1950-02-28

STANDING COMMITTEES

[Stage Direction]
Mr. W. G. Weir (Poriage-Neepawa) presented the report of the special committee appointed to prepare and report lists of members to compose the standing committees of the house under standing order 63, as follows:

[Stage Direction]
Messrs:
Benidickson
Boisvert
Brooks
Campney
Cardiff
Carter
Cold-well
Cote (St. Johns-Iberville-Napierville)
Cote (Matapedia-Matane)
Courtemanche
Dickey
Dechene
Diefenbaker
Fair
Fulford Gingues Gour (Russell)
Harris (Grey-Bruce)
Hartt
Knowles
Leger
MacKenzie
Mutch
Parent
Pouliot
Richard (Ottawa East) Riley
Stewart (Yorkton) Tustin-29.
Messrs:
Argue
Balcer
Bater
Bonnier
Brooks
Cameron	.
Campney
Casselman
Cauchon
Cleaver
Cote (Verdun-La Salle)
Coumoyer
Croll
Decore
Demers
Eyre
Ferguson
Fournier (Maisonneuve-Rosemont)
Gauthier (Lapointe)
George
Hansell
Hosking
Hunter
Jeffery
Johnston
Kent
Kirk (Digby-Yarmouth) Knight
Langlois (Berthier-Maskinonge)
Lennard
Little
MacDougall MacLean (Cape Breton North and Victoria) McLean (Huron-Perth) Murphy Noseworthy Parent
Richard (Gloucester)
Roberge
Robertson
Sinnott
Stanfield
Stewart (Yorkton)
Tustin
Valois
Warren
White (Middlesex East)
Whitman
Winkler
Wylie-50.
(Quorum-15)

[Stage Direction]
(Quorum-10)
RAILWAYS. CANALS AND TELEGRAPH LINES Messrs:
Adamson
Beaudry
Bertrand
Black (Cumberland)
Bonnier
Bourget
Breithaupt
Cannon
Carroll
Carter
Chevrier
Clark
Darroch
Dewar
Douglas
Eudes
Ferguson
Follwell
Garland
Gauthier (Portneuf)
Gibson
Gillis
Goode
Gourd (Chapleau)
Green
Harrison
Hartt
Hatfield
Healy
Herridge
Hodgson
James
Jutras
Lafontaine
Lennard
Macdonald (Edmonton East)
Maybank
McCulloch
McGregor
Mclvor
McLure
Murphy
Murray (Cariboo) Nixon
Noseworthy
Pouliot
Richard (St. Maurice-Lafleche)
Riley
Robinson
Rooney
Ross (Hamilton East) Shaw
Stuart (Charlotte)
Thatcher
Thomas
Thomson
Weaver
Whiteside
Whitman
Wylie-60.
(Quorum-20)
Adamson Argue Arsenault Ashbourne Beaudry Belzile Benidickson Bennett Blackmore Bradette Breithaupt Brooks Cannon Cleaver
Helme Hunter Isnor Laing Lesage Low Maltais Macnaughton Macdonnell (Greenwood) Maybank Picard Prudham Quelch
Richard (Gloucester)
Cote (St. Johns-Iberville- Richard (Ottawa East)
Napierville)
Dumas
Fleming
Fournier (Maisonneuve-Rosemont)
Fraser
Fulford
Fulton
Gibson
Gour (Russell)
Harkness
Harris (Danforth) Hellyer
Riley Sinclair
Smith (Queens-Shelbume)
Smith (York North) Smith (Moose Mountain)
Stewart (Winnipeg North)
Thatcher
Weaver
White (Hastings-Peterborough) -50 (Quorum-15)
Anderson
Ashbourne
Balcer
PUBLIC ACCOUNTS Messrs:
Beaudry
Benidickson
Blue
[Stage Direction]
Standing Committees
PUBLIC ACCOUNTS-Continued

[Stage Direction]
Messrs:
Boisvert
Boivin
Brisson
Browne (St. John's West)
Cauchon
Cavers
Cleaver
Cloutier
Croll
Cruickshank
Denis
Diefenbaker
Fleming
Fournier (Maisonneuve-Rosemont)
Fulford
Fulton
Fraser
Gauthier (Portneuf)
Hansell
Helme
Homuth
Isnor
Johnston
Kirk (Antigonish-Guysborough) Langlois (Gaspe) Larson Major Maybank Murphy Picard Pinard Prudham
Richard (Gloucester)
Richard (Ottawa East)
Riley
Robinson
Sinclair
Stewart (Winnipeg North)
Thatcher
Thomas
Warren
White (Hastings-Peterborough) Winkler Wright-50
(Quorum-15)

