1950-03-03

DIVORCE JURISDICTION


Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No. 13, to provide for the jurisdiction of the Exchequer Court of Canada in matters of divorce.


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The purpose of this bill is to transfer from parliament to the Exchequer Court of Canada jurisdiction in respect of divorce cases on the part of persons residing in the two provinces in Canada in which there are no divorce courts. The jurisdiction as to alimony, care of children and other matrimonial causes, will remain in the provincial courts of those two provinces. This bill does not change the grounds for divorce. It does not establish divorce courts in Quebec or Newfoundland, nor does it make available to persons residing in those provinces anything not now available to' them. It merely transfers the hearing of divorce petitions of persons residing in those two provinces from parliament to the Exchequer Court of Canada.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



PUBLIC LANDS GRANTS ACT


Hon. Robert H. Winters (Minister of Resources and Development) moved: the first reading of Bill No. 12 (from the Senate) respecting grants of public lands.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



EMPLOYEES' RATES OF PAY, ETC.    QUESTION AS TO MEETING OF INTERNAL ECONOMY COMMISSION

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Stanley Howard Knowles: I should like to ask a question, Mr. Speaker, with regard to the internal economy commission. I believe Your Honour is chairman of that commission, but since questions
cannot be put to you on the floor of the house, I should like to put my question to the Minister of Public Works. Has the internal economy commission had an opportunity to meet for the purpose of considering rates of pay and other matters pertaining to House of Commons employees? If not, can a meeting be held soon? If a meeting has been held, will an announcement be made as to any decisions reached?
Hon. Alphonse Fournier (Minister of Public
Works): As to the first question, the answer is yes. The commission sat on Wednesday afternoon, March 1. The second question is answered by the answer to the first one. The answer to the last question is that I hope so, but I would not want to give a final answer before consulting the other members of the commission.



PIT PROPS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. J. Brooks (Royal):: I had intended to direct a question to the Minister of Trade and Commerce, arising out of the loss of markets for pit props in Great Britain. The minister is not here, but I left notice of this question with his parliamentary assistant. The question is this. Was the minister able to make any arrangements, during his recent visit to Europe, for the sale of pit props to Great Britain or any other country, and is he in a position to give any information with regard to present or future markets for this woods product?


Mr. G. J. Mcllrailh (Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Trade and Commerce):: I think the question is one which should be answered by the minister himself. Unfortunately he is not available in the house today. Will the hon. member be kind enough to allow it to stand over until Monday?


Alfred Johnson Brooks: Yes.



AERO TIMBER PRODUCTS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Solon E. Low (Peace River):: I should
like to ask the Prime Minister if at some time in the future he will give us the name of the

Supply-External Affairs government department that has possession of the records of Aero Timber Products Limited, a former crown company that went out of business in 1945.


Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent (Prime Minister):: I will have the matter looked up and will try to make the information available to the hon. member.



QUESTION AS TO MEASURES TO RELIEVE SHORTAGE IN ONTARIO

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
['Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the honour that the house conferred on me a few years ago when I was appointed as the first chairman of the external affairs -committee. The same honour and the responsibility accompanying it were bestowed upon me again this morning as the chairman of the external affairs committee for the year 1950. Before proceeding further I want to pay special tribute to members of that committee in former years for the fine co-operation they have given on all occasions. A few days ago I asked the hon. member for Peel if he would again accept the appointment as vice-chairman of the committee, and I was most pleased when he said he would gladly do so. The fact that he is our vice-chairman means that, so far as the external affairs of our country are concerned, political aspects will not be involved in any way.\nWhen the committee was first formed the former prime minister, Mr. William Lyon Mackenzie King, was secretary of state for external affairs. A few months later we found ourselves under the able guidance of the present Prime Minister. Now we are working under the enlightened and capable direction of the present Secretary of State for External Affairs. When the Secretary of State for External Affairs left a secure and responsible position to enter the hurly-burly of public life he made a sacrifice, but in answering the call it was the appeal of duty that influenced him most strongly. It is most fortunate indeed, not only for parliament but also for the whole of Canada, that he found it possible to accept the heavy responsibility of his department. One cannot help but mention his humility. I have seen him in action in the general assembly of the United Nations. I have seen him in action at Lake Success and Flushing Meadow. I have seen him preside over committees charged with grave responsibilities. I have observed his fine reflective mind at work, a mind in which everything is registered that is said at meetings lasting for hours. I have noted the great respect in which he is held by every member of the United Nations Organization. Not only is it a credit to himself but it is a credit to every citizen of Canada.\nI also want to felicitate him and his delegation on the fine work they accomplished at Colombo and in many sections of Asia. Again he has represented us with ability and as a true statesmen. I believe in all instances he has reflected the Canadian attitude clearly and distinctly, and that it has been based on logic and wide experience. During the present session of parliament the whole of Canada has been impressed with the fine demonstration of his qualities of observation,', "\nhis statesmanship and the heavy responsibility he has been carrying. His department probably involves the greatest responsibility of any department in the government today. Every word that he utters inside and outside the House of Commons must be based on logic, and must to some extent be circumspect. I repeat to the minister that he is doing a wonderful job and the Canadian people are proud of him.\nI want to make a brief allusion to the statement of the hon. member for Peel about the information that hon. members should receive in the external affairs committee. The only instance that I remember where such a question arose was one that happened last year when some members of the committee requested that the ambassador to China should appear before it. Personally I was against it. Some members thought that we might have a sitting in camera, but I was against that. If there are questions in the minds of the Canadian people at the present time which require a sitting in camera, a meeting of a committee would not hold all those who would want to be there. In such a case the two houses of parliament should meet in camera but not the external affairs committee itself. I am expressing my personal opinion on the matter, and as chairman of the external affairs committee I would not take the responsibility under such conditions and circumstances.\nAt six o'clock the Speaker resumed the chair and the house took recess."]
Mr. G. K. Fraser (Peterborough West):: should like to direct a question to the Minister of Mines and Resources or to the Minister of Transport. In view of the fact that there is a desperate shortage of coal, briquettes, etc., in Canada, is the government doing anything to facilitate the production and transportation of coal to the cities and towns in Ontario whose people are on ration at the present time?


Mr, Cruickshank:: We are trying to get you gas.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I understand that a similar question was asked some days ago, and the Minister of Transport (Mr. Chevrier) answered that the railways were doing their best to give priority to the localities in which, from their surveys, there was the greatest possibility of shortage of coal.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: The situation has become much more serious in the last week, as a result of this cold weather.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: And the coal miners in the United States seem to have become much more stubborn.

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



[Stage Direction]
64. Departmental administration, $2,378,880.
Hon. L. B. Pearson (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: I welcome, Mr. Speaker, the opportunity that this occasion affords of making the customary statement on international affairs generally, in order to initiate a debate on the subject. I welcome the opportunity because it is, as all hon. members will agree, a matter of the highest importance that the people of this country, whose future has been and will be so deeply affected by international developments, should be kept as fully informed as possible as to the general policy now being pursued by their government in this field.

The best way of keeping our people so informed, apart from discussions such as we are having today and discussions before our committee on external affairs, is of course to make as many facts as possible available to them in as accessible a form as possible. That is being done in a number of ways by the department over which I have the honour to preside. On Tuesday last, for instance, I tabled in the house the annual report of the Department of External Affairs, which gives a brief but I think comprehensive review of the activities of the department in the calendar year 1949, and makes it unnecessary for me to give at this time a detailed review of those activities.
The department also publishes annually a report entitled "Canada and the United Nations." That report for 1949 will be tabled shortly. The volume contains not only a review of the activities of the United Nations and Canadian participation in them, but also includes a broad selection of relevant documents. It will show, if anything is needed to show, Mr. Chairman, how seriously we take our membership in the United Nations. I will also show the contribution we are trying to make to the organization which still remains, and will remain, the foundation of our international policy, and in the long run our best hope for peace.
The department also publishes a monthly bulletin entitled "External Affairs", which is circulated pretty widely, and also texts of treaties and publications on international affairs generally, as well as reference papers and material of that kind. Thus we are trying to give the people of the country, as well as members of this house, as much information on external affairs as we can. But it may be said-in fact it has been said on previous occasions in this house-that this is merely information about what we have done; that we should give more information to the house and to the public about what we are doing, what we propose to do, and why. Up to a point, of course, Mr. Chairman, I agree with that. At the same time, as I have tried to point out before, you cannot effectively carry on delicate diplomatic negotiations by giving a sort of running account of the details of those negotiations as they are going on. We should of course make quite clear in advance the principles which guide us in these discussions. We should give the details of the negotiations when we can, and we should always give the result of these negotiations to the public. I think we do try to do that, Mr. Chairman.
In my review today I will not devote much of my time, indeed possibly any of my time, to commonwealth affairs-not because I do no* appreciate their importance, but because

I attempted to discuss them in relation to the commonwealth conference at Colombo. Nor do I intend to devote very much of my time to Far Eastern affairs, for the same reason. But I cannot let this occasion pass without answering, or attempting to answer, one or two questions which were asked me last night by the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra (Mr. Green), which deal with the Far East.
In respect to one of these questions I think the hon. member misunderstood what I tried to say last week in the discussion on this subject. Last night in referring to the commonwealth consultative committee, he said that I had made no statement as to whether or not we would join that committee. But I hoped that I had made it clear the other day, Mr. Chairman, that if and when an invitation comes from the Australian government-I think we have not received it yet

to join the meeting in Canberra, Which will be devoted to this subject, we shall be very glad indeed to accept it and be represented at the meeting or on the committee if one is set up at that time.
The hon. member was also critical of our lack of leadership in regard to a Pacific pact. I attempted to deal with that matter in my statement last November 18 on the external affairs estimates. I pointed out at that time that the situation in the Pacific in regard to a regional pact of this kind was certainly not the same as the situation in the Atlantic, which had made desirable and necessary, the signing of the North Atlantic pact. My view in that regard was not weakened, but indeed was confirmed by the recent commonwealth meeting at Colombo. If we had taken the lead in regard to this matter-we should not of course hesitate to take leadership when the occasion demands it-we would have found that at least two of the countries most directly concerned with regional security in the Pacific, namely, the United Kingdom and India, would not have been able to support our lead, or at this time support the idea of a Pacific regional pact. Also we knew then, as we know now, that the United States would not be able to participate at this time in negotiations leading up to that kind of pact. One reason for that attitude on the part of the United States and the United Kingdom is no doubt the fact that a conference for this purpose, Mr. Chairman, would certainly have to include China and the U.S.S.R., if they were willing to accept the invitation to participate. It would be somewhat embarrassing to issue an invitation to China at this moment to a meeting of that kind. If the invitation were being issued by the government of the United Kingdom it might be addressed to a different post office than that to which it would be 55946-28
Supply-External Affairs directed if it were to be issued by the government of the United States. And if it were being issued by the government of Canada it might be addressed to a different post office in the future than that to which it would be directed if we issued the invitation now. Therefore there are obviously practical difficulties in the way of calling a Pacific conference to draw up a Pacific regional pact.
When I say that, I do not wish to have it understood that the government is opposed to the idea of a regional pact for the Pacific. If and when the circumstances should make it desirable, we would give that matter the same kind of consideration as we gave to the idea of a North Atlantic pact.
In a review of international affairs, no matter how brief, it is not possible to ignore completely international economic questions, Mr. Chairman. Indeed, in this field it is not easy to know where political questions end and economic ones begin. The importance of sound economic and social policies in our relation to communism and to the communist states is obvious, because our strongest long-run defence against communism is wise and progressive social and economic policies. The same importance attaches to the economic relationships between the free democratic states. Economic co-operation along the right lines can and should bring us closer together. The lack of such co-operation can divide friendly states. There are signs now that, if we are not careful, our unity and ability to work together may be weakened by international economic difficulties.
If, for instance, we let the free world freeze into dollar and sterling areas, between which trade relations and commercial intercourse become difficult, that might ultimately prejudice political relationships. And so we are becoming, all of us, I think, more conscious than ever of these international economic difficulties as we realize that the post-war dollar assistance program may run out before the countries which have been assisted have recovered from the destruction and the dislocations of the war to a point where they can balance by their own efforts their trade with more fortunate countries such as Canada at a satisfactory level. What should be done in these circumstances by all of the countries concerned, and not merely by our own, is probably the most important question in the whole field of international economic affairs today. My hon. friends opposite keep emphasizing that economic and trade difficulties are increasing. They criticize the government because we have not done more to remove them-especially because we have done so little, as they put it, to maintain and develop trade between Canada and the sterling area.

Supply-External Affairs I think, Mr. Chairman, that they minimize the external problems which have caused these difficulties and maximize the alleged deficiencies of the government, its sins of omission and commission in dealing with them. Yet, while inveighing against the government, what remedy do they suggest? At the present time, as I understand it, their principal proposal is a commonwealth economic conference, as a possible cure for trade ills from which we may be suffering.
Well, we have had a good many commonwealth meetings during the last couple of years, and many of them-indeed most of them-have concerned trade. But hon. members opposite say that these meetings have been merely the concern of peregrinating, perambulating representatives, acting on their own by sporadic individual efforts. But what we want now, they go on to say, is a full-dress, large-scale commonwealth economic conference of the 1932 variety, with everybody there, to discuss everything-not merely the minister for external affairs in Ceylon drinking tea, but everybody, in London, selling food-and, according to the hon. member for Kamloops (Mr. Fulton), even discussing questions of immigration and emigration. In short, bigger and better conferences, where decisions will be taken on the spot, possibly by a sort of imperial super-cabinet conference.
Well, I suggest that our way is better, where, in addition to these formal conferences -and they are of course desirable at times- ministers concerned, after full discussion in cabinet, where policy is agreed upon, meet, whenever occasion requires it, their opposite numbers in London or elsewhere to try to solve particular problems by arrangements which are then ratified by the respective governments. And in between such meetings, periodic conferences are held of the standing Anglo-Canadian trade committee, which consists of high officials. Of course there is also contact maintained every day in other ways between commonwealth governments on these questions.
Let us look at the record in this respect. In the last two years Canada has participated in four general international economic conferences, five commonwealth economic and trade meetings, three tripartite trade discussions in which the United Kingdom was involved, as well as four international trade and economic meetings called for various purposes.
I suggest that the remedy is not through conferences, though they can help very greatly at times. Nor is the remedy, I suggest, through the waving of a magic wand over
IMr. Pearson.]

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External Affairs reasonably sure that these sinister plans will not have any success in our own country, even though they may deceive and confuse some sincere and well-intentioned people.
Communist plans in Europe have also to some extent been frustrated by their own crude and violent tactics. The workers, even the communist workers, are getting tired of being forced into political strikes and sabotage by a little group of Moscow-appointed leaders who always put the directive of the Kremlin before the interests of their own country and of the working class. While the communists are still strong in some of these western European countries, I think their game is becoming more and more apparent to the people. There are indications of this tendency in the defeat of the communists in the elections in Finland, and in the complete elimination of the communist candidates in the recent election in the United Kingdom.
No better evidence, in fact, could be found of the greater strength of the democratic forces in the western world than the present position of the communist party in countries which have free elections. From the high point of their influence in the period immediately following the war, these parties have rapidly diminished in numbers and in strength. This change was not brought about by suppression or persecution. The communists have been left to the judgment of the electors, and only when they have taken illegal action to betray their country, or to disturb the peace, have they suffered penalties under the law. This confidence in the free processes of democracy has, I think, been justified.
In the United Kingdom, for instance, during the recent election the communists were allowed to participate fully in the campaign. They were given free time on the government radio. They were given every opportunity to win votes. They made every kind of insidious appeal for such votes, from demanding higher wages for all, immediately, to pandering to the lowest form of anti-American prejudice. But what happened? By the will of the electors no single communist, nor communist sympathizer, has been returned to the British House of Commons. They polled an infinitesimal proportion of the vote and the great majority of them lost their deposits. Here is good evidence that in the face of outside danger, people in the free world can close their ranks.
On the other hand, in the dark spaces behind the iron curtain conditions get worse and the Soviet government is attempting to seal off every possible contact between the unfortunate peoples of those satellite countries and the outer free world. Not the smallest glimmer of western light is now allowed 
to penetrate. Countries like Czechoslovakia, with its old parliamentary traditions, its great cultural heritage, its long-standing connections with the west, are to be put into permanent quarantine against the infection of freedom. So great is the nervousness of the Kremlin and those who take the Kremlin's orders in Prague, that even the normal social friendliness of two junior members of our legation staff towards their acquaintances in that city is regarded as dangerous and subversive. Charges have to be trumped up against them so that they can be expelled from the country. Against action of that kind we have, of course, means of retaliation which we shall certainly not hesitate to use against any country which invites and deserves it.
This communist policy of isolation and expulsion is revealing. It throws a sombre light on the fear which haunts the rulers of the Soviet union that the countries which they have drawn or forced into their orbit, realizing that their national interests are being sacrificed to Moscow, may react as Yugoslavia has already reacted. Hence the repeated purges of the personnel of these governments. Hence the series of monstrous trials and forced confessions and savage sentences in Budapest, Sofia, Bucharest, Warsaw and Prague. Hence the accusations of espionage and plotting against western diplomatic missions and individual western nationals in these countries. One must feel the deepest sympathy for the peoples of Soviet satellite countries whose governments are being compelled by Moscow to carry out policies so plainly contrary to their national interests. But I suggest the lesson of these events is not going unnoticed on this side of the iron curtain, where many waverers in many countries will hesitate before committing themselves to communism when they have such abundant evidence that it is being used as a facade for the new Russian imperialism.
In combating these dangers one of our greatest sources of strength remains the United Nations, where they can be publicly exposed, and the North Atlantic treaty, under which we can defend ourselves collectively against the aggression which might result from them. This treaty, I am glad to say- and the Minister of National Defence may and probably will have more to say about this matter when his estimates are introduced- is now a going concern, though very much remains to be done.
Since the last session of parliament the defence and military committees have met in Paris to approve programs of the military production and supply board and the defence financial and economic committee, as well as the broad principles on which defence planning by the various regional groups can be

carried on. Since the meetings in Paris, problems of military production and supply and financial questions concerned with the implementation of the North Atlantic treaty have been under investigation by the appropriate committees, and planning has now begun in the various regional groups. We are getting down to the detailed problems of working out an effective system of collective defence for the north Atlantic region.
As planning for military production and supply under the North Atlantic organization gets under way-and it is now under way- account should of course be taken of the needs of specialization in production and of the availability of productive capacity in all the north Atlantic nations. Means must also be found for overcoming existing difficulties which impede the transfer of equipment and supplies among the north Atlantic nations so as to permit the maximum use of their productive capacities. Solution of these difficulties is necessary if full advantage is to be taken, for instance, of Canada's present and potential productive capacity by the north Atlantic countries. The responsibilities of membership under the North Atlantic treaty cannot of course be discharged merely by setting up committees or staffs of experts for research and planning, however useful this may be. Such responsibilities can only be fulfilled by the governments and the peoples concerned.
Under the mutual aid and self-help articles of the treaty we in Canada are committed to participation in this collective enterprise in the manner in which such participation will be most effective. But until investigation of the needs of our partners is more complete, and until military planning in detail is further advanced, it would be premature, I suggest, to predict the appropriate form and scale of our participation. It will of course have to be related to the capacities and requirements of our economy and the economies of all the other signatories.
I should like to conclude the brief mention I have made of this particular subject by quoting a paragraph from a very significant book entitled "Modern Arms and Free Men", by Dr. Vannevar Bush, in which he said:
The race-
He is referring to the race for security, indeed the race for survival.
-can be lost, as all long races that depend upon man's endurance can be lost, either by doing too little or by trying to do too much too soon.
He went on to say:
It will profit us little to have stocks of bombs and planes and then to bring our governmental and industrial systems crashing down about our ears. This is a long, hard race we are embarked upon. We had better settle into harness for the long pull and mark well how we use our resources.
Supply-External Affairs
The world situation has been changed, not only by the developments which I have attempted to sketch briefly, but also by the realization that the perils of the atomic age will increase through the manufacture of atomic weapons of ever-increasing destructiveness, culminating, if it is culmination, in the so-called H bomb. On this question- and reference has already been made to it in the house during the present session-I suggest that our policy as to atomic weapons should be twofold. On the one hand, we of the free world must continue to strive by every means possible-and I hope to elaborate on this somewhat in a moment-for that kind of international agreement for the effective control of atomic energy that will give us some real chance of security against the horrible possibility of atomic warfare. On the other hand, so long as the danger of such warfare remains, we together with friendly states with whom we can co-operate must do our best to see that we do not lag behind in the development of knowledge and skill in the field of atomic energy. It is important also to convince, if that is possible, those with whom we find it difficult to co-operate that atomic weapons will never be used by us for any aggressive purpose.
The hon. member for Saskatoon (Mr. Knight) said the other night, in what I considered to be a very thoughtful speech:
Somehow or other the people of the world will have to get together and solve this problem.
He was referring to the atomic problem. He also said in the same speech: "We must learn somehow or other to break that cycle" which is preventing results. "Somehow or other"-but how? He asked for some reassurance on these matters which would be a renewal of faith, and he was disappointed that I had not been able to give him such reassurance in my earlier statement. To be perfectly frank, reassurance is not easy in the light of present circumstances, but I know he can be assured, as can all other hon. members of the house, that so far as the government is concerned we will do our best and not lag behind in the search for a solution to this problem.
When a man finds himself struggling against a blizzard, a moment comes when because of fatigue and despair he longs to lie down, relax and die. There are times, Mr. Chairman, when we must all feel as though, in the international field, we were pushing through a bitter and blinding blizzard. But it would be fatal to yield to the temptation merely to sit it out, just as it would be fatal to yield to the temptation to panic and frantically rush in new directions without any knowledge of where they may lead. So far as Canada is concerned-and I

