Lucien Maynard, Minister of Municipal Affairs.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Read the rest of it.


An hon. MEMBER:: What was the date?


Clarence Gillis: That is from the Edmonton Journal of 1938.


Mr. COLDWELL:: Read the story.


Clarence Gillis: It is out of order. The Speaker would rule me out of order. It amused me to listen to the hon. member for Macleod while he was weeping salty tears this afternoon. He saw a communist behind every seat. Everyone was a communist except himself. When I picked up that clipping and read it, I said to myself that they had changed their tune. They were celebrating with the communists at that time. Evidently they had their support. I suppose it is just a case of whose ox is being gored.


An hon. MEMBER:: The new look.


Clarence Gillis: The thing I wanted to focus attention on this evening was this matter of the division of the world into two camps. Any hon. members who are getting out into the country and doing any speaking I am sure are finding, as I find, that a large percentage of our people in Canada are beginning to form the opinion, or the opinion is being formed for them, that it is a matter of being for American capitalism or for American imperialism, whatever the jargon

is that is being used, or against it; that you must either line up, and if you do, you are a fascist; or you must go into the camp, and if you do, you are a communist; and that the world is ready for a bust. That is one thing we must start exploding. Canada is not in that position. Regardless of what party may be in power in the United States, I think the people there are sensible enough to see that changes will be made in the right way at the right time.
With respect to the future of Russia herself, I would not be so much concerned about this attitude at the united nations. It is to be expected. That country went through a revolution, and for twenty-six or twenty-seven years the Russians were building themselves up, trying to come back to some kind of civilization. During that period the generation that is running that country today were largely fed, from the milk-bottle stage, on the propaganda that capitalism and the outside world were enemies to them. That is what they have grown up with. They have gone through a war. Their country has been devastated again.
I am in hopes that in the future, maybe not in five years or ten, a different point of view may prevail. Thousands of young Russians are today getting out in embassies all over the world. They are in Canada, the United States and other countries. The older people who were forced to go through a revolution in that country will be eliminated by time, which catches up with us all. In addition, the younger ones going back to that country will bring in there a new viewpoint. There is every possibility that, if there is tolerance and understanding, that country will become a part of the world of the future, as I visualize it, and that they will do there the kind of thing that Britain is doing today, namely, purging the evils of the system and retaining all the good of the past, using the institutions of the country to do so. The hon. member for Grey North did not appear to know the difference between communism and socialism. The average eighth-grade 6tudent in school today can give that answer. Communism means a violent revolution, the overthrow of all the existing institutions. That is simple enough. Socialism is not that. We believe in the election of a government as you have it now, freely; in fact, more freely than you do now, using this House of Commons and the institutions of this countiy. We would pass legislation that would protect the old people better than to the extent of $30 a month. We would see that the people got a bill of rights, something that Mr. Drew has
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3C13
denied them. We would see that the people got a health program, something that Mr. Drew and Mr. Duplessis, I think, prevented the federal government from putting through two years ago. That is the difference.


Mr. FLEMING:: That is Liberal propaganda.


Clarence Gillis: Those are the facts. I do not care who is doing the job or what the tags are; if people are doing something that is half decent, I am prepared to give them credit for it. But unfortunately there is not a great deal for which we can give credit to Mr. Drew and that outfit at Queen's Park. These fellows did try to work out a health program, something which is badly needed, that is the difference between communism and socialism, put quite simply. We use the existing institutions, purge them of the evils of the past and improve them for the future.
My time is about up, Mr. Speaker. I just want to finish with this plea. Let us not repeat the mistakes of the old league of nations. That institution was founded after the last war. There was nothing wrong with its principles. It was the hearts and minds of men that failed. The league of nations was betrayed. I could name some of the people that betrayed it. I am thinking now of the Lavals, the Chamberlains, the sell-out of Ethiopia, the Sir Samuel Hoares and people of that kind. That is why the league of nations failed.
The united nations was born out of this war. The necessity for it was never greater. Unless the united nations organization and all its machinery works, the hope of the world for the future is an extremely slim one. No matter what tags are used, whether we call ourselves Liberals, Tories or what have you, we should be hammering home to the Canadian people and to the people of the United States the necessity of making that machinery work and the hope that such machinery will ultimately develop to government at the international level, in order that the problems of the world in the future may be ironed out around the conference table by co-operation and mutual understanding, and so that some of the nice platitudes contained in the Atlantic charter may be put into effect.
When there is a war on, some beautiful slogans are written. The leaders of the United States and Britain at that time got together and wrote the Atlantic charter. I remember that everyone in the house here acclaimed it. It spoke of access to the raw materials of the world, human rights and all those things. But as soon as the war was over, when someone
tested the validity of the Atlantic charter he was told that it was just a formal document, that it had no legal effect, that it was just a declaration of principles. That is the kind of thing that lets the people down.
It was a shock to a good many people to think that they were merely used as guinea-pigs in that instance, just for war purposes, and that all that fine talk and all those fine principles did not mean a thing.
I hope the united nations will mean something. I hope the Canadian government will push it, with everything they have. And I know that, so far as we in this group are concerned, any assistance we can give-that is. until we take over from the government, of course-in promoting the united nations, and to make that institution understood in this country so that it may have the support of the Canadian people, we shall be only too pleased to give.
I believe the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar put himself on record clearly with respect to Russia, when he spoke for this group. But for the benefit of hon. members to my right, who seem still to be woolly-minded in that matter, let me say that we are absolutely opposed to totalitarianism, either from the right or from the left. And remember, you can have it either way. There have been more dictatorships from the right during our lifetime than there have been from the left. But we oppose both of them; and we shall continue to oppose them, whether they be from Soviet Russia, from the United States or from the government of Ontario. We are going to oppose them. We will use the institutions of this country, which have been built by the people, in the way the people intended they should be used.
That is the road ahead-the maintenance and expansion of democracy. That is the policy of this group; and we will continue to stand by it, nationally, provincially, municipally and, ultimately, internationally, through the united nations.