[Stage Direction]
Messrs:
Anderson
Argue
Arsenault
Aylesworth
Bater
Bennett
Black (Chateauguay-Huntingdon-Laprairie) Blue
Harkness
Hatfield
Hetland
Jones
Jutras
Kent
Kickham
Kirk (Antigonish-Guysborough)
Browne (St. John's West) Kirk (Digby-Yarmouth) Bryce	Laing
Catherwood	Lapalme
Cavers	Leger
Charlton	Lesage
Clark	MacKenzie
Cloutier	McCubbin
Corry	McLean (Huron-Perth)
Cote (Matapedia-Matane) Murray (Oxford)
Courtemanche Coyle
Cruickshank Darroch Decore Demers Diefenbaker Dumas Fair
Fontaine
Gauthier (Lapointe)
George Gosselin Gour (Russell)
(Quorum-20)
Murray (Cariboo) Quelch
Richard (St. Maurice-' Lafleche)
Roberge Ross (Souris)
Sinnott
Studer
Thomson
Whitman
Wood
Wright
Wylie-60

[Stage Direction]
Boisvert
Boucher
Casselman
Denis
Green
Hansell
Henry
Homuth
Huffman
Knowles
Langlois (Gaspe)
Messrs:
Lapalme
MacDougall
MacLean (Cape Breton North and Victoria) Pinard Robinson Ross (Souris)
Smith (York North) Stuart (Charlotte) Viau-20.
(Quorum- -8)
Messrs:
Applewhaite
Arsenault
Ashbourne
Bennett
Black (Cumberland)
Blair
Bryce
Cannon
Catherwood
Conacher
Cote (Matapedia-Matane)
Cournoyer
Fulford
Gibson
Gillis
Harrison
Helme
Henderson
Higgins
James
Kirk (Antigonish-Guysborough) Langlois (Gaspe)
Leger
Macdonald (Edmonton East)
Maclnnis
MacNaught
Maltais
McLean (Huron-Perth)
McLure
Mott
Pearkes
Smith (Queens-Shel-burne)
Stick
Stuart (Charlotte) Thomas-35.
(Quorum-10)

[Stage Direction]
Messrs:
Adamson	Jones
Benidickson	LaCroix
Black (Cumberland)	Lafontaine
Boivin	Larson
Brisson	Little
Campney	Mclvor
Dickey	McWilliam
Dumas	Pearkes
Eyre	Proudfoot
Ferrie	Rowe
Gauthier (Lapointe)	Simmons
Gauthier (Sudbury)	Sinnott
Gourd (Chapleau)	Stick
Harkness	Thomas
Herridge	Weaver
Higgins	Welbourn
Hosking	Wylie-35.
Hunter	
(Quorum-10)

[Stage Direction]
Messrs:
Balcer
Beaudoin
Black (Cumberland)
Boucher
Bourget
Brown (Essex West)
Byrne
Carroll
Cloutier
Cote (Verdun-La Salle) Croll
Gauthier (Lake St. John) Gauthier (Sudbury)
Gillis Gingras Goode Higgins Homuth
Johnston
Kent
Knowles
Lapalme
Macdonald (Edmonton East)
Maclnnis
Maybank
McWilliam
Mitchell
Murphy
Nixon
Pouliot
Ross (Hamilton East) Smith (Calgary West) Stewart (Yorkton) Thomson Weaver-35.
(Quorum-10)
Boucher
Casselman
Fauteux
Henry
Knowles
Major
DEBATES Messrs:
Murray (Oxford)
Pouliot
Simmons
Smith (Calgary West) Valois Viau-12 (Quorum-7)