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External Affairs am sure we all agree on this-I know there will never be any lack of willingness to search for a solution to this and the other problems which divide us from the communist world.
None of these problems is insoluble. Atomic energy need not destroy us; it can open for us a great age of human progress. Nor is there anything insuperable in the questions which have arisen about the future of Germany and Japan. Between the communist and non-communist worlds some modus vivendi, some agreement to live and let live, can be worked out. But this can never happen except through a process of genuine and mutual compromise and accommodation. If there remains any doubt about the desire of the western powers to find a basis for such compromise and accommodation then of course we must try to sweep away that doubt. This may require a great new effort on everybody's part-possibly some new high level meeting, possibly a full dress conference of the powers principally concerned, the fifteen, sixteen or seventeen powers if you Ike, on all forms of disarmament, including atomic disarmament; or it may require something else. It might suggest a meeting of the United Nations assembly in Moscow, an invitation to which may not be too easy to obtain. If, for example, direct negotiations amongst the great powers would initiate a process of settlement, no one should object to them on the grounds of procedure or prejudice. In this respect, I agree with the secretary general of the United Nations, who not long ago said that he was in favour of great power negotiations, and I quote from his statement:
. . . all the time, and on all levels . . . inside the United Nations and outside the United Nations.
Certainly, we must not become fixed in any rut, atomic or otherwise, or assume that any scheme we put forward is necessarily final or perfect.
The World Council of Churches, meeting recently at Geneva, made a moving plea for such negotiation in the following terms:
Governments of nations have an inescapable responsibility at this hour. The world is divided into hostile camps through suspicion and distrust and through failure of nations to bring their mutual relations within an agreed system of justice and order. As representatives of Christian churches we appeal for a gigantic new effort for peace. We know how strenuously governments have discussed peace in the past. But sharp political conflicts continue, and atomic danger develops uncontrolled. We urge governments to enter into negotiations at once again and to do everything in their power to bring the present tragic deadlock to an end.
We must all agree, of course, with that. It is essential however that any new move designed to insure peace by removing international differences must be taken only after the most careful preparation. At the same time the free peoples must make it equally

clear, as they can do, that they are not for a moment prepared, because of anguish over the *present situation, or fear or insecurity, to make any unrequited sacrifice, through which they would weaken their position in return for nothing. There is no use in giving way to unreasoning panic. We are stronger now then we were. But however strong we might become, it would be folly to base one's policy on strength alone. As has been said, the first obligation of diplomacy is to avoid a situation where power alone talks. We can and should, therefore, reaffirm our desire to seek again, through negotiation, a settlement of the divisions which now beset the world.
Even in the best circumstances, however, a settlement of the problems which divide the communist world from the free world will not be easily reached. Some new interventions, such as those suggested by the member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell), in his interesting analysis of the present crisis, might be a useful beginning for such a process. Certainly this government would give every support to any new beginning which gave any promise of success. Let us not forget, however, in our determination or desire, our anguish to do something, that the road ahead will in any case be long and difficult. We shall have to walk it with patience and with caution, with persistence and with realism. If a new approach, for instance, did not get us anywhere-there is always that possibility -we must not even then give way to the inevitable reaction of despair which would follow.
This point is well put in a leading article of the February 18 issue of the Economist, which no doubt some hon. members have read. One paragraph of that article reads as follows:
Behind the hopes of a quick agreement with Russia lies more than a trace of the belief that peace can really be had quite cheaply, by a single bargain, and not, as is the grim truth, by an intelligent, costly and sustained political effort lasting over a generation. Repeated talk of settlements and agreements and pacts can divert the attention of both statesmen and peoples from the fact that the only possible diplomacy for the western world- that of agreement through strength-is about the most difficult diplomacy that democratic nations can be asked to sustain. It means that for years to come a measure of military preparedness and a high degree of economic stability will have to be maintained throughout the non-communist world.
I suggest we will also need a high degree of democratic unity to face the communist policy of aggression, directed from one, and only one, centre, and without the limitation of scruples or sincerity or morality. We must, I know, pay the price for freedom, national and individual, by differing and disputing among ourselves on occasions. So we have congress versus parliament; dollar versus

sterling; commonwealth associations versus European federation; security by military strategy versus security through social and political strength; international obligations versus domestic responsibilities. Every democratic state has these conflicts within its borders, and every group of states has them between its members. We should be careful, however, to see that they are not permitted to weaken us unduly as we face the dangers ahead.
At some point in the encircling barrier of unsolved problems which hems us in at the moment, there may be some new opening upon which we could begin to work. With patience and with diligence we must search for this opening, and, when we find it, set about expanding it with every tool of diplomacy and negotiation that we have available. We shall not, I suggest, facilitate this search by permitting our hunger for peace to lead us into unrealistic and specious courses. On the other hand we shall only hinder it by bellicose declarations that all is perfect on our side, and anyway we can lick Joe Stalin!
I should like, Mr. Chairman, in the very few minutes that remain, to turn to what the Soviet union is doing or is not doing in the particular field of atomic energy control.
During the past three or four months, while the United States has been going through the throes of its most difficult and fateful decision as to whether or not to push ahead with the development of the hydrogen bomb, because of the absence of agreement on the international control of atomic energy, the Russians have quietly and energetically been cultivating the impression, with some success, that they had already made new proposals for such agreement which we had turned down. Inferences are drawn from vague and speculative press reports that have passed the Moscow censors, as well as from some of Mr. Vishinsky's remarks on atomic energy in the last United Nations assembly, hinting that they have offered concessions which we are ignoring. Nothing could be more misleading or further from the truth. Nothing could be more dangerous than that this impression should spread.
Until last September our public were not particularly well informed as to what the Soviet position on atomic control actually was. Last autumn, therefore, when Mr. Vishinsky offered the assembly, as if it were something new, what he called strict inspection and effective control as an integral part of an atomic energy agreement, many people naturally thought that concessions were being made, and that at last the deadlock was being broken. Perhaps Mr. Vishinsky's intention was to concede and not to confuse, but some of his statements at that time
Supply-External Affairs seemed more like double talk, and in some cases were even mutually contradictory. In the course of the recent debate at Lake Success, he said everything about everything. If one makes a close and careful analysis of his statements, as I have, it reveals nothing that could not be interpreted as being wholly consistent with the Soviet proposals of June, 1947, which did not provide anything approaching adequate international inspection and control.
If Mr. Vishinsky meant us to read something new and different into his words, I hope he will make that clear to us at the first opportunity. It is of the greatest importance that we should know. At the moment we certainly cannot find out at Lake Success. Hon. members will recall that the assembly last autumn directed the six permanent members of the atomic energy commission, among other things, to discover what the new-if they were new-Soviet proposals on atomic energy control meant. But the Soviet representative walked out of the meeting without clarifying his own position in any respect. When these talks are resumed, as I hope they will be, maybe we shall be able to get that clarification, which must be insisted on because it is vital to the whole question.
To be specific and definite on this point, sir, I should like to draw the attention of the house to a comparison of what Mr. Vishinsky said in his main speech on this subject to the general assembly last November and what was proposed by the Soviet representative at the twelfth meeting of the atomic energy commission on June 11, 1947.
In summing up Soviet views on inspection -and this is the crux of the problem-Mr. Vishinsky made six points last November, which were simply a condensed rewording of the original Soviet proposals. On the heart of the matter, Mr. Vishinsky said that there should be-and I am quoting from his statement-"periodic and special investigation of the activities of enterprises extracting atomic raw materials"; that is, periodic and special investigation by some international atomic authority. That sounded fine. The Soviet proposals a couple of years previously said, and I quote from them:
The international control commission shall periodically carry out inspection of facilities for the mining of atomic raw materials and for the production of atomic materials and atomic energy . . . and carry out special investigations in cases where suspicion of violations . . . arises.
All that Mr. Vishinsky added to that statement was that he wished-
-to make it quite clear that periodic inspection means inspection at intervals, but intervals as determined by necessity and by decision of the

Supply-External Affairs
international control commission whenever that commission deems it fitting that such inspections should take place.
That is all very well as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough to give us that security under international control which is essential if we are to sign any international agreement. For instance, it does not allow for international inspectors to be on the job all the time, which we think is essential; nor does it explain how the international control commission could determine whether any country had declared all of its production facilities.
The Soviet union has added nothing to the most inadequate section of its proposals; for Mr. Vishinsky did not explain how "special investigation" could work in a country which would not allow inspectors to go anywhere except to the atomic establishments which it chose to declare. There is still nothing in the Soviet proposals to prevent a country hiding away, in a remote corner of its territories, a whole series of atomic installations which it would not necessarily declare, and which the inspectors would therefore never know anything about, because they could go only where they were shown, and then only at intervals.
We must be careful when we examine proposals of the kind which I have indicated; and we must be especially careful to see that the interpretation given to those proposals in our own country is not false and misleading, if we can prevent it. I am not, however, so much concerned at the moment with trying to indicate where the blame for failure lies as in finding a possible way out of the deadlock.
I therefore repeat that in this search, which is literally one for survival, we must keep open every road, every by-path and every trail which may lead us to the objective we all so ardently desire to reach. But we must, at the same time, take every necessary measure, moral, economic and military, to defend ourselves collectively against aggression from those reactionary subversive forces which have hitherto blocked the road to peace.


Mr. Graydon:: There is a general feeling abroad, Mr. Chairman, in this house as well as outside of it, that members of parliament generally should not seek to find differences with the government on major issues of foreign affairs but rather should try to find common ground so that the nation will be able to speak, so far as it is humanly possible, with a common or a united voice in the councils of the world.
It should be pointed out at this time, however, that those of us who are in opposition cannot be expected slavishly to follow the government on every point where they have


made a decision on external matters. In no other single department of government are the dice, so to speak, so loaded against the opposition and so loaded in favour of the government as in the Department of External Affairs when a discussion of foreign affairs arises. There is no general inter-party clearing of information of a confidential sort or otherwise in Canada today. The fullest information, secret, confidential and otherwise, is in the hands of the minister of external affairs (Mr. Pearson) and his experts as he presents his case for or against a certain position which the federal government has taken or is about to take. Even the standing committee on external affairs gets little information other than that which it has already obtained or will obtain from the newspapers.
The background of current foreign affairs ought to be made available more fully to members of parliament generally; for, after all, they are the representatives of the people; and whether it is a matter of domestic or foreign affairs, the people ought to know the facts upon which the government bases its decisions. I am sorry to say this, but I think I must do so. The rivers of international information available to those outside the strict confines of the cabinet itself have pretty well dried up in this country. I urge that the government, within the limits of security and ordinary diplomatic usage, should start these streams running again. It is highly improper and completely unfair to suggest in one breath that we have a single voice in the councils of the world and at the same time to withhold information which would enable .a clearer and more effective discussion of world events. I believe that the blinds ought to be rolled up in the east block so that from the centre block of parliament we can see at least something of what is going on.
It is my hope that when the standing committee on external affairs deals with the estimates which will be referred to them by the Commons shortly, an opportunity will be given to members of that committee which was denied by the committee itself last year, of hearing firsthand reports from those who have been on the ground in the countries in which the most acute crises have arisen. It is all very well to hear the various departmental officials here in Ottawa tell what somebody else has told them, and then we tell our constituents; but who is more entitled to get the firsthand information than the members of this House of Commons sitting in committee, or in the Commons itself? That should not be denied to them on this occasion. We are entitled to more than hearsay evidence.
Many arguments were advanced in the committee last year as to why we should not

near Ambassador Davis, who had been on the ground in China for many months prior to that time. We were denied that after a vote in the committee, and after, I may say, the government had indicated their desire that the ambassador be not called. That should not be repeated. We ought to be able to get the full light on external affairs if the public of Canada expect us in parliament to debate and make a decision intelligently on this very important level of our work.
It is little wonder that the minister of external affairs, in reporting to the house on the Far East, struck a somewhat pessimistic note. His message could be summed up in the words:	"Anything can happen
there". When one realizes what a head start soviet imperialism has in the Far East, and realizes further the immensity of the problem of extinguishing the communist conflagration as it moves through the inflammable forests of misery in that poverty-stricken area, it should be sufficient to shake every supporter of democracy from the last vestige of complacency. When is added to that the record of events during the last five years, no one can look at this sector of the world front without grave concern for the future. Five years ago one out of every twelve of the world's people had a communist ruler. Today one out of every three is under communist domination. Without a single shot being fired or a bomb dropped, Russian imperialism has achieved the greatest single peacetime victory in the shortest length of time of any comparable movement in the world's long history. That is something that no Canadian can afford to ignore; it is something that no democrat anywhere in the world can afford to ignore, because it shows that the Russian campaign for world domination is on the move.
The house listened with intense interest to the Secretary of State for External Affairs expounding, not at great length but expounding nevertheless, his ideas with respect to the situation in Japan. His point of view, which seems to favour a quick and early peace treaty with the Japanese, does not carry universal support, if one reads the press and other news articles from time to time. There may be, however, a background of information available to him which is denied this parliament and many of those who take a contrary view, and anything I say will, of necessity, be tempered with this consideration.
Japan could be a valuable bastion for the democratic nations in the Far East and is in the best position of all of the nations there to stop Russian aggression in its tracks. It could also be an easy prey to the same aggression, and herein lies the importance of strategic Japan today.
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The Japanese government alone, of all the oriental countries, took steps of an effective character many decades ago to westernize her economic, social and political ways of life. True, it ended up on the reefs of military dictatorship with consequent disaster; but it has within itself the elements necessary to establish a powerful democratic state, if it chooses to follow that course. If Japan is prepared to become a convert to our way of life, and a sincere convert, it can be an essential link in a world chain of democratic states.
Japan is occupied by a nation that has been her avowed enemy for years. It is only natural that there may be elements now within Japan which are not vocal, which are opposed to a continuance of the American yoke at this time. But until the western powers are satisfied that Japan is prepared to be that link in the world's democratic chain, the danger of lifting the occupation at this stage would seem to be a rather hazardous gamble at best. If Russia and her international communist propaganda were to overflow into the new state that is set up before its democratic government gets on its feet, we might readily find that the MacArthur occupation should not have been lifted so soon.
Some day the occupation has to be lifted, but a new tree in the strong wind that is blowing at the present time from the Chinese and Russian shores would be much more easily bent to communistic purposes than a sturdy oak with its roots firmly set in the ground.
To bear that out, one of the experienced staff members of the New York Times, who has been resident in Japan since the surrender, has this to say:
The possibility that Japan itself might be taken over by the communists must be considered. While the occupation continues, there is little likelihood of this happening, but what can be said about the future-if American troops are withdrawn? It must be remembered that if, after rehabilitating Japan, we allow the country to slip into communist hands, we have handed them on a silver platter precisely what Russia has been seeking and failing to obtain since the Russo-Japanese war more than forty years ago-an industrial plant in the Far East.
So far as Japan is concerned, it is my opinion that before the western nations adopt precipitately the policy of having Japan "go it alone" they must be certain beyond any shadow of doubt that by doing so they are not playing into the hands of a giant Russian plan to conquer the whole of the Far East. That is all I ask of the Secretary of State for External Affairs at this moment.
I shall leave other aspects of the Far East in the capable hands of my leader. He may have something to say with respect to them as the debate proceeds; but in turning to another aspect of our foreign affairs, which

Supply*-External Affairs was touched on by the minister during his address this afternoon, I do want to say that in my opinion the most vital job at the hand of every responsible nation of the world today is somehow to find the way to stop the present aimless international drifting, which is causing no end of alarm to the ordinary citizens of the world, because they have a revolting fear that a continuation of this squaring off of one group of nations towards another may end in another armed holocaust.
I suppose there is no single thing that is engaging the attention and absorbing the mind and thought of the average citizen in this country today more than the statement that I have just made with respect to the possibilities in the future.
Right now may be the critical turning point and this nation must bend her last sinew of energy, capacity and initiative towards resolving the present international impasse, which holds terrible implications while it remains unresolved. It is only natural, perhaps, to draw attention to this fact. The globe is so shrunken by means of modern transportation and communication that everybody today is everybody else's neighbour all over the world. Time and distance have been reduced to mere symbols of what they were, while into this shrunken ball of a world have been thrown two of the most destructive weapons of which our imagination could conceive. Moreover, the end of destructive enterprise and ingenuity may have only begun. From armament race to atomic race, to hydrogen race, the world races on with startling concern to all its citizens. It may well be that the choice before the world now is not just a choice between peace and war, but the choice between peace and the mass obliteration of mankind.
Whatever may be the ills of the world, they have shrunk into infinitesimal proportions when contrasted with the dangers which science is racing to make available for infliction upon our people. This makes the resolution of the main prospective causes of war an immediate must for us all.
At one time sitting on a keg of dynamite was about the most dangerous pastime of all; but sitting on a keg of dynamite today would, to the ordinary person, be a position of relative safety compared with what could happen were modern weapons ever to be used. Before it is too late, an end must be put to the atomic-hydrogen race, because history has too many instances to show that preparations like this sometimes lead to the use of the preparations which are made.