Lawrence Wilton Skey: Mr. Speaker, my constituency is that of Trinity, Toronto, and I contested it against the leader of the communist party. I therefore know something about the aims of that party in Canada. I should like briefly to put three of them on record, and would ask the house to assess these aims of communism against the remarks to which they have just listened. I would ask hon. members to use their own intelligence.
The first aim of communism in Canada is to create class hatred, to make the working man hate his boss, to make the people hate anyone who has anything more than they have.
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The second aim is the destruction of the Conservative party. I quote Mr. John Hladen in "They Taught Me Treason", when he says that the second aim of the communist party is the destruction of the Conservative party. That is their aim, because Conservatives throughout the world have stood up against communism, from the very beginning of time.
Their third aim is to divide French-speaking Canadians from English-speaking Canadians, to divide the eastern provinces from the central and western provinces, to create division and confusion.
These are the three chief aims of the communist party in Canada. I ask hon. members to assess the speech to which they have just listened as against these three aims.
I say this more in kindness than in anger. The hon. member has been referring to his own country, a country in which one of the largest corporations, the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, is now headed by two men, one of whom began as a labourer, digging the ground in which to put the ties for the trains to run on. The other one started as a humble telegrapher.
Within the last two weeks-


Mr. KNIGHT:: Why should a telegrapher be humble?


Lawrence Wilton Skey: He was in a humble economic position.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: That is "humble", is it?


Lawrence Wilton Skey: He had a modest salary and a modest position. We all have to start at the bottom. This is a country in which we find men who have risen through the ranks of companies, from the lowest paid tasks, to become presidents or general managers of their corporations.
I do not think the hon. member was doing his country or his party any service when he made the speech he has just made.
(Translation ) :


Mr. PAUL EDMOND GAGNON (Chicoutimi):: Mr. Speaker, last Thursday the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. St. Laurent) said, among other things:
Most of the troubles and fears of our day spring from this lack of trust, this absence of mutual toleration.
In my opinion, that sentence sums up fairly well the political situation in the world today. 
We are the instruments of the evils from which we suffer. If the world is unable to get out of the rut into which it has fallen, if we cannot establish peace-that worldly bliss sought by all people-on a permanent basis in the council of nations, it is because hatred, envy and a craving for domination have replaced, in the hearts and spirits of our leaders in these days of grief, the feelings of fraternity and brotherly love upon which rest good-will and mutual understanding. Instead of carrying on spasmodic friendship based on opportunism and fear, we should, in the interest of our country, hold our our hands to all leaders and all those who are fighting our possible enemies. For instance, we have an ambassador in Yugoslavia, a country led by communist, Tito; we also have one in Russia. Why, then, should we not have one also in Franco's Spain? When, for the sake of charity, prayers are being said for Stalin, and through guilelessness our offerings serve to intensify communist propaganda in Canada; when our country prides itself on the friendship of the red dictator in Moscow, it can well afford, without losing any of its prestige, to consider Franco as an ally. We waged war with Stalin, let us unite with the Spanish people and its leader to ensure peace on earth.
We need Spain as a bastion against communism in Europe. We need all those countries who never agreed to the Kremlin yoke and who are now struggling to preserve their autonomy. Its system of government, whatever it may be, is far better than a communist government.
At any rate, we committed ourselves, during the war, to respect the rights of all peoples and their respective government. Section 3 of the Atlantic Charter, to which Canada has adhered, states indeed that the United Nations "respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them".
The war was not yet over when, as the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) said a moment ago, the allies, egged on by Stalin, were going back on the ideal they had set for themselves. Spain was excluded from the international community at Yalta, though not mentioned by name, then at Potsdam, and at San Francisco, where it was indeed named. In January 1946 one of the first decisions of the general assembly of the united nations sitting in London was:
The general assembly would point out that at the Potsdam conference the governments of the United Kingdom, of the United States of