[Stage Direction]
Standing Committees
[Stage Direction]
Messrs:
Balcer	Gauthier (Portneuf)
Bater	Graydon
Beaudoin	Green
Benidickson	Hansell
Bradette	Jutras
Breithaupt	Laing
Campney	Leger
Coldwell	Low
Cote (Matapedia-	Maclnnis
Matane)	Macnaughton
Croll	McCusker
Decore	Mutch
Dickey	Pearson
Diefenbaker	[DOT] Picard
Fleming	Pinard
Fournier (Maisonneuve- Richard (Ottawa East)	
Rosemont)	Robinson
Fraser	Stick-35
Gauthier (Lake St. John)	
	(Quorum-10)
	PRINTING
(Members to act	on the part of the Commons)
	Messrs:
Argue	Harkness
Ashbourne	Healy
Bertrand	Hetland
Beyerstein	Hodgson
Black (Chateauguay- Hunter	
Huntingdon-Laprairie) Knowles	
Blackmore	Lapalme
Boivin	MacLean (Cape Breton
Bonnier	North and Victoria)
Browne (St. John's Maltais	
West)	McDonald (Parry Sound-
Bryce	Muskoka)
Cameron	McGregor
Cardiff	Mclvor
Cauchon	McLean (Huron-Perth)
Cavers	McWilliam
Charlton	Murray (Cariboo)
Cruickshank	Murray (Oxford)
Darroch	Robertson
Decore	Shaw
Douglas	Sinnott
Fauteux	Smith (Queens-
Ferguson	Shelburne)
Ferrie	Stanfield
Follwell	Studer
Fontaine	Tustin
Gagnon	Weaver
Gingras	Whitman
Gosselin	Wright-54
Gour (Russell)	
	(Quorum- )
RESTAURANT	
(Members to act	on the part of the Commons)
Mr. Speaker and Messrs:
Breithaupt
Casselman
Cournoyer
Dewar
Ferguson
Gauthier (Sudbury) Gour (Russell) Hansell Harkness Jutras Lafontaine Langlois (Berthier-Maskinonge)
Leger
Lesage
Little
McCulloch
McGregor
Ratelle
Richard (Ottawa East)
Rochefort
Simmons
Stewart (Winnipeg North) Stick
White (Hastings-Peterborough) -24.
(Quorum-	)
(Members to act on the part of the Commons)
Mr. Speaker and Messrs:
Applewhaite	Jones
Beyerstein	Kirk (Digby-Yarmouth)
Blackmore	Knight
Brown (Essex West)	LaCroix
Carroll	Laing
Carter	Leger
Casselman	MacNaught
Cleaver	Mcllraith
Conacher	Pearkes
Coyle	Proudfoot
Dechene	Ratelle
Demers	Rochefort
Eudes	Ross (Hamilton East)
Fauteux	Rowe
Gingues	Smith (York North)
Gourd (Chapleau)	Smith (Moose Mountain)
Hansell	Tustin
Hellyer	Valois
Henderson	White (Middlesex East)
Higgins	Whiteside
Homuth	Winkler
Hunter	Wood-44.
(Quorum- )
Mr. Weir moved: that the report be concurred in.


Mr. Knowles:: Does the list as presented include the names of the members of the special committee on railways and shipping owned, operated and controlled by the government?


William Gilbert Weir: No, it does not.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the house that I have received the following communication:
Ottawa, February 27, 1950
Sir:
I have the honour to inform you that the Right Honourable Thibaudeau Rinfret, Chief Justice of Canada, acting as Deputy of His Excellency the Governor General, will proceed to the Senate chamber on Tuesday, the 28th February, at 5.45 p.m., for the purpose of giving the royal assent to certain bills.
I have the honour to be, sir,
Your obedient servant,
J. F. Delaute
Assistant Secretary to the Governor General


William Gilbert Weir: That a message be sent to the Senate to acquaint Their Honours that this house will unite with them in the formation of a joint committee of both houses on the subject of the printing of parliament, and that the following members, namely: Messrs. Argue, Ashbourne, Bertrand, Beyerstein, Black (Chateauguay-Huntingdon-Laprairie), Blackmore, Boivin, Bonnier, Browne (St. John's West), Bryce, Cameron, Cardiff, Cauchon, Cavers, Charlton, Cruickshank, Darroch, Decore, Douglas, Fauteux,