Before this world is shaken further with atomic paralysis, the peace-loving peoples of the globe must make a last, determined stand to chain the dogs of war.
It has been my fear, and I have expressed it more than once in the House of Commons, that the great United Nations Organization, which has numberless successes to its credit in the field of international peace, despite its failure to make one world out of two, has had one hand tied behind its back in its efforts to deal with world problems, because of the fact that the heads, particularly of the great powers, have seen fit to remain away from the sessions of the security council and the general assembly. This has tended to reduce the United Nations Organization, not merely in fact but in the eyes of the general public, to the position of a giant debating society, where nothing much is expected to be accomplished, and where only international hot air is released.
It may have been that those of us who attended at the birth of the United Nations in San Francisco, almost five years ago now, had ideas which were not shared by those who held other ideas concerning the United Nations Organization in general. However, my thought certainly was that when the United Nations was set up it would not simply be a second-rate meeting of people in other brackets of the public service, who would represent the nations of the world, but would be a meeting together regularly of the heads of nations to clear the decks for action, so far as world peace is concerned. Apparently that was not to be-but it certainly was one of the things for which I had hoped, and which I thought would flow from that great organization.
The United Nations has to be restored to public confidence once more, and it can be restored to public confidence in the final analysis only by the heads of the greater and smaller powers recognizing that this is the organization through which the nations of the world have chosen to work; and having so chosen, the heads of the nations should not any longer high-hat this their own close relation.
I have been amazed to find that this appears to be the state of mind of the chiefs of powers both great and small-and in this I do not include the government of Canada, because from time to time our Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) has attended. I must say about many other countries that in my view it is about time those countries came to their senses and realized that after all the United Nations cannot be allowed to

remain the plaything of ordinary representatives of nations, and that they cannot continue to boycott both the assembly and the security council, so far as the attendance of the chief figures in those countries is concerned.
I have doubts in my own mind as to whether any of the recent suggestions emanating from some of the senior world statesmen quite fill the present international bill. Some have called for a Big Three conference again, outside the United Nations, for the purpose of bringing the world's hopes for peace closer to realization. The end is laudable but in my opinion the means leaves something to be desired.
My proposal today is that the United Nations should not be by-passed, but that a special meeting of the security council and the general assembly should be called forthwith, and that Canada should take a leading part in initiating this movement. I suggest that, wherever this international meeting is held, the head of every state of the United Nations should be there, in person, to make one final and determined effort to clear the decks for peace in the days that lie ahead. When a few moments ago the Secretary of State for External Affairs suggested that that special meeting might be held in Moscow, I think perhaps he was carrying things a little too far, and I believe in his speech yesterday President Truman indicated that he held that view. Because, afjer all, we do want to have a special meeting of the United Nations and we would like to have it at a place which would be convenient generally; but I do not think this country or, indeed, any other democratic country, wants to get down on its knees to any other competing nation. What we want to do is to meet them on fair, reasonable, equitable and decent grounds, wherever it may be.
These suggestions would meet the ends suggested by Mr. Churchill and others who have made similar proposals; and at the same time it would meet the objections of those who believe that the international organization, as at present constituted, should be the avenue through which this new peace move would be made.	[DOT]
Without any reflection upon the high calibre and the splendid service given by men and women in lower governmental levels, who have done their utmost to promote the cause of peace in the United Nations Organization, I submit that too much of the actual peacemaking of the world has been left to those who hold inferior positions in the nations they so conscientiously try to represent. Acute and serious issues, like the atomic and hydrogen bombs, cannot be solved by
Supply-External Affairs people who only take orders from other governmental chieftains at home. What the world needs is that the chieftains shall put their feet under a common table at a United Nations meeting and make an honest attempt to give the people of the world the one thing they long and pray for, a just and lasting peace.
With threatening war clouds casting their shadows over every element of the world community today, no time must be lost in implementing some such proposal. As Prime Minister Nehru said only the other day:
If you think the world is a pretty had show, let the hydrogen bomh put an end to it. If you want to carry on the world with any decency, then you had better put an end to the hydrogen bomb. There is no choice for you.	*
It would be folly to suggest that the vexed problem of outlawing the atom and hydrogen bombs is a simple one. The minister's speech this afternoon went far enough to indicate some of the major and serious difficulties which confront the nations. Ever since the days of Hiroshima, the three great powers have been making proposals and counterproposals with a view to banning the use of such weapons as machines of war. But actually the discussions have never reached the point where the deadlock looked likely to be broken. In simple terms, the deadlock comes from the fact that the western democracies have proposed that the mining, manufacture and use of atomic energy for war should be under international control and with it full international inspection. The soviets have accepted the proposals, except with respect to international inspections, as the minister pointed out a few moments ago. This they refuse to do except to a limited inspection and the limitations they place on inspection actually mean that a nation at its will can still mine, manufacture and prepare for war the use of atom or hydrogen bombs. In effect the Russian counter-proposal is no guarantee at all as to the outlawing of these destructive works of science.
One disturbing feature, of course, of even the western democracies' proposals for all-out banning and full international inspection is that while this would be a guarantee before war came, while peace still reigned, it is evident on careful examination that it would be no guarantee once war broke out, because then international control might well be impossible of implementation. In any protracted hostilities the nerve-shaking possibili- , ties of atomic energy being put to wartime use and inflicted upon humanity's masses of civilians would be ever present.
Nevertheless, the world should make another try at banning the bomb and at the same time making a determined effort to
436	HOUSE OF
Supply-External Affairs make nations mind their own business and to outlaw national policies directed at world revolution, which means the sticking of long foreign fingers into the domestic affairs of other states who have different systems of government. We need an international policy of "hands off" the other fellow's affairs.
These two issues, more than all others, are dividing the world into two today and before the western democracies are forced to conclude that Russia is definitely out to conquer the world and to impose her communistic system on all of us, the world meeting, which I have proposed before, should be held. It may well be the world's last chance, but at least the western democracies will know and their peoples will understand that every last thing has been done to preserve peace and to give the world's peoples a chance to live in the sunshine of international confidence rather than in the clouds and fog of fear, uncertainty and concern.
This is a severe testing time for democratic countries, for the maintenance of a high level of prosperity and employment is just as essential in the battle we are waging to preserve our way of life as the military preparedness which we have under way. We must find the way to master that problem as one of the major features of a successful fight against the inroads of godless communism.
As the minister did a few moments ago,
I crave the indulgence of the house to say a few words about another matter which is closely integrated with the whole issue of peace and war. We hear once in a while of General Worthington's visits to various sections of Canada. We hear of certain co-ordinating movements with respect to our fire departments, for instance. But with the intensity with which destructive processes have been developed, all of the gadgets and services of yesterday will not do for a war the day after tomorrow. If another war comes, and God forbid that we shall ever see it, our civilians in this country and in others might, without adequate preparations, present a state of helplessness the like of which the world has never seen in previous combat. The house must be told fully and frankly what provision is being made for the safety, hospitalization and security of our people in case of trouble.
' There need be no question of security reasons blurring the explanation of what Canada is doing for her own people to protect them from these perils. We read in the newspaper last week that Dr. Paul Larsen, now head of the United States office of civilian defence, has indicated that he will present


a program soon for the defence of Washington from atomic attack. Larsen said to the newspapers:
Our first job will be the relocation and redesign of the present government office set-up in the capital. Dispersion out of the Washington area and underground instalments, either in or out of the capital, will be our general means of defence. We may utilize underground shelters within thirty or forty miles of Washington.
What this nation wants to know is, "What are we doing to protect our people at home?" We do not want to hear about it nine months after we should have heard, like the combines commissioner's report or the screening of the employees of the national film board. With these rather sad experiences so fresh in parliamentary minds we have a right to ask and demand that our civilian defence preparations be made public. Actually, the defence committee which the opposition has asked for should see to it that General Worthington and his staff are called as witnesses, so that full disclosure of our home civilian defence position may be made known.
Naked diplomacy without bread and butter sometimes proves to be a cold and ineffective thing. The fact that the minister spent as much time as he did this afternoon on the economic end of external affairs would bear out the statement I have just made. An erstwhile European leader once said, "If trade does not cross international borders, armies will." Without subscribing fully to such a doctrine it may, nevertheless, be said that diplomatic relations are bound up-yes, and peace itself-in the opportunity which men and women have throughout the world to make a decent living. Of recent times our primary producers in Canada have been losing one by one their markets in the United Kingdom. There is a need to revitalize our trade position with members of the commonwealth and empire. As the minister of external affairs said a few minutes ago, there is a need, not only for prosperity in agriculture but for the prosperity of Canada generally. It is a great truth that if you have not a prosperous agriculture in Canada you can never say that you have a prosperous Canada.
At the risk of repeating what has been said already in the house this week, but which in my opinion cannot be said too often, there is much that can be gained by Canada taking the initiative in calling a full-fledged commonwealth trade conference. I must confess that when the minister made his report a week or two ago in connection with the Colombo conference-it may have been that his explanation was not understandable to me-it seemed to me that the commonwealth consultative committee upon which he laid some stress was a pretty weak and feeble

excuse for a full-fledged commonwealth conference for the settlement of commonwealth trade today. I do not know what other hon. members may think with regard to that statement concerning the commonwealth consultative committee, but it seemed to me that it fell far short of what Canadians, particularly those in primary industry, would expect.
' The United Kingdom has been our traditional market in the past for agricultural products and perhaps offers greater stability than any other. It should- not be a conference designed to increase tariff or other barriers or restrictions against other nations; rather it should be a gathering whereby commonwealth countries could once again find a formula for successful and prosperous trading one with the other. We must leave no stone unturned to find markets and good prices for our agricultural production. It must be made part and parcel of an effective over-all policy to maintain prosperity in the interests of the preservation of democracy on the world front.
Speaking further with respect to trade within the commonwealth, reports from the Colombo conference have been couched in considerable vagueness, and included such words as:
There exists a continuing and substantial degree of community outlook in the approach of the commonwealth countries to current problems of foreign affairs.
If there ever was a prostitution of the English language to a position where it means nothing I submit it is to be found in that kind of statement. So much was this so that one newspaperman of prominence in this country said that the announcement was like a medical bulletin about a very distinguished patient confined to hospital. The bulletin was, "the patient's condition remains good."
It is to be presumed from reports from Colombo that the new Asiatic members of the commonwealth prefer to throw in their weight with the democratic countries against the influence and spread of communism. The conference indicated that there was envisaged some program of mutual self-help and economic development which would be aided by grants of credit and technical help from commonwealth countries of more mature development.
The Washington tripartite talks last September recognized the problem of opening former trade channels for more of these Asiatic countries, and it was agreed that Canada would stockpile rubber and tin purchased from these nations for three purposes; first as a defence measure, second as an aid to Great Britain's depleted dollar reserves,
Supply-External Affairs and third as an aid to those Asiatic countries which have lost markets. That was six months ago, and still in the press of February 18 last there was a statement, originating from government sources in Ottawa, that talks are now going ahead between the government and Canadian industry for the stockpiling of natural rubber and tin in Canada.
I am told that our stocks of natural rubber have decreased each month since last September and that our consumption is increasing, for reasons that I need not go into now. Here was one place where Canada could have acted promptly and eased greatly in a practical way some of the problems which were recognized as among the most urgent ones at the Colombo conference last month. Something could have been done about some of tire problems which were covered up in that underbrush of words I quoted a few moments ago. May I point out to the house and to the government that after all there has been a lot of talk emanating from these international conferences, but it is deeds and not words by which Canada must make its contribution to stabilized trade in the Far East. If this example is to be taken as a general sample of the speed with which Canada is tackling the problems of the Far East, I suggest that there ought to be a change of policy or a change of gait in that regard.
This nation and others learned their lesson on preparedness during the early days of the last great war. Our people are not in the mood at this time to put their heads in the sand and let the world go by. Today some nations understand only the language of force and power. We have to master that language also, for while preparedness might look like war, when dealing with some realistic peoples it may well mean the guarantee against it. This nation must not be caught napping, and our external policy must be backed up by such might as will give its implementation both power and strength.
Nevertheless in our long-range plans for preserving democracy and our free way of life as against communism and its shackled way of life, we must not forget that the smashing of Russia and her satellite powers by any conceivable combination of military strength would not necessarily destroy communism. To some communism is an idea, to some it is a religion, to some it is a crusade; but who is there who believes that we can put an idea in jail, that we can blast a religion, or bomb a crusade successfully? Communism as an idea, as a religion or as a crusade does not march on battlegrounds, does not sail the seas, does not fly in the air, but marches in men's minds. It marches most successfully in the minds of

Supply-External Affairs men who have suffered economic and social injustice, and who are experiencing poverty, suffering privation and distress.
Collateral, therefore, to our plans for preparedness and national security we have to meet the challenge of communism on the battleground in men's minds. That means we have to show the hundreds of millions of people who are going somewhere towards a better life and independence, and who are still making up their minds in which direction they will go, that a system of freedom rather than regimentation and totalitarianism can give to the underprivileged masses of humanity a more abundant life than any other. We believe it can. We must demonstrate that it can or we fight with lessening chances of success.
The trump card of Prime Minister Nehru of India in his fight to keep India from communism does not seem to lie entirely in mass force but rather in the direction of seeing to it that India has a government which will achieve through free means a better life for all. That defence seems to be increasingly powerful in the lukewarm war between communism and freedom. Therefore let us remind ourselves that one of the powerful arms of our attack upon godless communism is bound up in the rapid and effective removal of the evils upon which that wretched doctrine feeds, and the maintenance of prosperity and good standards of living for our people. We must display to the world's masses that justice for all and humanity towards all, both big and small, is the hallmark of democracy at its best and the most effective guarantee of permanent peace. In our advance to that laudable goal, as democratic peoples we would do well to remember the immortal words of Tennyson:
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.


Mr. Maclnnis:: Mr. Chairman, for two reasons my remarks at this time will be very brief. The first is that two members of the C.C.F. party have already spoken on external affairs in the debate on the address in reply to the speech from the throne, and others may have something to say this afternoon. The other reasons why I will not take the time of the committee to any extent is that by and large I am in agreement with much, if not all, of what was said by the Secretary of State for External Affairs.
The only doubt or obstacle that would be in my mind to full acceptance of it would be


the assurance, and probably that assurance was implicit in the speech itself, that he was setting forth the policy of the government, and not merely his own point of view. We must all admit that, today, international affairs is a difficult matter with which to deal. It is a difficult matter to deal with because we have a division of the nations of the world different from anything we ever had before. There are two general ideas, and there seems to be no point of contact between those two ideas.
In common with many members of this house, I had the opportunity of attending a session of the United Nations. It was quite clear to me that the Soviet union had one policy, and only one policy. It was to find out what the other nations proposed to do, and then say "no." I believe that is true, not only in the meetings of the assembly, but in nearly all the meetings of the organizations and committees of the United Nations. While conditions remain on that footing, there can be scarcely any degree of co-operation in world affairs. I must admit at once that I have not the solution. I am not as confident as the member for Peel is. I assume he did feel confident that some good would come from the proposal he made, that a conference should be called at which the heads of all the nations in the United Nations would be present. To me it has always seemed unrealistic to suppose that if Churchill or Attlee, for instance, President Truman and Stalin met, their approach to international affairs would be different from that of Molotov or Vishinsky. Surely, that idea arises from a failure to understand the fundamental principles of international affairs. When Vishinsky goes to the United Nations, he is expressing Stalin's point of view. If he is not expressing Stalin's point of view, then the Soviet union is not a country with that tight control we have been told it is. Do not suppose that any representative from the Soviet union goes to the United Nations, or any other conference, with a policy different from Stalin's.
I believe the first approach to an understanding of the present difficulties in world affairs is to get rid of that idea. I was glad to hear the Secretary of State for External Affairs refer to the economic situation. To my mind, there is one danger in our military preparedness, and that is that we may put so much into military preparedness that we cannot raise our standard of living. If that time comes, we are going to get a diminishing return from our military preparedness. I quite agree with the member for Peel that you cannot stop communism by military might. We will, of course, have to prepare to defend ourselves. Ultimately, the only policy for the destruction of communism will be tc

raise the standard of living of our people to show that all the people, from the least to the greatest, are of importance. Let us not forget that communism itself grew out of the despotism of the czarist government. May I say that the most tragic event in world history is the position the Russian revolution has reached today. So far as I have been able to read history, there was no event that had greater acclaim among the people of the nations of the world than the Russian revolution of 1917. It embodied a hope for millions of downtrodden and depressed people. Yet, it has come to the point where, in freeing the Russian people from the oppression of the czar, it has imposed a greater oppression than the czar.
A great many people still do not understand that. In common with the people who are hoping that if only Stalin can get around a conference table with someone everything is going to be all right, these people hope that, if the suspicions that the Soviet union has of the western world could be eliminated, everything would be all right. I am convinced it is not a question of suspicion at all. It is a question of a well worked out policy for world communism. The point I wish to stress particularly is the danger of putting too much emphasis on military pre-' paredness. I wish also to point out that any economic assistance we can give to the nations of western Europe may prove to be of greater value than if we had put that amount of our resources into military supplies. Let us remember that communist aggression is not only external; it is also internal. At any moment all that has been gained in France and Italy might disappear, if economic conditions in those countries deteriorated beyond a certain point. I believe that, above all else, the western world must remember that the standard of living of the masses of the people must be raised. The people must be given the feeling that democracy means something more than the right to vote at an election. It must mean the right to live decently, the right to bring up their families and educate their children. It must mean all those things, as well as the right to take part in electing a government. If we keep these things in mind I think we shall be able not only to supply the arms we need for defence but to increase our production so that the arms may never need to be used.


Solon Earl Low: At this time, Mr. Chairman, I do not rise to speak at any great length on the resolution that is before us, but I thought it
would be important for the Social Credit group to put its views before the committee at this stage inasmuch as this whole matter of
Supply-External Affairs external relations has come to be perhaps the most important problem that Canadians face. I say that because the term "external relations" includes, among other important things, the whole matter of our trading relationships with other nations.
At the outset I wish to say that my sympathies are certainly with the Secretary of State for External Affairs. I recognize all too well the fact that he finds himself surrounded by a set of circumstances the like of which few, if any, ministers of external affairs, foreign ministers or secretaries of state for foreign affairs ever faced in times before these. Because of the fact that our world relationships have fallen into such confusion, I believe that it is not the wisest thing to become carping critics. I think that the government must realize how tremendously important it is for them to take the wisest steps that men can take in full faith, and to feel that they have the backing of all the people. In his speech this afternoon the minister indicated a desire, I thought, to keep the people informed, and to have the people feel that they know what is going on. We realize that the minister cannot tell us many things that we may want to know. I can quite understand the difficulty of giving the people a running account-I think that was the term used by the minister this afternoon

of negotiations between the Canadian government and the governments of other nations of the world, or even a running account of some of the things that are taking place in the United Nations. But I believe that there are a good many things yet that could be done to keep the Canadian people more fully informed.
I cannot at this moment make specific suggestions as to what more could be done except to say that the minister and other members of the government should more frequently make before the house statements similar to the ones we have heard from the Secretary of State for External Affairs during the past ten days. The minister this afternoon mentioned the fact that he still has faith in the United Nations as our best hope for world peace. I suppose it is his business to have that faith; but I would suggest that it is the triumph of hope over experience; it must be. As the minister contemplates what has gone on and the position that the United Nations occupies today, with a split world, it must be an expression of hope that transcends the experiences of the past.
I suppose there is a good deal to be said for an international sounding board. The United Nations has often been called that. My experience there in 1947 impressed on me