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America and of the Soviet Union declared that they would not support an application for membership in the united nations from the present Spanish government which, having been established with axis support, has not, on account of its origin, its nature, its history and its close association with the aggressor states, the necessary qualifications to justify its admission.
The assembly, endorsing these declarations, recommends that the united nations' members follow the letter and the spirit of these declarations in the conduct of their future relations with Spain.
At the instigation of the Soviet union, whose hatred of Franco is well-known, the communists of every country united in 1946 to demand the abolition of the Franco regime. Everyone-Canada along with the others- was calling for a crusade to liberate the Spanish people. Tumult, red propaganda, the shouts of those bandits who had pillaged Spain during the civil war, who had broken into cloisters, massacred priests, the stranglers, disciples of La Passionara, the plunderers of churches, speaking as one with Canada; silenced the voice of prudence. The passions loosed forth upon the Franco regime goaded us into taking a step which events in the near future will show was unwise, uncalled-for and ill-advised.
We must renew diplomatic relations with Spain. On February' 10, last, France, whose Spanish frontier was closed in March 1946 by the Felix Gouin government, opened it up once more and renewed diplomatic relations with its neighbour.
Let us remember that it was Georgi Dimitrov, present prime minister of Bulgaria, Element Gottwald, government leader in Czechoslovakia, Luigi Longo, present vicepresident of the Italian communist party, Ludwig Bern, now in Mexico, Josip Broz alias Tito, leader of Yugoslavia, who were the main contrivers of the Spanish civil war in 1936.
By ridding his territory of such rabble, Franco has done a service not only to his country but to all humanity. It is only fair that we should be grateful and that Canada should be on friendly terms with Spain, as it is also fair that Spain, if she so desires, should enjoy the benefits of the Marshall plan.
In the second place, I ask that Canada be represented at the Vatican, and that, along with the great powers, we should establish permanent contacts with the greatest spiritual power to be found in the world. We have everything to gain thereby. The Pope, whose lofty mission is to promote on earth the peace that was promised by the Saviour to men of good will, has no other ambition than to bring harmony among the peoples of the 5849-230
world. His sole ideal is to lead to the heavenly fold the souls of those who observe the commandments of God and of the church.
Being the herald of truth, he cannot lead us into error. The extent of his knowledge, the accuracy of his information, his evangelic wisdom, as well as his paternal advice, enlighten the world. Let us be included among those who quench their thirst at that lifegiving spring. As was said by Rev. Father Henri St. Denis, O.M.I.:
The only European countries which have no diplomatic relations with the Holy See are Russia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece and the three Scandinavian nations, the latter maintaining nevertheless cordial relations with the Vatican.
In Asia, the two greatest nations, China and Japan, are already aware of the usefulness of contacts with the Holy See. China has a minister in Rome and there is an internuncio in Nankin. Japan has kept as long as she could her minister at the Vatican.
Eighteen of the twenty-one nations of America maintain reciprocal diplomatic relations with the Holy See. The United States only have a representative at the Vatican, there being no nuncio at Washington. Only two countries, in the whole of America, do not officially recognize the Vatican: they are Canada and Mexico.
I therefore submit, Mr. Speaker, that it would be wise and convenient for Canada to have ambassadors at Rome and Madrid. The right hon. the minister of external affairs would thereby accomplish something of which many Canadians would be proud.
(Text):


Douglas Scott Harkness: Mr. Speaker, when I came into the chamber a little while ago when the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) was speaking, after listening for a few minutes I found myself quite unable to determine what debate was in progress. I finally asked one of my colleagues and I found that we were still on foreign affairs. During most of the past two or three days I think the debate has been on a patriotic and high level and I was sorry to see it begin to assume the nature of a political discussion.
The minister started out by saying briefly that the united nations had so far proved rather ineffective and, since that was the case, it behooved us to co-operate with other democratically thinking peoples to protect our own interests and to try to preserve peace. Those thoughts were echoed in various ways by a .considerable number of other speakers from all parties, which I think is a good omen. As far as the country is concerned, it is a good thing to see members of all parties thinking along somewhat the same lines in the realm of foreign affairs. However much we may quarrel within our own borders, I would hope that we shall be able to present a united front to the
Business of the House