Standing Committees
Ferguson, Ferrie, Follwell, Fontaine, Gagnon, Gingras, Gosselin, Gour (Russell), Harkness, Healy, Hetland, Hodgson, Hunter, Knowles, Lapalme, MacLean (Cape Breton North and Victoria), Maltais, McDonald (Parry Sound-Muskoka), McGregor, Mclvor, McLean (Huron-Perth), MeWilliam, Murray (Cariboo), Murray (Oxford), Robertson, Shaw, Sinnott, Smith (Queens-Shel-burne), Stanfield, Studer, Tustin, Weaver, Whitman and Wright, will act as members on the part of this house on the said joint committee on the printing of parliament.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
William Gilbert Weir: That Mr. Speaker and Messrs. Applewhaite, Beyerstein, Blackmore, Brown (Essex West), Carroll, Carter, Casselman, Cleaver, Conacher, Coyle, Dechene, Demers, Eudes, Fauteux, Gingues, Gourd (Chapleau), Hansell, Hellyer, Henderson, Higgins, Homuth, Hunter, Jones, Kirk (Digby-Yarmouth), Knight, LaCroix, Laing, Leger, Mac-Naught, McHraith, Pearkes, Proudfoot, Ratelle, Rochefort, Ross (Hamilton East), Rowe, Smith (York North), Smith (Moose Mountain), Tustin. Valois, White (Middlesex East), Whiteside, Winkler and Wood be appointed to assist Mr. Speaker in the direction of the library of parliament so far as the interests of the House of Commons are concerned, and to act as members of the joint committee of both houses on the library; and that a message to sent to the Senate to acquaint Their Honours therewith.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
William Gilbert Weir: That Mr. Speaker and Messrs. Breithaupt, Casselman, Cournoyer, Dewar, Ferguson, Gauthier (Sudbury), Gour (Russell), Hansell, Harkness, Jutras, Lafontaine, Langlois (Berthier-Maskinonge), Leger, Lesage, Little, McCulloch, McGregor, Ratelle, Richard (Ottawa East), Rochefort, Simmons, Stewart (Winnipeg North), Stick and White (Hastings-Peterborough), be appointed to assist Mr. Speaker in the direction of the restaurant so far as the interests of the House of Commons are concerned, and to act as members of a joint committee of both houses on the restaurant; and that a message be sent to the Senate to acquaint Their Honours therewith.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent (Prime Minister) moved:: That the standing committees of this house shall severally be empowered to examine and inquire into all such matters and things as may be referred to them by the house, and to report from time to time their observations and opinions thereon, with power to send for persons, papers and records.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Right. Hon. L. S. St. Laurent (for the Minister of Trade and Commerce) moved
that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to amend the Research Council Act to provide for the appointment of an additional vice-president of the national research council, and to bring the act into conformity with the Patent Act as to the definition of "invention".
He said:	His Excellency the Governor
General, having been made acquainted with the subject matter of this resolution, recommends it to the consideration of the house.


[Stage Direction]
106th birthday
On the orders of the day:
Mr. L. E. Roberge (Siansiead):: Mr. Speaker, on a question of privilege, there is a severe case of unemployment in my constituency which I hope we shall not have to solve. I refer to a very dear old lady, Mrs. Emma Moir, of Beebe, Quebec, who is celebrating her 106th birthday today. Through you, Mr. Speaker, I wish to send her our congratulations and to wish her health and happiness.

Hon. Douglas Abbot! (Minister of Finance) moved that the house go into committee of supply.



TRADE CONDITIONS


Mr. J. G. Diefenbaker (Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, history and tradition combine on a motion such as the one which has just been made, to give to members of the House of Commons an opportunity to bring to the attention of His Majesty's advisers such matters as, in their opinion, are of importance. It is the highest privilege that is possessed by members of parliament. It goes back some 475 years. It enables any member of the house to bring to the attention of the executive matters which, in the view of those who take advantage of the opportunity and privilege so offered, should be given immediate consideration.
On this occasion I shall bring to the attention of the ministry and the House of Commons a question that has been discussed on other occasions; and in order to give the house an opportunity to declare its view I shall move an amendment. Hon. members, realizing, as they must, the situation with respect to trade conditions, will thereby have the opportunity of making their contribution towards the solution of this most difficult problem.
I shall not make a lengthy speech at this time, nor shall I enter into a great deal of
[Mr. Weir.)