Supply-External Affairs the thought that such a function might be a useful one. As the minister has said on one or two occasions, I believe-at least, if he did not say it here, he said it to me; and I am sure he would not mind my repeating it

they are not likely to be shooting while they are talking. I of course agree with that. But I believe that a danger arises out of that attitude. I am afraid that we might become so enamoured of the sound of our own voices in the United Nations assembly, security council and so on, that we are not aware of what is happening while we talk. It is perfectly apparent that while the nations have blustered, have talked, and have beaten the propaganda drum at the United Nations, communism has overrun and occupied country after country; and the United Nations has shown itself powerless to deal with this situation in any effective way. I know that there is no real use in standing up anywhere and uttering bellicose declarations-such as those I believe the minister had in mind this afternoon-against Joe Stalin, communism, Russia or anybody else. But I believe that we should be aware of the shortcomings of the organization we have set up. Not to be aware of those shortcomings, it seems to me, would be a great error of omission.
Let us look at the situation for just a moment and see how effective the United Nations has been with respect to one small matter; and at the time it looked as if it was a small matter. I refer to the problem of Israel. The United Nations decided upon a certain division of territory in the country in and around what is now Israel; and the various nations of the world agreed to that division. If anyone takes the trouble to look at the map today he will find that the territory occupied by Israel is far different from what was allocated to it by the United Nations assembly. Why is that? Well, there has been, by even small countries or small groups of people, toward any decisions of the United Nations, a defiant attitude which evidently that organization has been powerless to resist. Let us just look for a moment at the latest, namely, the effort on the part of the United Nations to set up in Jerusalem some form of administration for the protection of the holy places. I just call attention to Israel's defiant attitude toward that decision, and suggest that we have to be aware of the fact that even the smallest groups of people, the smallest countries, have been able successfully to defy that world organization, and make it tremendously difficult, if not impossible, to achieve the first step toward world peace.
Like the minister, I am full of hope that some way can be found of uniting the nations


that have gone to the United Nations assemblies and meetings so that peace can be made effective; but I must say that-my attitude has not changed in that regard since 1945, when on the floor of this house I pointed out the weaknesses of the whole United Nations charter and its set-up, which weaknesses, Mr. Chairman, have not as yet been altered or strengthened. I hope that some way will be found of strengthening them. In the meantime let us also look at another feature of this whole United Nations question.
When I was in New York in 1947 with the Canadian delegation I got the feeling that most of the nations of the world were using the assembly as a propaganda body-almost wholly as a propaganda body. I listened to speaker after speaker, not excluding our good Prime Minister, who at that time occupied the position of Secretary of State for External Affairs. I should like to say here that I did not hear him propagandize. I am proud of the fact that he stood up on the rostrum of the United Nations assembly, not long after it had opened in 1947, and gave a forthright statement of the Canadian position, which was not propaganda. I will say, and I think the Prime Minister will agree, that following that for weeks practically all we heard was propaganda.
Here was something also I noticed. I noticed that when Vishinsky spoke, or any one of the ' leaders of the communist satellite countries spoke, the United States press gave them great headlines, oftentimes the biggest they could get, and in red. I recall one day after Vishinsky had spoken we had a reception. In talking to some of the Russian delegates-if they were not delegates they were employees of the Russian delegation-they told me that Mr. Vishinsky had received as many as 30,000 telegrams from United States people congratulating him on standing up in the assembly and calling Dulles, and perhaps others, war-mongers. This occurred to me then. They chose New York as the site of United Nations headquarters, in supposedly the freest country in the world, with a free press. Russia and her satellites come over, and do they make the wisest possible use of those facilities! There was no attempt at evaluating news; no attempt at placing the proper perspective on what these men were saying. In the light of these things, what would happen if we had the headquarters of the United Nations in Moscow? I have wondered too, Mr. Chairman, whether the Canadian delegation has raised the question of holding an early meeting of the United Nations assembly in Moscow. Well, Senator McMahon,
I believe it was, in the United States just the other day made the suggestion. I am not sure that he did not have something. It seems to me it might be a very useful idea for the

nations to invite themselves to go to Moscow.
I am not so foolish as to say that Moscow would invite them or even let them go, but I will say this: If the nations of the world publicized an offer to have an early meeting of the United Nations in Moscow it might perhaps influence the thinking of a great many people behind the iron curtain. Surely there are ways of getting that information to them.
In this assembly I hear talk of an arm of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation which broadcasts from our shores to foreign countries. Surely we can use those powerful radio beams to let the people of Russia know what we are suggesting, to let them know that our intentions are peaceful and all we want to do is to come to their country and let them see what it means to have a United Nations meeting in their country. I do not know what success we would have but it seems to me that it might be very useful. I know we would not get the press in Moscow. That is all too obvious. But there are other ways than getting the press. When I saw all of these delegations and employees running around New York- I suppose literally thousands of them-I thought that they themselves were a good propaganda body, and if they were in Moscow I can well envision the sort of information that would be spread around among the Moscovites. I think it would be all to the good. However, that is a thing which we cannot decide. At any rate I should like to see the Canadian delegation make the suggestion. I am sure they would find a good deal of support among the delegations from the other countries that are members of the United Nations.
If we cannot place too much faith in the United Nations at the moment what is our hope for peace in the world? I do not think that we can put too much faith in conferences. I do not mind having conferences, sitting down in a frank way and discussing the affairs of the world, the affairs of trade and those other things that are bothering human beings. Perhaps some good will come from them. But at the present time I do not believe that conferences-with the world divided into two camps and an almost irreconcilable philosophy separating the two camps-will bring us any nearer to an understanding with Russia and her satellites if Russia and her satellites do not want to make an effort to try to reconcile our difficulties. I cannot see very much use of that.
I was attracted, Mr. Chairman, by something that was said by a speaker just the other day and reported in The Ensign, to which I subscribe. I do so because I like to keep in touch with what the various elements of Canadian life are thinking. I think The Ensign pretty well reflects what the Catholic
Supply-External Affairs people as a body in this country are thinking and feeling. Maybe there is something in this -I believe there is. This is the way the article reads:
Communist Russia's most powerful enemy was not the military or political strength opposing it, but the spiritual fervour of the Christian world.
This was uttered by Robert W. Keyserlingk, publisher of The Ensign, in New York. He reviewed the political events of the last twenty years, and said:
The battle of the century appeared to be over political methods, but was in reality between two fundamental concepts of man. These are the totalitarian concept of man as a functional unit designed to serve the state, and the Christian concept of man as created by God to achieve, with freedom and liberty, his eternal salvation.
I think various members of this group, notably the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Hansell), the very last time we took part in this debate on external affairs, drew to the attention of the house the fact that the conflict today must be looked upon as a conflict between the forces of righteousness on the one hand and the forces of unrighteousness on the other.
It must be emphasized, too, that those forces of unrighteousness are represented by the totalitarian nations whose concept is that man must be a cog in the wheel, subservient to a supreme state, receiving direction in a regimented fashion from the supreme state. On the other hand one must look upon the forces of righteousness as representing those peoples who have declared themselves in favour of the Christian concept, which holds that man is an individual, in himself, with a spark of the divine within him, that he should be the focal point of all activity, and that he transcends all other things.
I believe that in our efforts to find some way to peace we must always be aware of what, the struggle epitomizes, and we must always be aware that in this great struggle we will have to take one side or the other. I feel sure the government and the minister will never desert the cause of the Christian concept, and that the government and minister will always range themselves on the side of righteousness.
In a world of violence, fear and poverty, the United States and Canada are an oasis of plenty, liberty and comparative security. That is why we in North America have a special duty in this struggle between truth on the one hand and godless error on the other. Those are the words of Mr. Keyserlingk, and I thoroughly agree with him.
We are facing fearsome things-fear of the hydrogen bomb, fear of chemical warfare, fear of germ warfare, fear of the continued spread of communism. But I think if we are to regenerate faith and if we are to find

Supply-External Affairs any hope for the future we will have to look entirely outside material things. We will have to look outside the puny powers of man himself

because we have got ourselves into such a muddle, into such a confused mess, that it is time we got down on our knees and sought humbly for the guidance of Almighty God to get us out of our difficulties.
I hold in my hand a statement-and I shall read it, because I could not phrase it in such fine words. I shall place it on record as the substance of my own faith and belief with respect to this seeking for world peace:
Dire perils threaten the world. In the final analysis it will not be through treaties, conferences of the United Nations or any purely human methods. These things are wise and necessary. But only the prayers and sacrifices of mankind can save us all from threatening disaster. The latest developments of science endanger the very existence of our world and threaten the lives of countless millions. The fearful devastation of the last war is as nothing compared to what will come should men engage in another struggle. A return to God, then, in the true sense of the word, is the price of our salvation. The issue is clearly put to us.
As a Christian nation, one that prides itself on having followed the Christian concept, I believe we can find some comfort in that. Personally, I have not very much fear of the hydrogen bomb, so long as a substantial portion of humankind will acknowledge their utter reliance upon divine guidance. When we do that the hydrogen bomb fear melts into insignificance. But we have got to make it a reality, and not mere words. We have got to put into our lives, and show the rest of the world that we believe in the Christian concept. In our approaches to our international relationships we must speak by deeds and not alone by words.
And that brings me to this division of what I wish to say, the problem of setting our own house in order so that we may speak with a united voice and so that we can show to the world by the sermon of our actions that we believe what we preach.
For a number of months I have been trying to think my way through this whole business of what we should do about communism. While I was giving thought to that question I ran across this editorial on the Finance-at-Large page of the Globe and Mail for February 22, 1950.	It made me think, as	I
believe it ought to make every Canadian think. This is what it says:
The Combines Investigation Act in Canada is directed against combines, monopolies and trusts among employers, but it says nothing, says the Unioneer (dominion labour unions, 73 Adelaide street West, Toronto) in a leaflet about "this new creeping paralysis known as the monopoly of human beings." It regards with great anxiety, for instance, the ability of one man in the coal-mining industry, "to stagnate an entire continent and create hardship and suffering for countless numbers of
[Mr. Low.l
innocent people." This gigantic labour monopoly is far beyond Canada's borders but has a great effect on the Canadian economy.
This "hidden hand" is safely domiciled beyond Canadian law, says the Unioneer, and tends to deprive industry and workers alike of the right to think. The author of the pamphlet is glad to see communism now condemned on all sides by labour on its own initiative but he does not like the fact that the law here "makes no provision for safeguarding the personal liberties of the individual worker." It actually compels him "to relinquish those rights for purposes of collective bargaining."
It is possible at any moment for a small group of men to shut down our basic steel mills, our coal mines, our railroads, our automobile plants and each and every one of them are vital to the wellbeing of our peoples. Such a combine should be brought within focus of the meaning of the law without favour or consideration.
I do not know whether all those statements are founded on fact, but what I have just put on the record points up the necessity of a good deal of soul-searching on the part of the Canadian people to see whether we have perpetuated in our own midst things which are just as communistic as the bolshevism of Russia. If we have, then surely it is our duty, if we want to fight communism successfully, to put our own house in order. Certain it is that a good many thousand people have become slaves to one or two or a small group of men under the labour laws as they now stand. Can it be avoided? I do not know.
What shall we do to fight communism? There is one thing I wish to suggest this afternoon. In addition to attempting to live according to what we believe, in addition to showing to the world in our lives as Canadian people that we believe the truth of the sermon on brotherly love, I think it is most necessary to launch an educational program based on reason.
One of the problems that we have faced in the past with respect to communism has been that all too often men and newspapers and periodicals have resorted to the use of fear and prejudice in an effort to arouse the people against this insidious thing. I do not believe that that does very much good. I do not think it helps to merely point out the horrors of communism and what it has been doing in countries like Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Russia or China. People soon become immune to talk of that kind. All too frequently they say, "You have overplayed the horror angle."
My view is that we ought to resort to a well devised program of education based on reason and not on prejudice and fear. It seems to me that if we would plan and execute a Canada-wide program that would make a restrained and wise comparison between the regimented economy, on the one hand, and the free economy, on the other; if we placed all the facts concerning standards of living in the various countries which

were represented in the effort to make the comparison before the people,* the Canadian people would react much more favourably than they would to a program of hate and prejudice and horror.
Such a program could certainly be put out by C.B.C. and give C.B.C. at least one good reason for justifying some of the things it is putting out. Along with that most assuredly we must do, as the minister has indicated we should do-we must set our economic house in order. However, declarations of that kind lose a great deal of their strength when ministers stand up on the floor of this house and say that we have to resort to scarcity methods, as did the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) the other night. He said that if we are to help the people in the sterling areas with some of our surpluses we will have to cut down on our own internal consumption. In effect he was encouraging the restriction of production. That is the mentality of scarcity and it indicates a fear of abundance. It indicates a fear of attempting to organize within our country an economy of abundance.
I say that we have to change our mental outlook if we ever hope to organize Canada on a sound economic basis so that we can be of help in the world and be able to demonstrate that a free economy is better than communism, so that we can show to those people who have these little aberrations, sometimes called split minds-I mention Dr. Fuchs-that without doubt a private enterprise economy divested of the abuses that have crept in can create the best standards of living for the people of any type of organization known in the world. When we demonstrate those things and when by action we lift all of our people out of the realm of economic fear of the future, then we need not worry very much about the general masses of the Canadian people ever turning to communism.
I know that we are beset by difficulties in trade, I know that we are beset by great problems surrounding currencies and their convertibility and all that sort of thing, but the fact remains that we do have in this great country of Canada almost limitless resources, almost limitless supplies of power, almost limitless supplies of labour with which to produce a high standard of living for every Canadian. The possibilities are all there. Therefore, we should not allow ourselves to be restricted in any way in the production of abundance of goods and services. We should not allow ourselves to be restricted by any group of crackpots, such as the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) spoke of,
Supply-External Affairs in the distribution of that abundance so that our Canadian people can have freedom from fear and freedom from want.
I think the Canadian people could gain real assurance if the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) would stand up in this assembly and say to them, "We will do our utmost to see to it that no financial restrictions stand between the Canadian people and the abundance of good things that this country can produce." Secondly, if he would stand up and say "We will organize affairs so that not one man who wants gainful employment will find himself out of gainful employment," I am satisfied it would set at rest the restlessness among Canadian people upon which communism feeds and breeds.
I want to feel that we can stand on common ground with the minister of external affairs in his approach to international relations. I close with this declaration. Social Crediters are seeking earnestly for a sound program on which we can co-operate with the government in power for the establishment of international good will and world peace. We are not going to criticize the minister when he is doing his best, but we will criticize him and the government if we think that he has not been doing his best. Furthermore, we will criticize if we feel that Canada is not taking every opportunity to act independently. I am satisfied in my own mind that Canada has not been able to act independently in a good many cases. Surely we do not want to provoke any nation, but there are times when subservience is a whole lot worse than provocation. I do not want to see this country in a position of servility to any country or group of men in the world. So long as the ministry keeps us on an independent footing and resists with all its might those forces that are determined to enslave the bodies and souls of men, then we will support it. But if we feel that they are not, then we reserve the right to criticize and tell the world where we think they are going astray.
I liked the forthright statement of the minister the other day. It did not contain very much meat, and I do not believe he expected it to. I liked his forthright statement today so far as it went. I should like to have more information. I do not know whether we can get that information in the future, but I am going into the external affairs committee, where these estimates are to be reviewed, with the idea of getting as much information as I possibly can that is founded on absolute fact so that we can discuss these things intelligently at another time when these estimates are brought back to the committee of supply.
444	HOUSE OF
Supply-External Affairs


Mr. Bradetie:: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the honour that the house conferred on me a few years ago when I was appointed as the first chairman of the external affairs -committee. The same honour and the responsibility accompanying it were bestowed upon me again this morning as the chairman of the external affairs committee for the year 1950. Before proceeding further I want to pay special tribute to members of that committee in former years for the fine co-operation they have given on all occasions. A few days ago I asked the hon. member for Peel if he would again accept the appointment as vice-chairman of the committee, and I was most pleased when he said he would gladly do so. The fact that he is our vice-chairman means that, so far as the external affairs of our country are concerned, political aspects will not be involved in any way.
When the committee was first formed the former prime minister, Mr. William Lyon Mackenzie King, was secretary of state for external affairs. A few months later we found ourselves under the able guidance of the present Prime Minister. Now we are working under the enlightened and capable direction of the present Secretary of State for External Affairs. When the Secretary of State for External Affairs left a secure and responsible position to enter the hurly-burly of public life he made a sacrifice, but in answering the call it was the appeal of duty that influenced him most strongly. It is most fortunate indeed, not only for parliament but also for the whole of Canada, that he found it possible to accept the heavy responsibility of his department. One cannot help but mention his humility. I have seen him in action in the general assembly of the United Nations. I have seen him in action at Lake Success and Flushing Meadow. I have seen him preside over committees charged with grave responsibilities. I have observed his fine reflective mind at work, a mind in which everything is registered that is said at meetings lasting for hours. I have noted the great respect in which he is held by every member of the United Nations Organization. Not only is it a credit to himself but it is a credit to every citizen of Canada.
I also want to felicitate him and his delegation on the fine work they accomplished at Colombo and in many sections of Asia. Again he has represented us with ability and as a true statesmen. I believe in all instances he has reflected the Canadian attitude clearly and distinctly, and that it has been based on logic and wide experience. During the present session of parliament the whole of Canada has been impressed with the fine demonstration of his qualities of observation,


his statesmanship and the heavy responsibility he has been carrying. His department probably involves the greatest responsibility of any department in the government today. Every word that he utters inside and outside the House of Commons must be based on logic, and must to some extent be circumspect. I repeat to the minister that he is doing a wonderful job and the Canadian people are proud of him.
I want to make a brief allusion to the statement of the hon. member for Peel about the information that hon. members should receive in the external affairs committee. The only instance that I remember where such a question arose was one that happened last year when some members of the committee requested that the ambassador to China should appear before it. Personally I was against it. Some members thought that we might have a sitting in camera, but I was against that. If there are questions in the minds of the Canadian people at the present time which require a sitting in camera, a meeting of a committee would not hold all those who would want to be there. In such a case the two houses of parliament should meet in camera but not the external affairs committee itself. I am expressing my personal opinion on the matter, and as chairman of the external affairs committee I would not take the responsibility under such conditions and circumstances.
At six o'clock the Speaker resumed the chair and the house took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. W. M. Benidickson (Kenora-Rainy River) moved: the second reading of Bill No. 9, to incorporate Prairie Transmission Lines Limited.


Mr. Cruickshank:: Explain.


William Moore Benidickson: This bill is practically the same as another bill, under the same name, which passed the Senate last session, but was not voted upon by this house, nor advanced to a committee of the house for further study prior to the closing of the last session. During the last session, information was requested by members of the house regarding the applicants for this private bill. Criticism was directed at the fact that some of the applicants for incorporation were members of legal

firms acting for the company desiring incorporation. It was suggested that more information should be supplied regarding the real applicants. The new list of applicants in this bill constitutes the only change from the bill presented last session.
The seven applicants, who will be the incorporating directors of the company, are all citizens of the province of Alberta. I believe they are known to many members of this house. They are associated with other prominent individuals in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba and Ontario, and they propose to maintain the ownership of this important pipe-line project in Canada. I am informed that they do not represent any United States corporation. These applicants are Canadian citizens who believe, as most of us believe, that Canadians are entitled to the fruits of the development of Canadian natural resources. Associated with them are prominent and successful engineers, as well as professional advisers. They have secured the support of investment bankers of substance, who have expressed their willingness to form a group to sell the securities required to provide the funds necessary for a project of this kind. The plans, and other aspects of the project, I believe could best be discussed in the committee on railways, canals and telegraphs, when representatives of the company would be available for questioning.
At the last session much time was taken by a few members of the house in general argument, so an opportunity was not afforded for examining in committee the merits of the bill or the plans of the company. Believing that the opponents of the bill had a full opportunity for expressing themselves in this way last session, I trust they will now permit a vote of the house, which will enable the committee to examine all matters in which the hon. members are properly interested.
The applicants for the incorporation of this company must have incorporation in order to apply to the various regulatory bodies for permission to build a pipe line to transmit gas from Alberta to the Pacific coast area in Canada and the northwest United States. I think it is desirable that I remind this house that this is, simply a bill to obtain incorporation, in the same manner as charters were granted to the five other companies in the spring session of parliament last year. In that session, parliament also enacted a general Pipe Lines Act. Under this act, parliament gave the board of transport commissioners full power to regulate any interprovincial or international pipe lines. It is a requirement of that statute that any company proposing to build such a line must be incorporated by parliament. I submit that, parliament having
Prairie Transmission Lines so decided, it is the duty of parliament to deal with an application for incorporation when the applicants come here for parliament's decision. I say that parliament should now render a decision, yes or no. It is not good enough to intolerably delay a decision by unnecessary debate, which has been widely described in the press as filibustering.
After a pipe line company obtains incorporation here, it has to appear before several regulatory bodies. As I pointed out, the board of transport commissioners have been given jurisdiction so far as the dominion parliament is concerned. Under legislation passed in Alberta in July of last year, any company proposing to export gas from the province of Alberta must first obtain a permit from the Alberta petroleum and natural gas conservation board. In the third place, as we heard last session, there is an additional public control, in that any applicant proposing to export gas must obtain a permit from the Minister of Trade and Commerce, under the provisions of the Electricity and Fluid Exportation Act.
In this connection, I think it would be useful to briefly review the position with regard to this project, which I know has created a great deal of interest in the province of Alberta and in the House of Commons. The large discoveries of oil in Alberta in recent years have produced great reserves of natural gas. Providing a market for this gas will benefit the citizens of Alberta, and will bring about additional development of both oil and gas. The proposal to build a pipe line to serve not only British Columbia, but the Pacific northwest United States, is an important development for the future of western Canada. It should be noted that perhaps over 80 per cent of the output from any such pipe line will have to be sold in the Pacific northwest United States, in order to justify the tremendous financial cost of the pipe line itself. This will mean an extremely valuable source of United States exchange.
It is of primary importance, however, to see that the interests of Canada are protected in connection with this project. The announced policy of the government of the province of Alberta is to see to it that no export permit is granted until the interests, first, of the citizens of Alberta and, second, the citizens of other provinces of Canada are given priority. Moreover, the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe), in dealing with this very question during the last session, said this, as reported in Hansard at page 1560:
. . . the attitude of the government would be that the export of gas would be treated in exactly