rest of the world. From the way in which the debate has proceeded for most of the last two or three days I would say that situation seems to prevail. It is to be deplored that some speakers at any rate make this an occasion to talk about almost any other subject than foreign affairs for what I say are political purposes.
This uniformity to a certain extent in our thinking as far as foreign affairs are concerned is all well and good, but I come back now to the proposition which the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. St. Laurent) put up, that we must co-operate with other democratic nations in order to preserve peace. One of the things that we must think about first is how we can co-operate. It is no use loosing off in this chamber or in any other place throughout the country a lot of empty words about cooperating with other democratic countries if we have no means with which to co-operate.
The first thing we must do if we are to have any real voice in preserving peace and in foreign affairs generally is to build up our own strength. By that I mean our military strength, our ability to mobilize military strength, which is perhaps more important. It is essential that we have the ability to mobilize considerable military strength if we are to be able to cooperate with other countries to preserve peace or if we are to be a force of any sort in the preservation of peace.
Before we start talking in a grandiloquent manner about helping to preserve peace and co-operating with other nations, the first thing we should do, as befitting our stature as a member of the united nations, is to have at our disposal sufficient military strength to make our words good. Otherwise we are just engaging in idle boastings.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and the house went into committee of supply, Mr. Golding in the chair.
Mr. HACKETT:: Mr. Chairman, I understood that there was to be a question period, if it meets with the convenience of the committee.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: Perhaps the hon. member would allow me, as announced last night, to call three departments before the questions are put, and then, if the questions occupy the time until eleven o'clock, that much will have been accomplished.


Mr. BRACKEN:: Before the minister calls these three departments, will he indicate which departments are already in supply? I understand that in earlier years only one department was called at a time; later on it became two, and now sometimes three or more. Would the
rMr. Harkness.]
minister indicate the reasons why he wants three departments called at this time?
Mr. ST. LAURENT: The principal reason is that when we attempt to go into supply it takes us more than a week to get there, and when we do get there we think we should provide some material that can be dealt with in supply on Thursdays and Fridays. There has been no occasion since the beginning of this session when it has been possible to avail ourselves of the standing order that on Thursdays and Fridays the Speaker leaves the chair without motion put to go into supply, because no department had been opened up that could be dealt with. About three weeks ago there was a motion to go into supply, and agriculture, external affairs, trade and commerce, and transport were called.
The intention with respect to the external affairs estimates is to move, as soon as the questions will have been answered, to withdraw those items from the committee of supply and refer them to the external affairs committee. I think that has been discussed on both sides of the house, and it is what most members wish to have done with the external affairs estimates. The ones that will remain are agriculture, trade and commerce and transport. There are, in all, twenty departments.


Mr. MacNICOL:: Will there just be three left to be called?
Mr. ST. LAURENT: Oh, no. Even after this is done, there will be thirteen departments left to be called. It was thought desirable to have three or four departments put in because it sometimes happens that the convenience of members on one side or the other requires a particular department to be held over. Someone asks for such-and-such a reason that the estimates of a particular department be not called on such-and-such a day. So we thought it desirable to have four or five departments available which could be considered on Thursdays and Fridays in committee of supply. The ones I propose to call tonight are the justice department, which includes, as hon. members know, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The justice and mounted police estimates are always dealt with together. Then labour, and national health and welfare.


Mr. COLD  WELL@: Those are the departments to be called tonight?
Mr. ST. LAURENT: Those are the ones I would ask to have called tonight, so that they could be ready to be dealt with on Thursdays and Fridays.


John Bracken: I can understand that it is desirable to have more than one or two or

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three departments available for discussion of their estimates in committee of supply, But why is it necessary to have a dozen? I remember in past sessions we have had a dozen departments in supply, and I do not see the need of it.
One other question. If it is desirable to have six or seven or eight or nine departments put into supply, why do we do that in pieces, putting in two or three departments at a time?
Mr. ST. LAURENT: I would have no objection to calling them all now, but I thought the objection to doing so was that members wished to have several opportunities to raise grievances on a motion to go into supply.


John Bracken: Is the minister prepared to leave out enough departments so that we shall have opportunities to liaise grievances on a motion for supply?
Mr. ST. LAURENT: Certainly; there are twelve more.


John Bracken: But putting them in three at a time will soon exhaust our opportunities.


Mr. COLD  WELL@: I think the minister's request tonight is reasonable. We have been here for five months and have only one department in supply. But I hope that the minister will not take this as a precedent and that in future only one department, or at the most two, will be put in, until perhaps later in the session when three or four might be put in. But under the circumstances I think it is reasonable to put in three departments tonight as the minister suggests. I hope that it will not be taken as a precedent.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Chairman, I rise to a point of order. There is nothing before the committee. I suggest that some item be called to make the discussion regular.