statistical detail. I listened the other day, with the interest that a declaration by the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson) demands, and I was impressed by the view that he expressed-the division of the world as between those who believe in democracy and those who espouse communism. He dealt in particular with the situation in Asia, and indicated that some consideration had been given to the question of trade, but apparently left a more detailed discussion in that regard to the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Mayhew), who we hope we shall hear shortly in this house. All of us in democratic nations must realize that only by the preservation of our trade and the maintenance of a high level of employment can communism in fact be prevented from spreading and existing on an even wider scale than it does.
I am not going into the agricultural side of the trade picture at this time; but food is in general the antidote to communism. Food and a higher standard of living spell the answer of the free peoples to communism, when they are combined with a democratic and free way of life. A depressed economy, unemployment, lost markets and the like, will lead to the spreading of false ideologies throughout the world. The United Nations itself has drawn attention to this within the last few days. A report published on February 17 by representative United Nations economist's is to the effect, among other things, that the world trade situation became worse in 1949, and that all efforts to achieve trade balances have failed. The space devoted to the world trade situation, says the author of this article, Mr. Norman Altstedter, indicated that economists regard this as the No. 1 economic problem. The article states that world production continued to increase and that employment remained at a high level. As far as Canada was concerned it said:
But Canada also experienced some difficulty in finding outside markets for some surplus commodities including wood products. She could expect the same for wheat.
Then the reason was given for this situation in the world:
The basic problem outlined is disruption of the old pattern of three-cornered trade. European countries formerly paid for their imports from the United States by selling commodities to underdeveloped countries for dollars.
The under-developed countries now are short of dollars because their exports to the United States have been reduced through war devastation, development of synthetic substitutes in the United States, and increased consumption in the under-developed countries of their own products.
The same view has been expressed by economists regularly in our own country in national periodicals. I quote only one, Mr. Trade
P. M. Richards, writing in Toronto Saturday Night of February 17, 1950. He not only deals with the problem but gives the reason for its existence and continuance. These are his words:
At this moment the world is completing its division into three separate economic areas, each with its own trade fence around it. One is soviet Russia and its satellites; another is the sterling area; the third is the United States of America and Canada. Scarcely anything could be more economically hurtful to Canada. ... It is important to note that this division between the soft currency countries and ourselves does not originate with them, but with us.
In 1948 the importance of foreign trade to our country was pinpointed in an address by the Secretary of State for External Affairs, at that time under-secretary, when he used these words:
World trade to Canada is the difference between the full dinner pail and the breadline.
Those words were epigrammatic, powerful and descriptive of the situation; for unless we maintain our trade with the commonwealth countries and other countries-without in any way interfering with our trade with the United States, with which I am not going to deal-our unemployment situation cannot improve; indeed it will deteriorate.
There are some who say that our unemployment situation is not serious. In the February, 1950, edition of The Listening Post, publication of the Canadian federation of mayors and municipalities, these words appear:
The federation views this trend, this mounting incidence of unemployment, with grave concern. The municipal governments are in no better position today to meet the cost of unemployment relief than they were during the depression decade of the thirties.
This is not anything new, and for the past two and a half years we on this side of the house, without regard to party, have been pressing upon the government the necessity of taking this house and the people of Canada into their confidence and letting us and them know the situation in reference to this question of trade. We warned, but we were ridiculed, and what we said was answered by so-called statistical information. Statistics do not supply employment for men and women out of work. We pointed out the trade position before the last election, but because of the fact that $460 million was made available in Canada by way of income tax returns and wheat payments, there was extra purchasing power and a higher level of employment than otherwise would have been the case. The deteriorating trade situation to which we referred was stressed in the press: in the