Prairie Transmission Lines the same way that we treat the export of electricity, namely, that the needs of Canada would be served first, and would be protected in perpetuity for all export purposes.
Later in the debate, at page 1806 of Hansard, the minister said this:
Vancouver must be served before any considerable service is taken off for supply to the United States.
Now, Mr. Speaker, what are the interests of Canada in this matter? I suggest that the primary requirement is to see that potential Canadian consumers are provided for before any gas is exported.
Not only the supply of gas but its ultimate cost to the Canadian consumer must be considered. This is an important factor in determining the route of the pipe line. I am informed this pipe line project will cost about $100 million. To finance it, an assured market must be available, as all members will appreciate. Bonds to pay for the construction cannot be sold, unless a market for the output of the line is assured. Where is this market?
In the Pacific area it is said that 85 per cent is across the line in the United States, according to the information that is given to me from engineering sources, in the cities of Portland, Seattle, Tacoma, Spokane and the industrial areas of the state of Washington. There, natural gas must compete in price with other fuels such as coal, oil and electricity. The problem then is therefore to construct a line which is economically feasible and which thus will establish reasonable prices for the Canadian consumers in British Columbia, which is some distance from the source of supply. Obviously, the shorter the line, the cheaper the capital cost will be and the lower the overhead charges; also, if the line passes through centres of population, the tapping of the line at intermediate points cuts down the per unit cost of transportation.
For these reasons, I am informed, the best engineering advice as given to the applicants for this charter at an early stage was that a route which proceeded from southern Alberta, through Kingsgate into the United States, across the flat plains of the state of Washington, with a branch line to Trail, and terminating in the Vancouver area, would cost approximately $20 million less than the cheapest all-Canadian route. Thus more gas would be sold by Alberta producers, and the cost to the ultimate consumer in British Columbia would be less than through a more expensive pipe line route. I do not propose to vouch for these engineering details. I think that assurance in this respect can best be obtained by hon. members as a result of seeing the engineers themselves, through examination in a committee of this house. I
[Mr. Benidlckson.l
think that wise counsel was given to us in this respect last session by the hon. member for Coast-Capilano (Mr. Sinclair) when he said, as reported at page 2103 of Hansard of last year:
The only place where that can be decided is before the standing committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines where expert witnesses, engineers both for and against the pipe lines, can be called and give members of parliament actual and not ipse dixit information. For that reason I, as a British Columbian member who yields to none in devotion to my province, say that I will vote for the bills on second reading if only to get them where they can be properly studied in committee. Unless very sound reasons are given in the committee why construction through British Columbia is uneconomic, I will vote against the bills on their return to the house.
Then at page 2104 he goes on to say:
But I say they should get second reading and go to the standing committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines if only to give the members of this house and the people of Canada knowledge of the facts rather than the opinions of members of parliament, , many of whom obviously have very little knowledge of the engineering problems involved.
A great deal of discussion at the last session of parliament concerned itself with this question of route. The applicants for this bill desire to build the pipe line along the most economic route to protect Canadian consumers both as to supply and as to cost. If the government of the province of Alberta, or the board of transport commissioners, or the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe), under the Electricity and Fluid Exportation Act, decides that the route of the pipe line should proceed from southern Alberta through Canadian territory to the city of Vancouver before entering the United States, I am informed that the proposed company would be prepared to build the line along this so-called "all-Canadian route".
The whole question of the route of the pipe line cannot be settled, however, until all the factors mentioned are considered by the regulatory bodies which have to make the decisions. Considerations arise from time to time-and they have arisen-which may change the ultimate decision as to the proper route to be followed. Another pipe line project is proposed to take natural gas out of the province of Alberta eastward into Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The available fields of gas in Alberta will have to be allocated as between these projects, and this consideration may affect the starting point of the pipe line. Large additional reserves of proven gas may be discovered before any permit is granted to any company, and this also might alter the starting point of a pipe line route. Economic developments in southern British Columbia or in some of the large United States cities might similarly affect the desirable final choice of route. The competition of gas from other fields in the

United States, such as those in Wyoming, or of other fuels, may dictate the choice of the pipe line route.
When the government agencies concerned have weighed all these factors they will approve the route to be followed. Other things being equal, I am informed that the applicants for this bill will favour an all-Canadian route to Vancouver. As I said before, they are Canadians who have only the interest of Canada at heart, and have no United States interest to serve.
Before closing, Mr. Speaker, I just want to remind the house that there is in existence another charter giving rights with respect to the transportation of gas through a pipe line; and in this connection it should be observed that the Westcoast Transmission Company obtained a charter at the spring session of parliament last year, through a bill sponsored by the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Cruickshank). This bill was frequently referred to in the debates last fall and the company has been called the company proposing an all-Canadian route. As reported at page 2807, I think, of Hansard of last session, the hon. member for Fraser Valley said that he sponsored this company simply because it proposed to build an all-Canadian route. At page 2807 of Hansard the hon. member for Kamloops (Mr. Fulton) is reported as saying:
When the bill went through last year we knew at the time the company was incorporated that the route would be all-Canadian.
I want to point out to hon. members, Mr. Speaker, as I did last session, that this company, Westcoast Transmission Company, has before the board of transport commissioners, and has never removed it, an application for a route comparable to the route that the engineering staff of this company, the Prairie Transmission company, and the Alberta Natural Gas Company, have indicated is probably at this stage the most economic route. I say therefore that it is obvious that parliament placed no restriction on the choice of routes by that company and that company has certainly not observed any such restrictions in its various applications.
The applicants for the incorporation of Prairie Transmission Lines Limited only seek to be placed in the same competitive position as Westcoast Transmission Company to propose whichever route is finally seen to be both most economical and most beneficial to the interests of Canada. No company should have a monopoly in this connection, and this is the view of the government of Alberta as shown by the telegram from Premier Manning
Prairie Transmission Lines to Senator Turgeon on October 17, 1949, which appears at page 1345 of Hansard of last year, and in which the premier says in part:
The Alberta government is not opposed to the incorporation of the Alberta Natural Gas Company or any other bona fide company under the provisions of the dominion Pipe Lines Act, but on the contrary, feels very strongly, that no bona fide company should be refused incorporation if that refusal would deprive the province of its right to deal with any or all legitimate companies interested in exporting gas and would restrict such dealings to those particular companies favoured by parliament for incorporation.
Hon. members will have noticed that the leader of the Social Credit group from Alberta in this house stated, as reported at page 2113 of Hansard of last year:
The Social Credit members in the house feel that these bills should be brought to a vote.
I think that most hon. members will agree.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Will the hon. member
permit' a question?


William Moore Benidickson: Yes.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I should just like to ask the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River if the company he is sponsoring is prepared to abide by its application, and do as the other companies have done-agree to an allCanadian route. Will they abide by that?


William Moore Benidickson: I have given the assurance, Mr. Speaker, that this company is quite prepared to build a pipe line wherever any of these regulatory bodies insist that it be built.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I have one other question if the hon. member is willing to answer it. Am I correct in my understanding tonight, that the directors of the company he is sponsoring have been changed since the last submission.


Mr. Smith (Calgary West):: Yes, they have some friends of mine on it, now.


William Moore Benidickson: I indicated that the applicants had been changed from solicitors of the company to those who will be acting directors at the early stages of the company.


Mr. H. W. Herridge (Kootenay West):: Obviously some hon. members are somewhat impatient with the continuance of this debate on the pipe line bill. I do ask them to realize that the members from British Columbia who have spoken or will speak in this debate are giving voice to the opinions of the great majority of the people of that province regardless of party because, Mr. Speaker, this is a very important matter so far as the development of the interior of British Columbia is concerned.
Before proceeding I want to give some evidence to prove that the position taken

Prairie Transmission Lines by many of the British Columbia members in this house is supported by public opinion in British Columbia. In my hand I hold a clipping from the Victoria Times, dated February 28, 1950, which is further proof of the attitude of the government of British Columbia. The article is entitled:
All-Canadian route for Alberta Pipe Line Urged
Lands and Forests Minister E. T. Kenney said in the legislature Monday, "we must do our utmost to see that the all-Canadian route is selected for the proposed natural gas pipe line from Alberta to the northwestern United States. Preliminary engineering had been completed for an oil pipe line from Edmonton to Vancouver following the same route as the proposed gas line-through Yellowhead pass, south through Kamloops to Princeton, along the Hope-Princeton highway, to Vancouver.
"This line is 725 miles to tidewater, and shorter by 350 miles than a line from Edmonton south to Montana and westward to Vancouver," Mr. Kenney said.
Based on present-day costs, he continued, the proposed oil line was shown to be entirely feasible from a construction, operating, maintaining and economic standpoint.
The minister listed six benefits from the proposed transmission of natural gas along the proposed oil line route through British Columbia: it would provide cheaper fuel; Canadians would have first draw on the supply; United States dollars would be spent for construction; Canadians would be employed in construction, maintenance and servicing; new industries would be attracted; as a national defence measure the line would provide vital fuel requirements to strategic centres on the coast.
In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, we know the opinion of the attorney general of British Columbia as given to this house by the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Cruick-shank) on Tuesday evening last. Before proceeding, Mr. Speaker, I want to say this to the house: a good number of my constituents, regardless of party, have asked me to thank the hon. member for Fraser Valley for his efforts in these pipe-line debates.
I now wish to quote from the Nelson Daily News. The Nelson Daily News is the largest daily circulated in east and west Kootenay. As a matter of fact it is a Conservative paper. I read it, of course, although it is not favourable to the party I have the honour to represent. In this editorial the Nelson Daily News represents the opinion of people in those districts. The editorial is entitled:
For the All-Canada Route
British Columbia has a particular interest in the movement in Alberta to have the proposed pipe line for the export of natural gas to the Pacific coast laid through the Yellowhead pass in the Jasper area and thence southward through the Kamloops, Princeton and Hope districts to Vancouver. The alternative route-southward through Alberta into Idaho and then westward through Washington and southward to Portland-would be of little benefit in this province as far as natural gas is concerned, and would present numerous other disadvantages from which the Yellowhead pass plan of the Westcoast Transmission Company Limited is free.

The maintenance road that would parallel a pipe line from Edmonton through the Yellowhead pass to Vancouver would provide additions to the existing highway system that would be of great importance in future development, points out the Victoria Daily Times. The feeder lines that could be run off the main line would supply natural gas at minimum cost to communities in the southern interior of British Columbia which at present are not so served. A loop from Kamloops, talcing in Vernon, Kelowna, Penticton and Trail, for instance, would open up facilities of great promise. The export market to Portland would still be served, but it would be a market to be supplied after the needs of British Columbia had been filled. The route through the United States would put Vancouver in the position of being able to expect only the surplus unused by the American market.
The advantage of spending the major portion of the $70,000,000 construction costs in Canada rather than in the United States, is, of course, immediately obvious, and the prospects of development for Alberta and British Columbia areas now isolated from transportation and fuel facilities are readily apparent. These are among the considerations of importance to the dominion, and particularly to its western provinces, to which it is hoped the Alberta petroleum and natural gas conservation board will give full weight in assessing the merits of the pipe line companies' applications now before it.
After returning home at the conclusion of the last session of parliament I had the opportunity to address a number of meetings of various types of organizations and groups. I had the opportunity to meet a good number of my constituents, and I was then more firmly convinced than ever that the people in the southeastern portion of British Columbia are very anxious that members representing British Columbia stand up for Canadian rights in this matter.
The public opposition to these bills from British Columbia, which we are simply expressing in this house as members of parliament, is based entirely on the belief that Canadian communities and Canadian requirements should receive first consideration. Once we are assured that these requirements will receive first consideration our objection to these bills will be- dropped.
In passing I might say that, belonging to the party to which I do, I would prefer that these pipe lines and gas lines be publicly owned utilities. We know at this time that we cannot give effect to our policies on this matter in this house at this time. Therefore we are doing our best to protect Canadian citizens, and British Columbians particularly, by advocating that Canadian requirements and Canadian needs receive first consideration.
I represent a constituency in the interior of British Columbia, namely, Kootenay West, which has vast natural resources, untapped natural resources, and which still requires great power developments to utilize these resources. I have grown up in that district from boyhood. I have seen the district

developed from the pioneer stage to what is, shall I say, a semi-pioneer stage. We have in that district great developments in mining, lumbering and in smelting; but if we are going to have a balanced economy we require secondary industries.
In order to understand the point of view of the people I have the honour to represent I am going to place on record a few illustrations of the situation as it exists in my constituency. I know other members representing other constituencies in British Columbia will apply their local conditions to these pipe line bills.
As I said before, we have large mining, smelting and lumbering developments; but for years boards of trade, farmers organizations and other public bodies have realized the necessity for the development of secondary industries and have urged the necessity for the establishment of a pulp industry in the interior of British Columbia. They have urged the necessity for the establishment of a steel industry. So important is that to the interior of British Columbia, so important is the establishment of those industries and secondary industries that the British Columbia government has had a representative of the provincial department of trade and industry resident in Nelson for three or four years, whose sole duty has been to make a complete survey of natural resources and of industrial opportunities, power opportunities and possibilities for power development, and then to interest outside capital, industrialists and others in the possibilities for the development of secondary industries in that area.
Power is the great question which enters into industrial development in this age. We have our largest power development on the Kootenay river. The greater portion of that power is used and required by the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company. Some of it is used for domestic requirements in the city of Trail and for other industrial needs in the southern Okanagan. Then, we have the city of Nelson served by the Kootenay river.
In addition to that we have some smaller electrical developments throughout the district serving the smaller villages, towns and cities. At the present time we have under development a large power project on the Arrow lakes at Watshan. Most of that power will be required to serve the northern Okanagan.
There is a great shortage of power for industry. We have one more great possibility for power development in the immediate future, and that is on the Pend d'Oreille river. That power will also be required by the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company. So. in the future we foresee a 55946-29
Prairie Transmission Lines continued shortage of power. That is one reason why the people in my constituency are so interested in these pipe line bills, and are so concerned about the service they should receive from an all-Canadian route.
During the latter years of the war, and shortly thereafter, an extensive survey was made of the industrial possibilities of the Kootenay area. As I said before, we have an opportunity for the establishment of a pulp industry. I believe we have one of the largest stands of pulpwood in North America, in the Columbia river basin, close to transportation. But we cannot establish a pulp industry in that area, even if capital were available, because there is not sufficient power to operate a pulp industry at the present time.
There is also a desire for the establishment of an iron and steel industry, because we have coal and ore. According to a report by the government of British Columbia there are 25,500,000 tons of tailings at Kimberley which have a 47 per cent iron content and a 27 per cent sulphur content. We have the other minerals and materials required to develop a steel industry; but that steel industry cannot be developed until we have the necessary power.
In addition, it has been suggested that we require a corrugated sheeting plant as a secondary industry in the interior. We supply a large amount of white pine, manufactured in blocks from the west Kootenay area, for the manufacture of matches by the Eddy Match Company Limited. We produce the sulphur for matches at Trail, in my constituency. In total we produce some 5 million feet per year of white pine in the form of match blocks which come to Ontario and other match factories for manufacture into matches. We believe we should have a match industry in Kootenay West, in the southeastern section of British Columbia, so that we would not be paying freight on pine and sulphur to and from Ontario, when we have all the materials required to manufacture first-quality matches there. I can see an hon. member from Ontario, who is in the lumber business, does not appear to agree with my suggestion.
We have clays of various types which make it possible to develop a brick and earthenware industry. As a result of research these facts have been established but, here again, we have not the available power. We have large quantities of birch, cottonwood and other types of timber on which could be based a very satisfactory veneer industry-again, use for power.
We have opportunities particularly for the establishment of shingle mills and additional small saw mills. But the big bugbear which

Prairie Transmission Lines confronts the man who opens a saw mill or a shingle mill, or any other small industry of that type, is power.
That is one of the reasons so many people in my constituency are interested in this development. We want a dehydration plant to take care of some of the surplus fruits, particularly apples, in the district. We need jam and canning factories. There is a great opportunity in that area for the development of a modest jam and canning industry. We have also an opportunity for the development of a plastics industry, and for the development of a very substantial furniture industry, because we have large quantities of those woods required to produce high-class furniture.
But these secondary industries will not be developed and cannot be developed in one district until we have the necessary power. Years of effort have been put forth by the people in Kootenay West in studying plans for the development of secondary industries. These efforts have been supported by the major industries, including the officials of the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company, the owners of the larger lumber companies, the owners of mines and others, all of whom agree that if the whole community is to have a stable foundation, secondary industries must be developed. That is why this considerable and continual research has been carried on, and why there has been investigation into all aspects of the possibilities for developing secondary industries.
In view of the present shortage of power, and the likelihood of its continuing for years to come, is it not easy to understand the attitude of the people I represent when they see the possibilities of Canadian natural resources by-passing their district, and going into the United States to serve areas in that country first?
The oil and natural gas industry is a tremendous one. One has only to read newspaper reports, magazine articles and books published on the subject to realize that this is a big and profitable business. While it is immensely profitable in the operations end according to the balance sheets and reports that are issued in the United States, there have also been immense fortunes made simply by obtaining charters from legislatures and then selling them to other companies and benefiting by the advantage created by the charter.
There are those who say: Would you have a monopoly? I think we all know that if it is going to cost approximately $100 million to build this pipe line from Alberta to the Pacific seaboard there are not going to be two or three companies building pipe lines. If you

examine the network of pipe lines in the United States you will find that there is a monopoly in each area served. No one will invest such large amounts of capital in a section where someone else is already operating. A pipe line is in the 'nature of a public utility and from the very nature of things must develop a monopoly, like other service industries.
It is argued that those who speak against these bills are supporting a monopoly because if all these companies get charters there will be three pipe lines built. We know that that is absolutely not true. Before concluding I should like to quote from an article in Fortune of December, 1949, entitled "Natural gas- Whoosh". If anyone is interested in the subject I shall be only too glad to let him have my copy because it is a most interesting article on the development and financing of natural gas pipe lines in the United States. This article reads:
Just for the sake of argument, consider the type of business that should excite the interest of investors these days, First of all, the product of the business would be a household necessity, selling at a price practically everyone could afford. Second, the product would serve a major general purpose in commerce and industry, and would have other specialized industrial uses that were growing in number and importance all the time. Third, for its principal uses it would be better and cheaper than competitive products. Fourth, it would embody a minimum of labour cost, and hence a minimum danger of supply interruptions due to labour trouble.
This ideal business would have a market outlet guaranteed for, say, twenty years; sources of supply guaranteed for a similar period, at prices agreed on in advance; and a huge, unsatisfied demand that would open vistas of indefinite expansion. The business would be largely depression-proof and would operate under conditions that virtually assured an ample return on invested capital. Finally, the securities of the business would offer strong speculative attractions.
Whether any such ideal business exists no one can say with certainty; but a great many people thought they saw it in the natural gas pipe-line business-enough, indeed, to make natural gas the 1949 darling of Wall street.
Before continuing with this quotation may I say this: While those whose names appear in this bill may be residents of Alberta, I would wager one hundred to one that the financing will be done in Wall street, New York. The article continues:
Their estimate as set forth in the foregoing paragraphs, explains many things. For example, it explains the high stakes at issue when the Senate, under pressure generated by the natural gas industry, recently rejected President Truman's renomination of Leland Olds to the federal power commission, the body that regulates interstate pipe lines. It explains why strong men are weeping and gnashing teeth in a battle of pipe lines to reach and serve the virgin New England market, and why important New England interests have cast aside their putative dignity in the scramble to participate. It explains why great insurance companies are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in

natural gas pipe line companies (Metropolitan alone has invested $345 million to date), and why an investment trust was recently formed to specialize in natural gas securities. It explains why fortunes have been made on the promotion stock of new pipe line companies, and why common stock prices of the business have moved upward in the past four years, far ahead of the Dow-Jones industrial averages. It explains why the net profits of the business average nearly 20 per cent on sales, and why nearly every natural gas pipe line company is expanding furiously.
And again:
The fact is everybody and his grandmother want natural gas in a crescendo of demand that is insatiable, incalculable, and, in all likelihood, unsuppliable. United States enterprise capital, which regards a crying need much as nature regards a vacuum, has rushed in to fill the demand. Yearly capital expenditures of the natural gas industry increased twelve-fold between 1939 and 1948 (compared to a four-fold increase for all private domestic investment), and are now approaching a billion dollars a year.
And finally:
The Pacific north-west, which is now entirely on manufactured gas, also provides a large potential market for natural gas, but is left out of this calculation because it will probably pipe in its gas from the newly discovered bonanza field in Alberta, Canada.
An examination of a map of the United States showing the development of pipe lines indicates that the eastern and southern states are well covered, as well as California and the gulf area. But we find that the northwestern corner of the United States is not served with natural gas or oil and, as this article mentions, that section is looking to Canada for its natural gas and oil. In view of the enormous demands in the United States for oil and gas, in view of the fact that the northwestern portion of the United States must obtain its gas from Canada, is it natural to expect that, if permission is granted to export gas through Kingsgate into United States territory, Vancouver or other portions of British Columbia are going to get satisfactory service?
We are very concerned about this because the people we represent are concerned about it. Therefore we oppose the passage of these bills because we believe that Canadian natural resources should first serve Canadian communities and Canadian needs. We believe that Canadian labour should profit from the development of this pipe line industry. We believe that Canadian industry should profit from the sale of the material's required to build these enormously expensive pipe lines. We believe that the treasuries of the governments of British Columbia and Canada should benefit from the continuous taxation which will flow from the building of these pipe lines on Canadian soil.
55946-29!
Prairie Transmission Lines
Therefore, as a member speaking for his constituents regardless of party, C.C.F., Conservative, Liberal or otherwise, I intend to vote against these pipe line bills until we are assured that Canada will be served first.