William Henry Golding: I will call the items.


[Stage Direction]
116. Departmental administration, $235,350.
Item stands.
[Stage Direction]
419. General administration, $276,326.
Item stands.
[Stage Direction]
131. Departmental administration, $701,241.
Item stands.
[Stage Direction]
245. Departmental administration, $623,428.
Item stands.
5849-230J

[Stage Direction]
52. Departmental administration, $1,915,860.
John Thomas Hackett: Mr. Chairman, there is a matter which I think is deserving of the attention of the minister. It involves at least three entities. One of them is the Ontario municipal board; another is the consul general of the United States in the city of Toronto, and the third is the department of state of the United States of America.
The Ontario municipal board is the creature of the legislature of Ontario. Chapter 60 of the Revised Statutes of Ontario, 1937, sets forth its jurisdiction and describes its duties and functions. Section 40 of this chapter describes the board as follows:
The board shall, for all purposes of this act, have all the powers of a court of record, and shall have an official seal which shall be judicially noticed.
Section 7 describes the composition of the board.
The Board shall be composed of three members to be appointed by the lieutenant-governor in council, one of whom shall be appointed as chairman and another as vice-chairman, and each of them shall continue so to be while he is a member of the board.
Section 58 (e) sets forth the powers of the board, and among them is the power to administer oaths. The section goes on to declare that the board-
. . . shall have the like power to summon witnesses and enforce their attendance, and compel them to give evidence and to produce books, papers or things which they are required to produce, as is vested in any court in civil cases.
This board is a quasi judicial organism. It tries cases; it hears witnesses whom it has the right to summon and to whom it may administer oaths. It reaches decisions on proof that is made before the board, and it issues rulings and orders which are mandatory and obligatory upon the parties affected. I admit that some of the rules which obtain in ordinary courts of first instance are somewhat relaxed. For instance, it is competent to the board to receive a letter which would not be received as proof in an ordinary court of justice.
Last Thursday this board was sitting in the city of Toronto to hear the application from M. & G. Convoy Company of Buffalo for a licence to carry automobiles in bond over provincial highways from one United States point to another. The hearing was proceeding in the ordinary way. Counsel were present. Witnesses were being heard when Mr. H. Earle Russell, who described himself as the consul
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general of the United States in Toronto, appeared before the board. He declined to be sworn. He said:
I am simply making a statement on behalf of my government.
I may say, Mr. Chairman, that I hold in my hand the official transcript of what took place on that occasion. Mr. Russell went on
to say:
I simply wish to state the extreme interest that my government is taking in this application, which is only one of probably several which will be made. In other words, it is the general attitude and the general hope of the United States government in this connection...
At that point he was interrupted by counsel who objected to the statement and insisted that the witness be sworn and submit to cross-examination; whereupon Mr. Russell said:
I cannot be examined on my statement that I have been instructed to make by the Department of State.
Naturally, he meant the department of state of the government of the United States. Then, Mr. Russell, after some further interruption by counsel said:
Gentlemen, I simply wish to say this, that the United States government is much interested in this general question of the movement of American truckers in Ontario in transit, and that I simply express the hope on behalf of the consulate that a favourable decision may be given it at the earliest possible moment. That is all I have to say, gentlemen.
Apparently objection was so violent that Mr. Russell said he would write a letter, and when it was urged that he take an oath and submit to cross-examination he said:
I am making a statement on behalf of my government on which I cannot be cross-examined.
In my view this raises a serious question. I do not wish to exaggerate it, and I do not wish my attitude to be interpreted as anything other than a desire to maintain the friendliest relations between the country for which Mr. Russell said he was the spokesman and our own country. I believe, however, that friendly relations and good neighbourliness depend upon a respect for the amenities. If the United States had any communication that it wished to direct to Canada it has for that express purpose a department of state which is manned by persons skilled in expression and in the art of diplomacy. We have the counterpart of that department in Canada, and order, tradition, experience, diplomacy and common sense dictate that the deep and well worn channel of communication between two governments should be