Trade
Financial Post of January, 1949; and in Canadian Business of April, 1949, which contained the report of an address by Mr. Henry G. Birks, in which he used these words:
The enormous shadow of this problem is casting its shadow over this dominion.
The Canadian Exporters Association, made up of men engaged in business, presented a brief to like effect to the government in 1949. In summary they said that Canada was losing old and well-established trade connections with many parts of the British commonwealth and empire. While admitting the need for United States dollars, they argued that the normal pattern of Canada's export trade should not be obscured, and' that the needs of the future should be kept in mind. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce also warned the government in 1949. Instead of information being given to us, information was hidden from us. When members of this house asked to be taken' into the confidence of the government, the reply was that all was well, in spite of the fact that conditions were gradually deteriorating everywhere so far as our trade was concerned, other than our trade with the United States.
Canada's exports to the United States during 1949 were the highest in our history, amounting to $1,503,500,000; it is only fair to admit that. On the other hand, our imports from the United States amounted to $1,951,900,000, leaving a trade deficit of $427,800,000. That was an increase over the previous year of about $144 million, a situation which should challenge our attention.
In 1949 our imports from the United Kingdom reached a total of $307,400,000 the highest in our history. Canada had a surplus with the United Kingdom of $401,800,000, compared with a surplus of less than that for 1948, thereby widening instead of reducing the trade gap. The situation was known, and yet after the last session we went home, as we did in April, with little information about the true situation. Then, as now, we were willing to co-operate, as Canadians, in assisting the government in its endeavour to find a solution to this problem.
How many members in this house, Mr. Speaker, know much about the Geneva trade agreements? Two years ago there was great haste to call parliament together to consider those agreements. I remember well the night of November 17, 1947, when the then prime minister, Mr. Mackenzie King, indicated that those agreements represented the greatest advance in the history of world trade. Parliament was called together, and what happened? We heard no more about it. Parliament had been called for the particular purpose of ratifying those agreements, but

nothing was done about them. What is the situation, so far as Canada is concerned, in respect of the Geneva trade agreements?
I should like to ask the government what happened to the reciprocal trade negotiations with the United States which were undertaken two or three years ago. Much was made of the potentialities of a draft trade agreement with the United States, but we have not heard any more about it. Rumour had it that it was drafted, and then dropped, and all discussion ended by the action of the Canadian government. As recently as March 22 last the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) indicated that when the legislation before the United States congress, known as the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, was passed, Canada would have an opportunity of seeking further trade agreements with that country. What has been done? Must we always be in the dark? Are these not matters that affect parliament and the Canadian people? Must we know what is happening in the matter of trade only after the negotiations have been completed and an agreement entered into? Surely the members of this house should be given an opportunity to discuss these matters tentatively, to the end that in a community of counsel there would be some solutions suggested that would be helpful to the government.
As stated earlier, I am dealing particularly with the British commonwealth. I have before me an editorial from the Financial Post, dated January 29, 1949. It is entitled, "Must we write off our British trade?" Near the end of the article, it states:
It is high time we learned how we fit into this new policy of barter deals-
That is, British barter.
-and colonial food development. Literally hundreds of thousands of Canadian jobs, and scores of Canadian communities, are dependent on our overseas trade, not to mention millions of dollars in land, plant and equipment. If we are not to be hurt, and hurt seriously, in the near future, then we must see clearly what is coming, and if necessary make other plans at once.
That article was published over one year ago. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, what has been done during the thirteen months that has since elapsed? We on this side of the house believe that immediate action must be taken to correct the deterioration of our overseas markets. Canada will not build up markets by optimistic government statements not founded on fact. We shall not build up these markets by bland optimism and diffusive satisfaction expressed by the government.
It has never been explained to us what the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) meant by a statement he made in a speech to the board of trade at Brantford on December 5, 1949. I shall read his words, and I

think it is time that parliament and the people of Canada are made to realize their meaning. When the minister used these words he was not speaking off the record; he was speaking from a prepared text. He said:
During the last two years a very decided official effort has been made to drive every one of these products,

He was speaking of apples, pork, eggs and cheese, as well as beef and milk.
-excepting wheat, off the British market. And now that the four-year wheat contract is drawing to a close an effort is being made to drive off a considerable part of our wheat as well. Therefore if Canada's agriculture was to be threatened further in the "cold war" over exchange, even free trade farmers would have to advise all farmers to buy where they could sell.
The time has come when parliament has a right to ask the Minister of Agriculture what he meant by those words. Who were the officials who were making the effort in Britain to drive out those products? Who were the persons who were threatening a continuance of the "cold war?" These are things that only an open conference can determine, when representatives from all parts of the commonwealth get together.
I am not saying the government has not tried to preserve our trade. We have had delegations running all over the world, pilgrimages with boards of advisers travelling hither and yon. What do they bring back but reports? They report on how they enjoyed themselves, how valuable the meetings were; but we never find out what the valuable things are which emanate from these pilgrimages. Certainly it is fine to see our perambulating peripatetic representatives travelling around the world. It is all very well to have Canada attending conferences, but surely we have the right to know what they accomplish, outside of an expenditure of money which parliament is asked to vote for these visits. I am not saying the government has not tried.