Mr. Daniel Mclvor (Fort William):: Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Benidickson) on the able manner in which he has explained this bill. In fact, I think he has explained it so well that he has almost converted the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Cruickshank). I support this bill. We have considerable unemployment in this country. There are people who think we are heading towards a depression. Nevertheless here is a company ready to spend $100 million for the development of the natural resources of Canada. Why muzzle them?


Mr. Arthur Laing (Vancouver South):: Mr. Speaker, I have no desire to delay a vote on this measure tonight, but I should like to say a word or two. I believe it is somewhat unfortunate that it is necessary for these corporations to come to this house in the manner in which they do because the only justification for our viewing their applications would be the greatest measure of broad objectivity that we could give them. I may have very little insight into the proceedings of this house, but I have seen little of the spirit of objectivity in the debate on these measures last fall and during the present session. I think that is essential if we are going to view them in their proper light. I am of the opinion that if we persist in our attitude of insisting before the incorporation of a company that a pipe line must take a certain route we will wind up without any pipe line at all. I think the stage will arrive when we will have an opportunity to call experts on this matter, and that will be when the bill is referred to a committee of the house. These are technical matters, and we will have an opportunity then to call experts in order to ascertain whether an all-Canadian pipe line is economically feasible or practically possible.
I think we can place great reliance upon the government of Alberta and their conservation board to look after the people of their own province and the other provinces of Canada. I think there is a statute on the books at the present time having to do with the export of such commodities. I am quite certain when the measure is referred to a committee we will have a better opportunity of impressing upon the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) the advisability of protecting the interests of Canadians first before export is made to the United States. I think we are in no position at this time to

Prairie Transmission Lines say that these companies must not be incorporated until they can guarantee a certain route. If we proceed to the committee stage we will be placed in a position where we can call experts, and we will be able to criticize these bills and the provisions and plans of the various companies with knowledge in our possession which we do not now have.
I think that hon. members who have taken part in the debates on these measures last fall and at the present session have done the public a service in bringing to their attention the tremendous assets of the province of Alberta. We in the province of British Columbia are determined to co-operate and participate in the terrific development that is going on in their marvellous province, which I contend has the greatest assets today of any province in Canada. I was glad to hear the sponsor of the bill say that his company proposes to build an all-Canadian route if it is shown to be practical from an engineering point of view. I think the people of British Columbia would much prefer that that be done. In that respect I agree with other members who have spoken. We have a centralized area in the province of British Columbia. Within greater Vancouver we have sixty-two per cent of the population of the province, and the city is only sixteen miles north of the United States boundary. The great concentration of people in that one area leads to some of the problems and troubles we have at times in regard to unemployment. We want diversification of our industries in the province. Of course we do, but I am afraid, so far as these bills are concerned, unless we use that broad objectivity to which I first referred, we will find ourselves winding up without any pipe line at all.


Mr. D. S. Harkness (Calgary East):: Mr. Speaker, like the hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Mclvor) I should like to congratulate the sponsor of the bill, but my congratulations are in a little different vein than his. I should like to congratulate him on making a very good speech about a very poor case. As indicated by the sponsor, the bill is the same one as was brought before the house last year with the exception of a few minor changes having to do with the men who appear as incorporators. When the bill was introduced last year those of us who opposed it really only asked one thing. We asked that the people who were asking for incorporation should include in the measure the route which the pipe line which they were proposing to build would follow, and that it should be an all-Canadian route. I indicated personally at that time that so far as I was concerned, if


that were done I would withdraw all opposition to the incorporation of this company or the other company concerning which a bill was before the house last session and again in the present session.
Surely that is not a great deal to ask. If these companies had done that before coming back to ask for incorporation this year I think they could have been assured of the bills passing almost immediately. It was on that ground alone that we took exception to them, and naturally continue to do so. The bills have not been changed, and for the same reasons those of us who were opposed to them last session are still opposed to them. It was pointed out at the last session, and I should like to reiterate it now, that a mistake was made when the governing pipe line bill was passed, in that provision was not made therein that a company applying for a charter for a pipe line must specify the route it wishes to follow, in the same way that a railway company applying for a charter must specify its route. Our contention was

and I think it is absolutely sound-that in this regard pipe line companies should be put in the same position as railway companies, and that the route must be specified before a charter will be granted. No railway would receive any consideration which applied to parliament and merely asked to build a railway. They would not be incorporated. They would have to say where they were going to build the railway, and certainly the same procedure should apply to pipe line companies.
On motion of Mr. Harkness the debate was adjourned.


Mr. Speaker:: The hour reserved for private bills having expired, the house will resume the business that was interrupted at six o'clock.

The house in committee of supply, Mr. Dion in the chair.
DEPARTMENT OF EXTERNAL AFFAIRS 64. Departmental administration, $2,378,880.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Mr. Chairman, I must confess sincerely that I speak with all humility and with some trepidation concerning the estimates of the Department of the Secretary of State for External Affairs. When we enter the national forum, the House of Commons, and realize all the difficulties that we in Canada have to face in solving the problems of dominion-provincial relations, for example, which are of most active concern to us at the present time in our national life, then it is easy for us to realize the difficulty we face in discussing external affairs, international problems and foreign relations. We

cannot be dogmatic in these matters because, to some extent, we are dealing in the abstract. We cannot be definite, either, because the international situation is so fluid that it changes almost from hour to hour, or at least from day to day. It is, therefore, impossible for the Department of External Affairs, any member of parliament or any person in public or any walk of life to express an opinion and be positive that that opinion will hold good tomorrow as it does today.
This afternoon the member for Peel described, vividly and eloquently, the advances of science in the past few years. As a result of these advances, this world has shrunk and distances have practically disappeared. This situation should have brought a message of hope to the whole world, but what happened? Instead of having that one world, we now have two worlds. Most of the citizens behind the iron curtain might as well be on another planet as live in this world because they have no access, politically, culturally, personally or in any other way, to the other two-thirds of the population of the world. It is a monstrous thing, a thing that all the democratic peoples, and I believe the people behind the iron curtain as well, absolutely deplore. It is a sad thing to realize that in this year 1950, with all the advances we have made in civilization, in culture and science, there are countries like Russia, Czechoslovakia and Poland, just to name a few of them, that have discontinued all communication with the rest of the world. Almost everyone realizes the seriousness of the situation.
It is not the fault of the democracies. No matter what we may say or how long we may argue, I know the Canadian government, the British government or the government of the United States would not stop an individual Russian or groups or any citizen living behind the iron curtain if he wanted to visit one of these countries. In fact, if the Russian government were to say to the Canadian government tomorrow that a party of 200 young students wanted to visit our universities I know the gates would be wide open to every one of those students. At the same time, if we wanted to send some of our businessmen or men in public affairs to Russia, it would be impossible for them to make the visit. It is easy to visualize the wall which really exists between these countries.
This afternoon we have been theorizing about ways and means of destroying that wall. How could it be done? So far as our side is concerned, there is no wall. There is nothing put in the way of those people who are behind the iron curtain if they want to communicate with us. All we desire is that those people should be able to intermix with
Supply-External Affairs the other peoples in the world. One of the members has said that the democracies must see to it that the people have access to all the comforts of life. This is quite true. No one can quarrel with that statement. After all, we have reached a stage in our civilization when we should be ready to conceive that there should be no preferred class. The so-called good things of life should be available to every segment of society. We are not responsible for the present situation because freedom from want cannot exist in a world which has no freedom from war or the fear of war. This section of the world is not responsible for the fear of war. Our country has never waged a war of aggrandizement. We have participated extensively in the two great wars, but we have never asked for any territorial or maritime aggrandizement. We do not want the pound of flesh from anyone. All we want is to save and preserve the principles of democracy, freedom and Christianity. The same is true of the United States, South America, and all the democracies in the world.
We must be careful not to go too far, and to talk only of the benefits of our way of life, because if a democracy can give comfort and access to the good things of life, then some responsibility and obligation devolve upon the people living under such a system. There is a responsibility towards their brother man. People must sacrifice some of their own prerogatives' and comforts for the sake of the whole. When we hear that the adherents of communism are men who have suffered deprivation, that is only partly true. How any English or French-speaking Canadian or a naturalized Canadian can be a communist is beyond my comprehension. How can a man, worthy of being called a Canadian, follow directives from the old czarist imperialism under a new disguise, whose spearhead is in Moscow? Study what happened in the espionage cases, and then ask yourself whether those people were downtrodden or needy. No; they were people in high places to whom this country had been good. All hon. members recall reading in the press about the case of Mr. Fuchs. That man had the confidence of Great Britain, the United States and Canada. He has held some of the highest and most responsible offices those countries could give. Surely that man was not suffering from want. He could have no quarrel with our way of life. That man certainly never missed a meal unless he wanted to. Again I say that we must be careful if we believe that communism is spread only in areas in which there is poverty. This is only partly true. Look at those who head the communist movement in all countries. Again I ask, how can any Canadian be a

Supply-External Affairs communist and be a traitor to his country? How is it that some young, intelligent Canadians will leave Canada, the country in which their forefathers lived, and go to that university in Moscow where they get their minds and souls polluted with poison against their own country? It is beyond my understanding.
I cannot see how any of the citizens of my own mother country, dear old France, can be communists. For centuries that nation has led the continent of Europe in the arts and sciences, and has contributed to the cultural attainments of the whole civilized world. In France today you are faced with a group of people who would stop the gifts received through the Marshall plan. How can they look at themselves and say they are worthy of the soil of France? There are men in France, however, who have been taking directives from Moscow for the last 25 years of their political life and are ready to be traitors to their own motherland.
As the results of the British election have been received here, most of us have been glad to note that the communists only received something like 65,000 votes. This is typical of Great Britain. I cannot see how a man of Scottish, Irish, English or Welsh descent, any one of those fine groups of people in those tight little islands, who have created one of the finest empires that the world has ever known, could be a communist. Great Britain has given freedom to many people and many nations and lately we have had the example of India and Pakistan. It puzzles me how a man in Great Britain, who thought anything of his ancestors, could go to that infamous university in Moscow which spreads poison in the minds of our youth and not be ashamed of his actions. I congratulate the electors of Great Britain upon what they did during the last general election, about communism.
I believe the same principle applies with equal force to the republic to the south of us. How is it possible for an American, who is worthy of the name, to belong to the communist party in the United States? This great nation has contributed towards development in science, industry, yes, and in prosperity which has been an example to the whole world-a nation that has the highest living standard in the whole world.
There are some men who call themselves Americans who follow the directives from Moscow and the communist party. Can anyone comprehend such a degenerated state of mind? Again I must confess to you, Mr. Chairman, that I cannot understand citizens of that type. It is absolutely beyond my comprehension, because an American, a Canadian or a Frenchman worthy of the
[Mr. Bradette.l
name will never follow the brand of imperialism propounded for centuries by the czarist regime and which at the present time they are using in Moscow under the name and disguise of communism to spread into the other sections of the world. The same thing applies to Italy, a fine nation descendant of the Roman empire, a great blending of the Roman and the Greek civilizations which even in their days of centuries ago produced some great seed of democracy and freedom. No Italian worthy of the name will follow the dicta and dictates of Moscow. They have nothing in common, whether it is in civilization or in culture. These men-and I repeat it from this forum-are not worthy to be called Italians. I say that definitely.
When we speak of communism today, we realize that it is more than a political ideology. It is the old virus that has infested European politics for the last six hundred years, in the czarist regime, even prior to Peter the Great, and which has been trying to spread its tentacles into every section of Europe and Asia; and why the people outside Russia will play into the hand of that great imperialistic ideology is something that is absolutely beyond my comprehension.
Then as to Greece, that fine old civilization with which everyone is familiar. How grievously Greece has suffered. In the studies of our youth at the universities and houses of education at least one-fifth of our education is based on the old philosophy and reasoning of the Greeks. For nearly six years we have seen the sad spectacle of Greece fighting to save her own soul and her own sons. Some of the sons of that great civilization receive their direction from Russia, to foul and destroy their own country.
What about China? I am no prophet or son of a prophet, Mr. Chairman, but I am going to make this prediction. Before fifteen years have passed, China will penalize Russia, because China has many scores to settle. We must visualize this fact. China, an Asiatic nation, always considered Siberia as an integral part of the Asiatic continent; and she always resented infiltration into Siberia, whether it was by politics or by force of arms into Siberia. How could the Chinese government, or Mr. Mao or the Chinese people take their directives from communistic Russia? What about Manchuria? Is Manchuria not an integral part of the great nation of China? What about outer Mongolia? Again these terrible claws of communism have taken hold of outer Mongolia. What about inner Mongolia? That again is an integral part of Chinese Russia. What about Tibet? It is true that Tibet wants to remain independent, but at the same time you can see the communist bear preparing to put one of its claws on that

fine little nation. In their present turmoil the Chinese people may not see very clearly the situation as it exists with regard to their aspirations and the integrity of their own soil; but the day will come, and I believe it will be soon, when even Mr. Mao and the leading Chinese will realize that there can be no real friendship between them and Russia, and they will use all their might to shake the Moscow yoke. It is true that in the past history of China some European powers have in some instances violated the sacred soil of that great nation, but no nation went half-way or one-tenth of the way, as Russia did against the Chinese and against the Chinese nation.
In a discussion of that kind it is hard to choose and develop a special subject; but at the same time I believe this is the time and place to mention the economic war which now prevails and which we deplored after the war of 1914-18 but which has become almost as greatly accentuated after the second great war. I speak of trade restriction and of tariff walls between the nations even outside the iron curtain. Two or three years ago, speaking in these precincts, I made the statement that I hoped fervently that the day was gone when, on the frontiers of the democracies, there would be an economic war. There is today to a certain extent an economic war between Canada and the United States, because if you want to sell or to buy, in many instances you find some restrictions; you find, in many cases, a tariff which is irritating not only to our national economy but also even to the economy of the United States. It has been refreshing to every Canadian to note what it meant in the civilized world when they heard the statement made a few weeks ago by Mr. Paul Hoffman, who is director of ECA, that he wants 270 million Europeans to buy freely from one another. That is revolutionary. I am reading the heading from Life magazine. There is a message that carries great import and also some lessons with regard to the American nation. As a citizen of this country I can say that there have been many occasions when I have been baffled in my own mind when that great republic to the south of us, although we have always been their best customer, found it expedient-I am speaking of the past, not of the present; and I am speaking of the matter of tariff restrictions

to slap the Canadian nation in the face. Today, with regard to the Marshall plan, the United Nations is doing something that has never been done before in the world; because no matter what we may say, when we in Canada wish to help Europe make some gifts, to some extent we take something away from our Canadian people; and to a larger extent the same principle applies to the Americans.
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Is the great United States going to make the same error it made after war No. I? In those days the economists of the United States expected that Great Britain, France and the nations in Europe would be able to liquidate the debt they owed to the United States without selling to the United States. The thing is absolutely impossible. When Mr. Hoffman, quite rightly, asked the European nations to destroy the walls which really are evidence of an economic war between the European nations-between Belgium and France, for example, between France and Italy, between Germany, Holland, Luxembourg and many other nations-he is speaking as a man of logic; and he knows in his own mind that even the American nation has suffered itself because of some of the restrictions which they applied so strictly and so vigilantly in the past. If we maintain an economic war, there is very little chance of its being entirely successful even on our own side, because there is always a price to pay when you stop the natural flow of commerce and finance of the countries of the world. You cannot get away from that fact. After world war I-and I know whereof I speak because I have relatives who still live in Normandy- the French government was bonusing the French farmers for producing wheat which cost the French government twice as much as it would have cost to buy from Canada. That was not good economics then; it cannot be good economics now. Even in this country we can learn something too. At the present time we hear that if we import certain lines of goods from Great Britain, some of our industries may suffer. Let us be fair about the matter. I do not believe that they will suffer grievously-if we try to understand one another-if we try to make trade a little more free than it is at the present time. I am not speaking as a free trader, but of freer trade, and I am speaking of some of the anomalies that have existed, in Europe and in the Americas for the last four years and to some extent at the present time, and present a dangerous situation indeed, which, unless it is dealt with diligently and intelligently, may be the causes of great disharmony and friction even among friendly nations.
Surely experience should have taught us to be reasonable, to try to see the points of view of the other nations. No doubt hon. members have read an article which appeared in Reader's Digest of February last, I believe it was. At the present time, as hon. members know, they are erecting in New York a huge building for the United Nations, which is being financed actually by the United States treasury, but which will be eventually paid for by all of the nations that belong to the United Nations Organization. They have not