used by the governments of Canada and the United States. I therefore suggest that it should be put beyond d-oubt whether or not the department of state of the United States gave instructions to Mr. Russell to appear in a Canadian court of justice for the purpose of making an ex parte pronouncement of the wishes of his country.
I do not attribute any improper motives to Mr. Russell, but I cannot believe that he received from the state department the instructions to do that which he did despite objection. Consular agencies are largely trade agencies. They are not generally entrusted with a diplomatic duty. Their functions are important, but they are circumscribed, and unless they have been recently and unduly enlarged they do not extend to international communications. That is a highly skilled, aged and honourable art, for which the successful preparation and practice call for much time and many talents.
I stated in the speech which I made just the other day that it is so important that good relations be maintained at all times between Canada and the United States that we should take every precaution not to give offence and every precaution to preserve our own dignity lest some intrusion or trespass give rise to an incident that might serve, if not to destroy, at least to lessen the harmony that has existed between the peoples on this North American continent.
I do not wish to have this appear as a nagging suggestion, but I have feared that our government has been remiss in this way. I have told the government that permitting the United States to set up courts of justice in peacetime in our country is, in my view, folly, because it supplies an opportunity and it provides an occasion for international episodes and misunderstandings; these mishaps come upon us without our seeking them.
It was only the other day that a court in the United States so far forgot the way Americans would feel if the reverse had hap-nened, so far overlooked its traditional solicitude of the American people for the feelings and sentiments of people in another area, that it sent its own mandatory to Canada to hale Canadians before an American tribunal, forgetting that its writ does not yet run in Canada.
Mr. Chairman, I am from the borderland. I cherish the preservation of the relations, the good relations, the excellent relations, the friendly relations, the harmonious relations, the sympathetic relations that have existed between our country and the United States for a hundred years and more, and I wish them

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to persist. But good relations beween countries as between individuals can last only so long as there is complete respect for the feelings, the rights, the privileges and the prerogatives of both parties to that relationship. The moment that one overlooks-and it begins always in small things-any of these amenities, one is jeopardizing that most subtle, that most fluid, that most difficult thing in all human relations to maintain in perfect equilibrium and harmony-friendship.
And so I ask the Secretary of State for External Affairs to inquire whether or not Mr. Russell was instructed, as he stated he was, by the department of state of the United States, to appear before this tribunal, and if so, whether or not the United States has abandoned the method prescribed by order, by tradition, by diplomacy, which restricts international communications to the channels that were dug for them by all civilized states centuries ago; and further whether or not, having received those instructions, it was meant that he should intrude upon a Canadian court and attempt to influence a decision which could be determined only by testimony and argument-testimony which at all times is subject to the acid test of cross examination-by a statement made outside the ordinary rules of procedure and justice.
I ask you, Mr. Chairman, again to recall that I do not seek to play up this incident. I do not wish to insinuate that anything was done intentionally to wound the feelings of Canadians. In some countries an incident like this would provoke a demand for the immediate recall of Mr. Russell. I do not want that. I do not want anything but a reminder to our excellent neighbour that we respect him and that we want him to respect us, that our friendship may remain what it always has been, unspotted, untarnished and free from blight.


Mr. CHURCH:: Mr. Chairman, I wish to take just two or three minutes-
Right Hon. L. S. ST. LAURENT (Secretary of State for External Affairs): I think what the hon. member for Stanstead (Mr. Hackett) has put before the chair is something which requires to be dealt with immediately, and if the hon. member would not mind I should like to deal with it.
With much of what the hon. member has said I am sure all members will be in agreement. It was indicated to me that something out of the ordinary had happened, and I got hold of the report in the Globe and Mail of April 30, much of which was read by the hon. member for Stanstead. Having read it, it struck me that it was something out of the
ordinary, and immediately the matter was taken up here with the United States ambassador. However I think it would be only fair to state that the wounds to feelings were probably apt to be much more acutely felt by the other parties to the matter that was being discussed by the highway commission than by the Canadian public generally.
These commissions-the hon. member has said so-do not proceed in strict judicial fashion. They receive letters and representations from all those who may have an interest in the matter that is being discussed before them. There were adverse interests represented by counsel before the board, and the report in the newspaper did not describe the violence of the objections to the statement made by the consul general. But the report in the newspaper did say from what source the objections came, and I was not surprised to hear the hon. member for Stanstead say they had been violent, having seen in the newspaper from what source they had come.
I do not think the representations of the consul general added anything new to what was undoubtedly known to everyone who was there. This has to do with this vexatious question of trucking in bond that has been a source of irritation to the railways for a long time. It has been a source of irritation not only to the United States railways but to the Canadian railways as well, to the brotherhoods of railway employees, and perhaps also to local highway authorities.
I think it is well known to everybody that for a long time the United States government has been making it known that it felt that this trucking in bond should be permitted. It was permitted during the war but has not been permitted since. Anyone who knows what went on in Geneva in the general discussions on the trade agreements there, knows what a positive stand the United States government took. Anyone who knows what went on in Havana knows what a positive stand (he United States government took. They think trucking in bond should be permitted. Many of us here think we would get little advantage out of it. We recognize the fact that trucking in bond from one country to another may be helpful to trade, but that trucking in bond from one point to another in the same country is not a matter of much consequence to international trade.