Supply-External Affairs bought any material from outside the United States. I do not say that in a critical way, but I am just mentioning things that should be mentioned among friends. When we talk of an Atlantic pact we should also talk of an economic pact between all these nations so that it will be possible to deal more freely with each other than we do at the present time.
We have more than that. In the building of the United Nations we have the spectacle of the marble coming from Vermont in the United States. As you know, some workers said they were not going to use it in the building because it was not polished in New York. This shows you what is going on in our own sections of the world. Things like these are non-existent on the other side of the iron curtain, but we do not want the conditions that they have, though on that score we may learn something from them. There the leaders dictate to the people. The people are doing things about which they have no say. When they reduced the value of the ruble over 60 per cent a few years ago Russian soldiers, Russian farmers, all the Russian people had nothing to say about it. Overnight they lost practically all their savings. We do not want conditions like that to come to the civilized democracies of the world, but at the present time our own world must of necessity know of the dangers that exist so far as an economic war is concerned. There is always some danger in a tariff war, and it generates friction and apprehensions. No matter how we look at it, there is always an element of an uneasiness because there is not the free interchange that there should be between the nations of the world. If we do not buy more from Europe the situation will not get much better in the United States or Canada. When you come to think that only $1 billion more worth of goods bought from Europe would make all the difference in the world to those nations while the national production in the United States represents over $60 billion of trading you can readily understand what a small minority group or irritating tariffs and restrictions can do to the national and international economy, and to all intents and purposes we must try to avoid those circumstances, and causes of friction and restricted trade.
Speaking of the two worlds and the dangerous situation that exists at the present time, I cannot do better than to quote the words of the present Secretary of State for External Affairs in a speech he made three years ago in the city of Montreal:
The greatest menace to peace today is this division of the world into two basically opposed forms of society; a division which transcends all national boundaries. One form which respects the dignity


and decency and liberty of the individual and in which government is justified only by the contribution it makes to his welfare; the other, in which the individual is nothing but a mere cog in an inhuman machine, where there is no rule of law, and where the omnipotent state moulds the man into conformity with the mass, and if he will not so conform, crushes him.
I want to say a few words about the United Nations Organization. There have been some criticisms of its achievements. As far as I am concerned, studying all conditions under which it has to work starting from San Francisco, I have only words of praise for that fine world-wide organization. It is true that, like the old league of nations, human ambitions, nationalistic ambitions, and nationalistic interference are also playing their role and stultifying and fouling some of the activities of the United Nations Organization. Let us visualize for one single moment that tomorrow, for instance, if tomorrow we coul,d have co-operation from the Soviet republic as we get it from the other nations of the United Nations and her satellites. What a difference it would make immediately in the whole world, to every nation of the world, if we could get that co-operation.
I had the honour to represent Canada as a delegate to the United Nations Organization. At the general assembly we knew beforehand what the vote would be. We knew it would be Six or seven or eight at the most. It would be Soviet Russia with her satellites, no more and no less. Every time that any democracy brought anything forward for the good of mankind as a whole we were sure what would happen so far as the Russian delegation was concerned.
I believe it was the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Graydon) who said very feelingly and very sincerely that he would like to see the heads of the countries of the world get together around the conference table. I agree with him to some extent, but I believe that the initiative should come from Mr. Stalin. He has never left Russia as far as we know, certainly not since the war has been over. Surely all the heads of the democracies have shown a willingness to meet the leaders of Russia in any section of the world.
There is one man today who could give the greatest measure of hope to the whole world. If tomorrow Mr. Stalin would say, I am inviting the heads of the countries of the world to come to Moscow and discuss together for two or three weeks the matter of peace in the world, it would be the greatest step toward peace that the world has known in the last six or seven years, and that message would be received with great jubilation by all mankind.
Let us not fool ourselves about that situation. You cannot deal with an adder just as

you can with a walking stick. There is too much danger in an adder; it will poison you. You cannot be passive with it. Nation after nation, diplomat after diplomat, delegate after delegate have all spoken on this subject at the United Nations. Some outstanding men from Great Britain, from France, and from the United States and many other nations went over to Russia time and time again, and in many instances they came back with words of hope coming from the lips of Stalin himself. They did not have their backs turned, were not back in their own country, before the word of the head of one of the greatest nations of the world had been thrown into the wastepaper basket and deliberately repudiated by his actions. Can you deal with men of that calibre? Can you expect that they will change their ways?
I repeat, even if we have to go to Moscow, the message must come from the leaders of communistic Russia and from her satellite countries. We have made some errors, but they certainly have made some terrible mistakes. We have to co-operate with them, but they have never given a single sign of wanting to co-operate with us. We know that war is no good, that it practically never solved anything. We know that war No. 1 was a calamity to all participants. We know that war No. 2 has not solved any problem; in fact it has accentuated the older problems and created numerous new ones. Surely the heads of states in Soviet Russia, precisely as we do in the democracies, realize that another war with the new terrific equipment of destruction that human inventiveness has created might mean the end of civilization as we know it. Do we realize for one single moment, when we see fifty planes flying through the skies of the United States or of Russia, that they could destroy ten or fifteen million lives? We do not realize the import that there is in this message. But not satisfied with the present ravages that could be caused, human inventiveness is creating at the present time a bomb which it is said will have a thousand times the power of the atomic bomb. Therefore even the winning nation of the next war will not benefit in any way because it will have in its possession a devastated world in which the problems we are facing at the present time will look absolutely puny and insignificant in comparison with what they would be facing then.
In a few months, and perhaps two years at the most, they will be opening up new quarters for the United Nations in New York. During the last war, I believe in the year 1943, Life magazine sent some of the best United States artists to depict the scenes in the Pacific field of war where, with the help of Australia, the Americans were able to come
Supply-External Affairs back step by step and eventually crush the enemy which almost destroyed at least a part of the great nation's navy at Pearl Harbor. It was a terrific struggle, when tens of thousands of young lives were nipped in the bud, young boys who had no quarrel with the world, boys in the prime of life, thinking of love, thinking of home, thinking of their parents, thinking of their wonderful country, of their future, just at the threshold of life with all its hopes and enchantments.
They were fighting thousands of miles away from their homes, under the most horrible climatic and other conditions to which human beings could be subjected or under which they could fight. While I have not the issue before me, I did see in one issue of Life magazine a portrayal by artists of what happened in the raw, the horrifying disaster which befell thousands of young men who were pulverized on the shores of some of those islands, when they were jumping from one point to another so as to reach Japan and the Asiatic continent. [DOT] I saw where corpses lying for days on the beaches had become bloated up to three or four times their normal size. One could see the wounds, with the blood gushing from them. One could see the long rows of crosses which marked the end of the lives of those who had been lost while fighting for freedom and democracy.
And I am reminded particularly of those in Great Britain who lost their lives, and the great sacrifices that all the people had to make. As a Canadian of French descent I was sometimes sceptical of what was described as the bulldog spirit of the British people; but I implicitly believe in it now. Because when you found the people on that tight little island holding the fort against the hordes of barbarism, holding it with the rampart of their human flesh for over a year, then you had to believe in British leadership and the British bulldog spirit.
I would want those who are responsible for the construction of the new buildings which are to house the United Nations Organization to be free to ask artists and sculptors to depict in marble, stone or granite, works of art to be placed right below the rostrum in the general assembly, scenes which would remind us of that great loss of life for the sake of the world and to make it as lifelike as possible. Because those boys -Russian, German, or Canadian-boys from all the armies, had no quarrel with anyone. They were all young, in the prime of life.
I am reminded of having watched the trooping of the colours by our young boys in the R.C.A.F. during the last war. They were fine and clean-cut. And I saw them coming up to parliament hill. How fine they
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Supply-External Affairs looked! How full of life and hope they appeared to be! They were wearing the blue uniforms of the Royal Canadian Air Force. And as I watched them I said to myself, "How many of those fine boys will never see their homes again! How many mothers and fathers of those lovely youth of Canada will never see their sons again- because they will be dead!" I wondered how many of those lives would be lost away from Canadian soil. None of them had any quarrel with other nations of the world; in fact, no quarrel with anyone. But they answered the call to do their duty.
I say that, if possible, in front of the rostrum, in a special place, we should have in that United Nations building evidence of those thousands of mutilated cases, representing our boys-and our women, too-who lost arms or legs or who have been maimed for the rest of their lives. Perhaps some of them would go there and take their seats, before the commencement of deliberations in the assembly and remain there so that all nations in the world would realize the great price of war. No one could fail to see and understand evidence of this kind. Perhaps we should have there some mothers, perhaps we should have some wives who lost their young spouses, who never saw them again- young wives who to their last days will weep their eyes out because they lost their husbands in those times of tremendous stress, lost their husbands through no fault of their own.
I say these things sincerely, because if my suggestion were followed it would bring to our deliberations some realism, which one does not always find in the United Nations Organization.
I thank the committee for the close attention it has paid to what I have said. There is hope in the world yet. It is true that to some extent we have to worry; we have to hope and pray, and not despair; for worry never solved any problem. Surely God Almighty, a kind Providence, has not brought into being His jewel of creation, our world, surely He did not place men and women on this earth and infuse into them the spark of life and of divinity, only to have them destroy themselves. I am sure if they did that it would be as the result of works of their own creation and their own will, of their own passions, their own greed, but not by the will of God.
The leaders of great nations must realize that in our times they hold in the hollow of their hands perhaps the destruction of tens of millions of people. What human being worthy of the name could avoid that responsibility? What government would deliberately


start such a catastrophe? They hold in the hollow of their hands the future of civilization as we know it.
By the design of our Creator, we pass through space at a terrific rate in a great journey drawn at some points in the heavens. If destruction comes, then it should come naturally, and not be caused by human beings. When I think of the great attraction felt by our planetary and solar system through space I am convinced that we are bound for a wonderful rendezvous where all will realize the greatness of creation in the Creator's infinite.
Let me say again, and with sincerity, that when one travels outside Canada the greatest word he can say is that he is a Canadian. It is the open sesame; doors are always open to you. I believe that is true because within one generation Canada has given twice of her blood and her riches and her services for the maintenance of freedom, democracy and Christianity. She has given those things we cherish most. When we attend these deliberations we do not draw a curtain across Canada; rather we extend a hand to every nation of the world to do everything possible within our power to make the world a better place in which to live, for the benefit of all.
May I conclude my observations this evening by placing on record the words of a great scientist, a controversial personality who has been in the forefront of the news for the last three years, in the United States. I refer to Mr. David E. Lilienthal, and I would quote one paragraph which I saw yesterday in the Christian Science Monitor. Mr. Lilienthal was formerly chairman of the atomic energy commission and knows not only about the destructive but also about the constructive possibility through atomic energy and the hydrogen bomb. He does not despair, because he believes implicitly in the goodness of mankind. A report of a meeting a few days ago in New York states this:
If they allow themselves to wallow In the dark side of atomic energy, instead of realizing that mankind has "always stumbled onto solutions when it is under pressftre," Mr. Lilienthal warned the American people, they never will realize the great potentialities in nutrition, medical science, and1 industrial development that can be theirs. But he added, "Thank God for the common sense of the American people."
And I am sure, had he been speaking in Canada, he would have said the same about the Canadian people. It continues:
"We have to have faith in the Creator of all of us," he declared, "that He did not create man in His image and endow him with the ability to unlock the secrets cf the atom to destroy the beautiful earth and all that is in it."

May God grant us the vision and strength, through our most ardent prayers, to bring about a speedy and lasting peace.


Mr. Drew:: Mr. Chairman, first of all I do wish to say I feel sure every member in the house will echo the words of the hon. member for Cochrane (Mr. Bradette) when he said so confidently that there is hope. There is great hope, so long as the people who have the responsibility for expressing opinions, as the chosen representatives of the people in free countries, remember the lessons of the past, and with a clear recollection of those lessons discuss the problems of the present in terms that leave no doubt about what we are thinking or what we intend to do, and the responsibilities we are prepared to accept for the preservation of peace, for which so many of the youth of the world have died.
In the light of those remarks I can only express my regret that at this critical moment the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson) should have given this house today so little real information in regard to Canadian policies. The whole future of our domestic security, the hope of employment, of prosperity and of doing those things within our borders that we think should be done, depend upon the possibility of avoiding that measure of destruction which has been pictured here in different speeches today.
Both in the speech which the Secretary of State for External Affairs made earlier in this house and in his speech today, it would almost appear that he is unaware of the existence of China. Today China represents the most critical spot in the whole world and any presentation of foreign affairs by the minister responsible for that branch of government which ignores the critical problems of that great area at this moment is an address to this house which hardly does credit to the hon. members who sit here.
After all, the future peace of this country is not something that rests alone with the Secretary of State for External Affairs or with the government. It is not only the right but the duty of every hon. member of this house to have that information which is essential to a full understanding of what course Canada proposes to follow in the days, the weeks, the months and the years ahead. A statement that our policy is related to the policies of the United Nations is hardly an adequate statement of our position at a time when events are moving with a rapidity which sometimes makes the news of last week appear like the news of very long ago.
There is one particular subject in connection with the whole situation in China which
Supply-External Affairs has been passed over casually and this house has not yet received any information which would give the views of the government as to those considerations which should be in the minds of members of this house and of Canadians generally in regard to the extremely important question of the recognition of the Mao regime in that country. There was a suggestion that the Secretary of State for External Affairs had that subject in his mind today when he spoke about the possibility of a change of address of the recipient of any possible message that may be sent.
It is not necessary, however, to seek to interpret those vague words, which are almost as vague as many other words in his speech, because this is a subject which has been dealt with in fairly explicit terms within the past few days. Whatever uncertainty there might be in anyone's mind as to the authority of General A. G. L. McNaughton to speak with knowledge of the intentions of the government in regard to military affairs, there can be no doubt about his knowledge, authority and responsibility when he speaks about the activities of the United Nations, particularly about the atomic energy commission of that body. He is the representative on that body appointed on behalf of this country by the Canadian government. Therefore, a special significance attaches to the statement he made in Ottawa in a public address on February 23. Before quoting his words I should like to explain the subject to which those words referred. He was speaking of the difficulties which had arisen in connection with dealing with the whole problem of the control of atomic energy because of the fact that the delegates from Russia and the satellite countries had walked out of the meetings of that commission and of other committees of the United Nations. He then used these words:
Unfortunately the further'progress of these meetings has been held up by the soviet refusal to participate as long as the Chinese delegate represented the nationalist government. However, there is reason to expect that the meetings will again be resumed shortly when this difficulty has been overcome.
Those words are open to no doubtful interpretation. They mean one thing, and one thing alone. They mean that the difficulty raised by the presence of the delegate who now sits there representing the nationalist government is to be removed and the demands of the Russians in regard to the recognition of the Mao regime are to be carried into effect. With that before us I think it is the responsibility of those members of this house who have views on this subject to express those views now. Of course the government has the responsibility of
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Supply-External Affairs making the decision, but the time to express those views is before that decision is made. The subject of recognition was dealt with earlier in this house when the Secretary of State for External Affairs was discussing this matter during the last session. He indicated the possibility of the recognition of the communist regime in China. He then explained the conditions which it would be necessary to see fulfilled by that government before recognition would be extended. These were the words he used, to be found at page 1838 of Hansard for November 16, 1949:
If the fact of communist control of China is demonstrated and an independent-I stress the word "independent"-Chinese government, able to discharge its international obligations, is established there, which is accepted by the Chinese people . . . we will in due course and after consultation with other friendly governments have to recognize the facts which confront us.
That statement raises three important conditions. First, the government of communist China must be independent; second, it must be able to discharge its international obligations; and third, it must be accepted by the Chinese people. This raises certain questions as to what recognition really is. There has been a good deal of discussion of this subject in the press. It is necessary to deal with it as an academic subject so that in examining the broader picture we may use the word "recognition" with full knowledge of what it has meant, what it is intended to mean, and what it means today as a diplomatic term. One of the greatest experts on international law in the world today is Professor H. Lauter-pacht, professor of international law at Cambridge university. In a recently published article on this subject, this recognized authority on international law dealt with the principles which govern recognition, and he placed them under four headings. Quoting from his statement I read:
1. Recognition is a declaration of an existing fact. Whenever the requisite conditions of governmental capacity exist recognition is due as a matter of right.
Then there is amplification of that and an explanation of the term. Point No. 2 is as follows:
International law prohibits premature recognition of the revolutionary government. So long as the lawful government has a reasonable prospect of reasserting its authority, recognition is an unfriendly act and a violation of international law. The presumption is in favour of the established government. As Sir William Harcourt, who was the first Whewell professor of international law in the university of Cambridge, put it in a letter to The Times during the American civil war,
"A friendly state is bound to exact very conclusive and indisputable evidence that sovereignty of a government with which it has existing relations over any part of its former dominions has been finally and permanently divested."

Carrying on with the quotation from Professor Lauterpacht's article, it reads:
On the other hand, "to maintain that the lawful government holding out in one isolated fortress is entitled to continued recognition de jure is to strain to breaking point an otherwise unimpeachable rule." It is a question of fact, to be ascertained in good faith, whether the authority of the lawful government has become purely nominal.
The third point is as follows:
Can recognition properly be given to a revolutionary government the support of which by the people is not evidenced by, to use a phrase of Jefferson's, "the will of the nation substantially declared?" Is effectiveness pure and simple the decisive test or is a subsequent legitimation of the revolutionary change by a freely expressed popular approval an essential requirement of recognition? That was a condition of recognition sometimes insisted upon by Great Britain until the first world war. That was also the practice of the United States, especially under President Wilson. But that practice, rational and desirable as it may be, was abandoned after the first world war and is not at present a part of the law. It may be revived when the right of man to government by consent has become part of the positive law of nations suitably guaranteed and enforced. That day is not yet.
Then there are further observations in regard to that point, and I quote now from his statement as to point 4:
There is, finally, the question of the willingness to fulfil international obligations and of assurances to be given to that effect by the government recognition of which is under consideration.
I should like to read that fourth point again.
There is finally the question of the willingness to fulfil international obligations and of assurances to be given to that effect by the government recognition of which is under consideration.
Even if the first three conditions were met, a question might well be asked as to whether the fourth condition can be met at the present time by the Mao regime in China. But while Professor Lauterpacht can well be regarded as an outstanding authority on this subject, he has overlooked one very important consideration. When he points out that a condition of recognition sometimes insisted upon by Great Britain in the past was that there was evidence of popular approval of the government, that situation no longer exists. He seems to have forgotten the decision of the United Nations in December of 1946, when, rightly or wrongly, they definitely laid it down that consent of the government is a consideration. It was on December 12, 1946, that the general assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution dealing with the Franco government in Spain. I think it would be well to read part of that resolution. I am quoting now from the record of the assembly:
Convinced that the Franco-Fascist government of Spain, which was imposed by force upon the Spanish people with the aid of the Axis powers, and which gave material assistance to the Axis

powers in the war, does not represent the Spanish people, and by its continued control of Spain is making impossible the participation of the Spanish people with the peoples of the United Nations in international affairs;
Recommends that the Franco government of Spain be debarred from membership in the international agencies established by or brought into relationship with the United Nations and from participation in conference or other activities which may be arranged by the United Nations or by these agencies until a new and acceptable government is formed in Spain.


Mr. Pouliot:: May I ask the hon. gentleman who sponsored that statement?


George Alexander Drew: I believe the hon. gentleman is well aware of that, but I would be happy to hand over this record afterwards.


Jean-François Pouliot: It is a polite question.


Mr. Ferguson:: For once in your life, it is a bright question.


Jean-François Pouliot: The hon. member should keep quiet.


George Alexander Drew: I do not regard the question as in any way impolite, but I would point out to the hon. gentleman that there were several sponsors. I imagine he is referring to the fact that very strong support of this motion was put forward by the U.S.S.R., and by certain satellite powers, as well as by other nations.


Jean-François Pouliot: Thank you.


George Alexander Drew: I continue now with the quotation from this resolution;
Further desiring to secure the participation of all peace-loving peoples, including the people of Spain, in the community of nations;
Recommends that if, within a reasonable time, there is not established a government which derives its authority from the consent of the governed, committed to respect freedom of speech, religion and assembly and to the prompt holding of an election in which the Spanish people, free from force and intimidation and regardless of party, may express their will, the security council consider the adequate measures to be taken in order to remedy the situation;
Recommends that all members of the United Nations immediately recall from Madrid their ambassadors and all ministers plenipotentiary accredited there.
The general assembly further recommends that the states members of the organization report to the secretary general and to the next session of the assembly, what action they have taken in accordance with this recommendation.
That is a resolution on the records of the United Nations Organization. Without discussing the merits or otherwise of that resolution at the moment, the fact remains that by a majority vote sufficiently large to commend the observance of the members of the United Nations Organization, a decision was made that there would not be recognition of that government until it was a government with
Supply-External Affairs the consent of the governed. This becomes a most emphatic statement of international law, and remains so until it has been repealed. Certainly, it cannot be disregarded. It would be a shameful thing if it were disregarded in consideration of this problem which is being discussed at the moment. Whatever may be said about the government of Spain, it certainly is not open to anyone to suggest that the Mao regime in China was not imposed upon the Chinese people by force, and by forces supplied by the government of Russia. On the basis of existing international law, that is a consideration which cannot be disregarded if our observance of that resolution is to be looked upon as a responsible act by the government of this country.
What is the necessity for haste in dealing with this question of recognition? What is the evidence before us that these conditions have been met, even if it were possible to overcome the hurdle presented by that resolution of December 12, 1946? There is another important consideration which should be borne in mind also. It is not necessary, nor is there any occasion, to express an opinion about the government of Chiang Kai-shek at this moment. There was a time, of course, when the people of Canada did express admiration for the fortitude of the leader of the Chinese forces who, for so many long years, fought the Japanese invader. This was at a time when the league of nations was standing by, and taking no action to carry out the obligations under its covenant. That admiration may have been misplaced, but it was demonstrated over and over again by Canadians in every part of this country.
Today Chiang Kai-shek exercises authority over a limited area. It would appear that he exercises direct authority only over the islands of Formosa and Hainan, but there are many millions of people living on those islands. Those islands are still the bastions against the complete communist domination of the whole eastern coast of China. I am not raising any question about Formosa beyond this, that one of the obligations undertaken by the United States was to return the island of Formosa to the republic of China after the war. Any hasty recognition of the Mao regime as the government of China, which carries forward all diplomatic obligations and rights, would carry with it the duty of handing over to Mao the island of Formosa. That is something which will require careful consideration on the part of the government of the United States, and undoubtedly it is receiving careful consideration. Factors such as these and factors such as the present activities of the communist forces of China on its southwestern
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Supply-External Affairs boundary call for a careful analysis and should put a damper on the enthusiasm of those who are anxious for precipitate recognition of the communist regime in China today. We are under no compulsion to act hastily, but I believe we are under great compulsion as a nation to act with caution, with great care and after a full examination of all the consequences that would flow from recognition at this time.
This is not only a question of the formality of recognition; this is not only a question as to what recognition means to us. It is a question of what recognition means to the Chinese, to the Russians, and to those countries in southeast Asia which are still doing all they can to hold the vile flood of communism from their countries. The events which have taken place to the south of China should be in the minds of every member of this house and of every Canadian who is concerned about the future of that vast area, which may determine the whole future course of the world. At the present time there is fighting in the recently-recognized state of Viet Nam. There are two groups of recognition in Viet Nam and in two of the adjoining countries. Those conflicting recognitions throw some light on the importance of recognition to the people in those areas and of what recognition means in the minds of the men in the Kremlin. There is the legitimate government of Viet Nam. It has been recognized by Britain, the United States, France and other countries associated with them in their efforts to preserve peace. There are also the Viet Minh forces; they have been recognized by Russia, and they are fighting the Viet Nam government within the boundaries of China and are receiving arms from Mao. Every time they are cornered on the Chinese boundary, they retreat into China, reorganize, re-arm and go back again into Viet Nam. In that area recognition of China would be regarded almost as a fatal blow to the government of Viet Nam which we have recognized. The Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson) may nod his head; but it is a pity that he did not give us some of this information verbally instead of reserving it for this vague interpretation.


Lester Bowles Pearson: I did give information on that point the other day.


George Alexander Drew: And I may say that is the view publicly expressed by men with a great deal longer experience than the Secretary of State for External Affairs in this government. That is an area which indicates what may happen, because beyond Viet Nam lie Malaya, Burma, and farther away the great nation of India. When anyone expresses some measure of confidence that Mao has no territorial ambitions

in that area, one is sadly reminded of the assurance that Hitler gave to Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Daladier in September of 1938, when he assured them that Germany had no further territorial ambitions in Europe. The territorial ambitions of the Soviet empire, of which Mao's regime now forms a part, are not limited except by recognition of the fact that there may be some point beyond which they dare not go. The question that is presented to those who hope to preserve freedom today is a question that was presented to the people of Europe and of the world in 1938 and the early part of 1939. The question now is the same as the question then, namely: How far do we let aggression go without anything but expressions of regret? Let no one suggest that the raising of that question now indicates any thought that we should take precipitate action of any kind. But every one of us learned from the records of the German general staff and of the German government, which were exposed to the world at Nuremberg, that if a firm position had been taken against the Germans in 1938 and 1939 the likelihood was that there would have been no war at all, certainly not at that time. The evidence is all too clear that twice within a generation the world has been bathed in blood because the free nations did not stand together firmly enough at the time when firmness would have retarded aggression and preserved the freedom and peace of the world.
Let us see what it was that was under consideration in the remarks of General McNaughton when he made it quite clear that early recognition is under consideration or has actually been decided upon. A typical example of the things that have been read these past few weeks is to be found in the New York Times of January 24, under the heading: "Soviet walks out of the UN fifteenth time on China issue." Then it goes on to explain under date of January 23:
Valentin I. Kobushko of the Soviet union walked out of the economic and social council's committee of non-governmental organizations today, after failing to oust the representative of nationalist China. The latest effort, with the now familiar routine of the Russian point of order, the Chinese retort, the vote and finally the walkout declaration, was an almost mechanical affair lasting a little over four minutes. When Mr. Kobushko turned his back on the closed meeting he brought to fifteen the total of recent Soviet bloc walkouts from six United Nations bodies.
From their point of view there may be every reason for the representatives of the Soviet government and their satellites to urge that the present Chinese representative at the United Nations should no longer be permitted to sit there; but there are other methods to use than to walk out on the conference.
[Mr Drew.]

On matters of major international concern the United Nations Organization has been rendered almost helpless by the veto of Russia; and now it is being rendered impotent in regard to some of those activities by the walkout, simply because these various groups within the United Nations Organization are not prepared to submit without argument to the demands of this vile tyranny to which we certainly should not bow down now or at any other time.
The situation is perfectly clear. The Soviets have never been able to muster more than three votes in the security 'council, and only two in the other bodies, in favour of their demand that the present Chinese representative be removed. As I said before, no one can possibly challenge their right to argue, and to submit every contention that they think is in their interests, to bring this about; but the United Nations cannot permit one member to dictate to it, or the United Nations will no longer have either dignity, self-respect or any real power to solve the problems of the world.
It has also permitted Russia far too much latitude in preventing effective action, and the time has come, in the interests of peace and the preservation of freedom, to remember that word "appeasement" that was written across the world in letters of blood only a few years ago.
Fortunately there are breaks from time to time in the solid front of the communist representation. They are the sort of breaks that support the statement made here earlier that there is hope. As a result of these walkouts Dr. Alexander Rudzinski, the Polish representative, announced to the secretary general of the assembly that he was no longer a representative of Poland, and that he was going to seek sanctuary in the United States. He gave as his reason the fact that he had received evidence that was all too clear that there was no longer any pretence of freedom in Poland; but that the final and conclusive evidence that they were not a government in their own right was furnished by the fact that the Soviet representatives had put pressure on him direct from the Kremlin, insisting that he, as a Polish representative, should walk out of the United Nations meeting. If, as General McNaughton says, that difficulty is to be removed, and if it is to be removed by recognition of Mao, then the United Nations, and the members of the United Nations, will have submitted to a form of blackmail that will completely stultify the effectiveness of the United Nations Organization in the years ahead. I have a tendency to use the term "the league of nations"; for as one sees these events taking place there
Supply-External Affairs is a chilling recollection of earlier events of the same kind. It is like the experience you have when you pick up one of these paper-covered books just before you take a trip on the train or in an aeroplane-and I am not referring to the type of books that were recently banned-and then you read a couple of chapters before you find that you have already read the same story some time before.
As we read of those events in China and in Viet Nam, and as we consider what may happen in Malaya, in Burma and ultimately in India, if this red flood is not held back by firm and positive action which will be understood by the men in the Kremlin, then we may well find ourselves confronted by very similar events.
When I say "firm action" I mean the kind of united action to preserve peace which the Russians will recognize today just as the Germans would have recognized it either in 1914 or in 1939. It is necessary to go back over the tragic events of the years that have passed. To those whose memories are very clear oh what took place from 1918 onwards, there is a duty to keep fresh in the minds of the people of Canada, and of free people everywhere, those lessons which are of such vital concern to everyone in the world today who hopes to fulfil the terms of victory that came to us in 1945. The allies in November 11, 1918, had won the most decisive victory in all history. There was complete and unqualified submission of the most powerful land army the world had ever known. Most of us here will recall the jubilation on that day, and most of us will recall the confidence with which we looked to the treaty that was to be signed at Versailles. Most of us will remember that there was a belief in those days, a firm belief, that Armageddon had passed, and that never again would the nations of the world be engulfed in so dreadful a holocaust.
Those men who met in the Hall of Mirrors, just next unfortunately to the Hall of War, drafted a covenant which expressed in clear and understandable terms the hopes and aspirations of men and women throughout the world who never again wanted to see a repetition of a tragedy of that kind. And although the covenant was a long document, its terms were simple and fairly explicit. It left a clear understanding that every nation was to have the right of self-government and of self-determination, and that each country could choose its own kind of government without intervention by any other nation.
There was also a clear understanding- and I use the word "understanding"

that the nations would stand together to preserve peace. And it was only on that understanding that France gave up control of the
464	HOUSE OF
Supply-External Affairs eastern bridgeheads on the Rhine. They never would have made it possible for the Germans to move west again, in that generation, if they had not believed the covenant of the league of nations meant that the nations would stand together to stop aggression.
Time went on, and we all learned that the nations which had signed the covenant were not prepared to place that interpretation upon its terms. There were minor events which were disturbing; but the first great breach of the terms of the covenant of the league was the Japanese invasion of the Chinese mainland in Manchuria.
The league of nations took no steps to deal with that aggression. They applied no sanctions to prevent aggression. On the contrary, the free nations supplied to Japan scrap iron, oil, nickel, aluminum, and other things that could build their strength for those very military activities which were prohibited by the covenant of the league.
Then next came the German occupation of the Rhineland, explicitly prohibited by the treaty. No action was taken. It was accepted as an accomplished fact, just as other things have been accepted as accomplished facts in these past few years.
Then came the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. That could have been stopped at any moment without a shot being fired. Italy was sending troops three thousand miles to distant Ethiopia-and Italy had no oil, except the oil that was supplied by those nations which expressed their disapproval of what Italy was doing. Sanctions to prohibit the export of oil at that time would have prevented the Italian occupation of Ethiopia. That was not done.
And so, step by step we moved forward to the inevitable brink of the inevitable war. I hope that every Canadian, and others who remember the same events, and have the same reason to remember those events, will recall how wise we all thought we were in 1939 and 1940 when, no matter what views had been expressed before, people in the free nations said that never again would there be appeasement of an aggressor. They said, and with conviction, that they had learned the dreadful lesson that appeasement brings war, and that the way to stop war and preserve peace is for the nations that want peace to stand together and say that their freedom is a priceless possession which they will under no circumstances forfeit to an aggressor power.
That was the outstanding lesson we were all supposed to have learned in those dreadful years. The nations met in San Francisco in the spring of 1945 when it became apparent that there was no longer going to be a very extended resistance by Germany, and that


the post-war world should be considered. And at San Francisco those nations which came together as the United Nations again asserted, at the very outset, the right of every nation to choose its own government, and the right of every nation to be free from armed pressure or armed intervention. Also it asserted the principle of consent of the governed.
How far have we followed those principles in the years that have passed?, Surely it must have brought a dreadful realization of what has happened when the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Graydon) pointed out this afternoon that five years ago one out of every twelve people in the world was under communist domination, whereas today one out of every three human beings is under communist tyranny.
There is not one of us in this house who does not know that the communist control of Poland, of Roumania, of Hungary, of Bulgaria, of Czechoslovakia, of Latvia, of Lithuania, of Estonia and of all the other states on their borders was in no single instance the free choice of the people of those nations. Today the Soviet empire embraces nearly a third of the population of the world and that vast tyranny has been imposed upon those people by small minorities who were able to exercise their control in every case by force.
There comes a time when the lessons of the past must be remembered and accepted or we shall follow the same dreadful course to another war when all the terrible advances of science will bring destruction on a scale that we have never dreamed of before. But there is hope, and that hope rests upon the unity of purpose of those who are joined in a common bond for peace and for the preservation of freedom.
The proposal has been put forward in this house on different occasions by the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra (Mr. Green) that a Pacific pact to complement the Atlantic pact should be brought into being. Today the Secretary of State for External Affairs said that that could not be done because if the nations of the Pacific were to be invited to consider a Pacific pact it would be necessary to invite Russia and China. Russia was not invited to the meetings of the Atlantic conference and yet Russia has very direct access to the Atlantic through the Baltic or through the fact that at any time she can complete the 35 miles that separates her from the great German seaport of Hamburg.
Not a very pleasant thought, but it is a bit of reality which indicates the direct concern Russia has in the affairs of the Atlantic. Russia was not invited, and for one clear reason. The Atlantic pact was a pact conceived, shaped and brought into being for the

one purpose of containing Russian aggression. Why pretend that it was for anything else? There is no use in pretending today that a Pacific pact would be for any other purpose than to contain the aggression of the Soviet empire in the Pacific area and the Orient.
Here is one of the terrible unrealities of this situation. Every voice which can be raised should be raised before it is too late to say to these people who are talking the mumbo-jumbo of diplomacy:	"Wake up
before our freedom is gone and the world destroys itself because you are not talking in terms that the world can understand." Why gloss over these realities in vague terms such as we have heard here today? Why not face the chilling truth? It is only by facing it that we shall avoid the dreadful possibility which the Atlantic pact was conceived and developed to prevent.
What earthly use will the Atlantic pact be if through that pact we prevent war in Europe and then the whole structure of the Orient goes to pieces under the red flood? What use will the Atlantic pact be if we keep the front of human civilization intact and let the whole vast rear of that structure be destroyed by the red flames? What use will the Atlantic pact be if that soviet power which has moved so fast down through China keeps on through Viet Nam, into Malaya, through Burma to India and spreads out to Tibet, to Afghanistan, to Persia and then presents one great solid front to the powers of the west?
That is a dreadful possibility that will be brought closer if the United Nations submit to this soviet blackmail and act under the demands of these people who have defied every ordinary principle of decent conduct when they say: "You do our bidding or we won't even talk to you." No peace will be obtained by a submission to demands of that kind any more than peace was obtained in 1939 by the acceptance of the conditions imposed during the frequent visits to Berchtesgaden.
Every word I have spoken is a word that expresses the hope of peace. Every word I have spoken is a word that is intended to remind hon. members of this house of the ghostly lessons of the past. Every word I have spoken is a word to urge upon this government the duty to say in no uncertain terms, no matter what may be said by other governments in the world: "Appeasement is going to go no further; we have learned the lessons of the past and there will be no truck or trade with tyranny of this kind unless and until they are at least prepared to accept the ordinary standards of international conduct." You do not gain anything, you do not gain any
Supply-External Affairs hope of peace, you do not gain any hope of security by clearing the decks for further discussions under threats of that nature.
One of the problems before us, and a very real problem it is, has been raised by the recognition of the Mao regime by the government of the United Kingdom. I submit that is no reason whatever why this government should recognize the communist regime in China. This government has it within its power to say things that need to be said. I should like to read from an article written recently by Mr. Anthony Eden which I think offers the solution to this great problem. The article was published in London on January 16 and reads:
The Far Eastern policies of the Atlantic powers and their friends are in a rather dismal tangle. They all apparently intend the same thing but they are moving at so different a pace that they are jerkily out of step.
Recognition of the communist government in China provides a recent example of this inconsistency, though not the most important. The divergence of view and discrepancy of action between the British and American governments in this instance may even do good if they draw attention in both countries to the urgent need to co-ordinate policies without further delay.
As regards actual recognition, there is a fair field for argument on practical as well as on legal grounds. It is a real misfortune that in this, as in other Far Eastern matters, we should be acting piecemeal both within the commonwealth and as between the commonwealth and the United States.
I pass on to another quotation in the same article which reads:
We must first determine the nature of our problem in southeast Asia and next consider how together we can make headway toward its solution. In the first instance, the problem is economic. We should make a fatal error were we to under-estimate the extent of the challenge free nations have to meet. The overwhelming triumph of Mao Tze-tung in China has transformed the whole position in the Far East. His methods have now become the blueprint for communist plans and the pattern for communist action throughout the Orient.
Then I should like to quote from the last part of his article:
There should be an agreed strategy in all this area between the powers principally concerned, and their burden both in troops and political responsibility fairly adjusted. It is equally necessary that our several intelligence services in the Far East should be reviewed and co-ordinated.
I therefore repeat that the most urgent need is for us to have a common policy in these affairs. No nation can, by itself, save the Far East. Our common policy must be founded upon determination to help the peoples of southeast Asia to live in freedom from want or fear. Without our aid they are doomed to all the consequences of communist rule, and if they should fall who can doubt that the danger to the peace of all the world would move nearer and yet nearer to home?
Those are the words of the great British foreign secretary of the war years, a man who had the courage to resign from the Chamberlain government in protest against

Supply-External Affairs appeasement before the war, a man who is now raising his voice to assert the same principles, a man who is raising his voice urging common action by the free nations to preserve their principles, which are the reason for the meetings of the United Nations at Lake Success.
Let us hope that conditions will exist at some future time when recognition can be extended to China and to other nations in that great area. But the highest duty of every government today, which has some responsibility in the Pacific as well as in the Atlantic, is to demand that there shall be common action, and that there shall be a clear and uniform pattern of strategy which will be known to the people of the free nations, and which will be known in the clearest detail to the nations which threaten our peace and security. Certainly there should be no recognition of the Mao regime until those conditions have been fulfilled, until the nations which have a common concern in the preservation of peace both in the Atlantic and in the Pacific are able to decide on a uniform pattern of strategy which all can follow.
After two months in Moscow Mao has returned to his own capital, and I notice that the Secretary of State for External Affairs has said that it is not possible yet to determine what the terms of his agreement with the Russians are. Nevertheless we know it is an agreement of friendship, an agreement for common action. That much we have been told. I hope that every member of the house saw the photograph of the signing of that treaty in the Kremlin. If you have not, look it up. In that photograph you will see the same three Russians who were present when the treaty of friendship was signed with Germany on August 26, 1939, and war became a certainty. There were Stalin, Molotov and Yishinsky. Mao was sitting in the very place where Ribbentrop sat at that time. They were all in precisely

the same positions. Look at the picture and then think what that pact of friendship may mean to the free world unless the lessons of the past are remembered and the nations stand together to preserve that peace for which so many of our own young men and women died, and so many of the youth of the world gave up all they had.
Let no one suggest that we must wait for others. In this confused and uncertain hour the whole free world is waiting for a clear and clarion call to follow the course of honour, to follow the course that will give us peace. That call can come from Canada, which under no circumstances can be charged with any selfish interest in Asia, Europe or anywhere else in the world. I submit, Mr. Chairman, this is both a challenge and an opportunity which never may be offered to this government again.


Jean-François Pouliot: May I ask a question? I congratulate the hon. gentleman on his fine speech, but I should like to ask him whether he really thinks that speech was a call for peace?


George Alexander Drew: I most certainly do. I do believe that every word I have said is an appeal to follow the only course that will give us peace. I have made this appeal tonight to the Canadian government, to the members of this parliament, and to the people of Canada to wake up, because I see a very grave danger that we are following the same course that led to such dreadful results only a few years ago.
Item stands.
Progress reported.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Fournier (Hull):: On Monday we will resume the debate on the address.
It being five minutes after eleven o'clock, the house adjourned,, without question put, pursuant to standing order.

Monday, March 6, 1950