Major James William Coldwell: Will the minister deal with the point at issue, the question as to whether the consul general, representing the state department, did the thing he should have done, or whether this should not have
Supply-External Affairs

come from the state department to the government of Canada? I think that is the point.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: There can be no doubt that if the state department had representations to make, they should have been made to the Department of External Affairs here.


Major James William Coldwell: That is the whole point.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: That is the matter which is now under discussion between the Department of External Affairs here and the United States ambassador in Ottawa. The first conversation about it was held this afternoon, and the investigation is proceeding.
It sometimes occurs that some of these representations are made. Representations were made by our department in similar cases. The hon. member referred to a summons from the senate committee.


John Thomas Hackett: The summons from the senate committee to the pulp and paper companies to appear in Washington with their books.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: I do not think that was a summons from the senate committee. I think that was from a court of justice.


Major James William Coldwell: That is right.


John Thomas Hackett: Yes.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: That was a subpoena applied for by the attorney general of the United States against what he asserted were Canadian companies operating in the United States, a matter which was under discussion, and which we thought a few months ago was satisfactorily settled, which has arisen again and about which negotiations are continuing. As a matter of fact, that was the thing I had in mind in my opening speech on April 29, when I said that sometimes there did arise, at administrative levels, things that were annoying; but that even when we had reason to complain about them, we were able to do so, speaking the same language and arriving at settlements. I am quite sure that we shall get a satisfactory explanation of this incident. It sometimes happens that an official is overzealous. I am sure that we shall get a satisfactory explanation of the incident. I wanted it to be known here that what this gentleman is reported to have done was to express in that place-untimely, I think-what was well known to be the attitude of the United States with respect to the matter.


Major James William Coldwell: I do not think that
excuses him.

Mr. ST. LAURENT: No. I think it was untimely for him to go out and repeat it.


Major James William Coldwell: Or the department, if he acted under instructions.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: We are inquiring as to whether it was under instructions from the department.


Major James William Coldwell: That is the point.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: I do not know whether
he asserted it to be.


John Thomas Hackett: He did assert it.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: We are inquiring whether it was under instructions from the department or whether it was something he did on his own, after, no doubt, having been spoken to by representatives of that United States company who were present in Toronto pressing this application. That is something which is being inquired into. I am sure that there will be no assertion anywhere that it was a proper thing for him to be instructed by the state department to go before a Canadian court, and the matter is being inquired into. I fully agree that there must be mutual respect for all the rights and even the susceptibilities of each other. I hope that there will never be more serious occasions than those that have arisen. But cases arise from time to time where we feel that officialdom has been a little bit officious and has taken it for granted that what it would be proper for them to do in their own country they could do in ours. That was what I meant by saying they embarrassed us in their perhaps intentionally flattering desire to consider us so much a part of themselves. But they know-and when this fact is overlooked they are reminded of it- that we are sensitive about these things, that we must be careful and that they also must be careful.


Major James William Coldwell: Will the minister report the findings to the house?
Mr. ST. LAURENT: I will when I have had an official report from the ambassador.


Thomas Langton Church: I just want to call the
minister's attention to one thing. I am opposed to these estimates being dealt with in such a committee. I opposed this way of considering foreign affairs consistently right from the start, because the onus is on the government itself.
The second thing is this. What are we doing at the present time? The government depends on UNO, so does the opposition.

Estimates oj External Affairs
Their policy is based on Lake Success. 1 want to point this fact out, it is one which is forgotten. The Soviet union has been using the UNO to insult Britain and the United States in every known way and in the worst language ever known, which in any other age would have led to the severance of diplomatic relations. I believe the Soviets will soon leave UNO for keeps. The Soviets are using this for home consumption in Russia, to tell the people there that the United States and Britain will attack them. That is what they are doing. They are using that at all times in Russia, or they would have had serious internal trouble there. They would have trouble in their own country but for UNO, which is a most mischievous agency. The way business is carried on down there, the thing is a tower of Babel. We are making a great mistake. If we could get a one year's holiday at Lake Success, we would have peace and happiness.
I do not believe that the external affairs committee will ever do anything. I have found that some of these committees, like the external affairs committee, as the minister knows, do not know anything about the matter, and the public today do not know anything about it except what they read in the press, because they do not come down to fundamentals or consider the experience of history. I believe it would be better for the government to take the responsibility, because they must take it. By the action taken, we are just inviting something which the Soviet wants at Lake Success. Our policy should be to work with Britain and the dominions and America and obtain security by re-armament. Lake Success has been a failure for a long time, and I believe it would be far better if we were to give Lake Success six months' or a year's holiday. It would be the best thing for the British empire and the world.


John Thomas Hackett: Will the minister make known the results of his inquiries?
Mr. ST. LAURENT: Yes.


Thomas Langton Church: The committee should not have been appointed. It is far better to have the discussion here again for a day or two in May or June. In Great Britain they have a couple of days debate every once in a while. Here we have had four days and the minister has been most patient. I believe we have succeeded in bringing some facts before the country and the public.
Item stands.
Progress reported.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
Right Hon. L. S. ST. LAURENT (Secretary of State for External Affairs): Mr. Speaker, I move:
That items 52 to 67 inclusive in the estimates be withdrawn from the committee of supply and referred to the standing committee on external affairs.
This is the arrangement that was made earlier. I know the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church) believes that these estimates should be considered by the committee of the whole; but I think most hon. members would rather have them considered in the committee on external affairs.
John Bracken: They will come back here for consideration afterwards?
Mr. ST. LAURENT: Yes, they will come back here, and will have to be gone over again. But before being dealt with here, I understood it was the desire that they be quite fully considered in the committee on external affairs.


Mr. MACDONNELL (Muskoka-Ontario):: Does this mean that if this motion is carried, no statement having been made by the minister, they will be sent to the committee on external affairs? It seems to me that we might just as well face the fact that they will be sent back from the committee, and that when they come back there will be no disposition to have them discussed here at all. The result will be that there will be no discussion here, and no statement by the minister. Is that what is intended?
Mr. ST. LAURENT: I do not understand the hon. member. I made a statement which lasted more than an hour and a quarter, and which has given rise to a debate lasting four days. I am not anxious to have these estimates go to the committee on external affairs; but I promised I would make this motion because I had gathered from all parties that they wished to bring before that committee the officials of the department so that they could get the detailed information which they could not get as satisfactorily when it must be relayed from the gentleman who sits in front of me now.
If there is any opposition to this procedure, I shall carry on and deal with these estimates in the same manner in which other estimates are dealt with.


Mr. COLD  WELL@: I think the minister is right, that there was a general desire on the
Estimates of External Affairs

part of all parties, as I understood it, that this procedure be followed. I take it that this will not in any way block a statement being made by the minister in reply to what has been brought before the house by the hon. member for Stanstead (Mr. Hackett).
Mr. ST. LAURENT: No.


Major James William Coldwell: The minister will give that opportunity at some other time?
Mr. ST. LAURENT: Yes.


John Thomas Hackett: The desire was that the estimates should go to the committee so that people might be summoned and full information made available. So far as I can speak for my party, I am willing that that should be done.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Was not one of the purposes that of trying to avoid what we have been doing in the last four days?


Mr. LOW:: The experience of the past few years has shown that it has been a most satisfactory procedure to have the estimates referred to the committee. Printed reports come out from that committee, and we have the details of the investigations which have been conducted there. I believe the discussion in the house has been most helpful, and will make the sittings of that committee even more useful. I would certainly favour the estimates going to the committee again.


John Bracken: I think all the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario wanted was to be assured that on a date later on, when the estimates come before the house, we shall have such discussion as we may want at that time.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Was it not the intention, when the suggestion was made, to send these estimates to the committee on external affairs, to avoid wasting time as has been done in the last four days?


Major James William Coldwell: Oh, no.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: I would not consider that the time of the house has been wasted in the last four days.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Largely wasted.
Mr. ST. LAURENT: I felt that members of all parties wished to have an opportunity to
discuss the general matters related to our external policy, and then that they would like to have the estimates before the committee, so that proper officials could be brought to that committee and they could be questioned directly. Detailed information required could be obtained in that way. Then the estimates would come back here, and anything any hon. member felt should be discussed on the floor of the house would be discussed at that time, having before us the information obtained in detail from the officials.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. ST. LAURENT moved the adjournment of the house.
John Bracken: What is the business for tomorrow?
Mr. ST. LAURENT: Tomorrow I should like to take up the resolution mentioned last night dealing with the implementation of treaties of peace with Italy, Roumania, Hungary and Finland. Then I understand that the Minister of Reconstruction and Supply would like to proceed with his resolution dealing with housing.


John Thomas Hackett: What item is that?
Mr. ST. LAURENT: Those are items 7 and 8 on the order paper for today. Then I believe the Minister of Justice would like to proceed with his bill to amend the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act; and if that is disposed of, there is another small bill dealing with the administration of the penitentiaries.


Stanley Howard Knowles: In that order?
Mr. ST. LAURENT: I would anticipate that it would be in that order. Perhaps, after the first resolution in the name of the Secretary of State for External Affairs, we might revert to government notices of motion to deal with the resolution respecting the international agreement in connection with whaling. I would not anticipate that any of those would take much time.
Motion agreed to and the house adjourned at 11.10 p.m.

Wednesday, May 5, 1948