Mr. Mcllraiih:: Do you want us to recall
the trade representatives?


John George Diefenbaker: The parliamentary assistant will have every opportunity to tell us. He has not, however, been one of those who travelled. He has not any of the sunburn some of the others have acquired.


George James McIlraith: Answer the question.


John George Diefenbaker: I cannot hear these babbling interferences, Mr. Speaker, which are spoken in a voice designed to ensure that they be not heard, except by Hansard.


Mr. Robinson:: The hon. member does not
want to answer.
Trade


John George Diefenbaker: I shall read, Mr. Speaker, from an article appearing in the Toronto Daily Star on February 11 last. Amongst other things, it says:
United Kingdom manufacturers today were told unless they increased exports to dollar countries "we shall have to go without many of the essential foods and. raw materials we buy from the U.S. and Canada."
Then it quotes the Prime Minister as saying:
It is very strongly in our national interests to encourage imports of British goods into Canada.
That is a proper statement. According to the article, the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) used these words:
For a long time Canadians have wanted to purchase more from the sterling area.
In other words it has not been a lack of governmental desire, but the representations made to Britain have not been made in an open conference, so that all may know where the responsibility lies for their lack of success.
I quote now from a press report, of February 10, of an interview by Mr. Warren Baldwin, while he was in London, with Lord Swinton, deputy leader of the Conservative party in the House of Lords. Amongst other things, Lord Swinton said this:
You and I have our own ideas of things that could be done if we get together around the conference table.
The former prime minister used to say that in a conference, when men have their feet under a table, they are able to arrive at conclusions, and more surely provided they represent the peoples and parliaments. May I point out that Lord Beaverbrook, on February 16, said this, as reported in the London Daily Express:
The Canadian economic situation can only be satisfied if Britain, in her strength, remains the market for empire produce on which Canada's farmers depend altogether. . . .
I shall quote now the chief representative of a group of businessmen, the Canadian Exporters Association. Speaking in Port Arthur on February 22, John A. Marsh, general manager, is reported as follows:
Addressing the Port Arthur chamber of commerce, he made the suggestion as one point in a program which might be carried out by, Canada, the United States and Britain to relieve present trade difficulties.
He asked that Canada call such a conference, to be held in Ottawa, in the belief that the commonwealth and empire is a "good and honourable association of nations for the good of the world and for trade."
Then he used these words:
There are many indications that several of the sister dominions would welcome such a conference.

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and that many of the colonies, particularly the British West Indies, would await the findings with great interest.
That is the suggestion made by a leading representative of a group of exporters. We in this party believe that parliament should be given an opportunity to vote on the question whether such a conference should be convened-not to make the commonwealth an exclusive trading area, but to the end that while continuing our trading relations with the United States and other nations, we might restore to ourselves the markets that have been lost during the last few years. We believe that such a meeting would be advantageous. No longer would information be hidden behind the shrouds of secrecy. Action is necessary.
We have a good trade administration service in most of the countries of the world. The Canadian trade commissioner service has done excellent work. There are now ninety-five commissioners operating in forty-five countries. The men who operate there need as support for their efforts a declaration of policy from all parts of this commonwealth and empire with regard to trade, and particularly the restoration of markets that have been recently lost. Other commonwealth conferences, both economic and political, have resulted in good. None has ever resulted in harm.
As I listened to the Secretary of State for External Affairs the other day I was impressed as he reviewed what happened in Colombo, and as he indicated the pride we have in this commonwealth and in all parts of it. We did not hear much about trade discussions there; we were not let in on that. Apparently it was not a trade conference; in reality it was a conference for discussion and the making of recommendations, but not for implementing in any way the recommendations that were made.
We believe that a trade conference at gov-vernment level would bring results. We believe such a conference should not be a hush-hush meeting. We believe that the British people should know if there is over there, as the Minister of Agriculture indicated, anyone in official circles who has interfered with our trade and is boycotting us in any way. We should know, as should the British people, who those officials are. We believe that if such a conference were convened, bringing together representatives at government level who have a full realization of the situation facing the commonwealth and empire, and the desire to rehabilitate all parts of the commonwealth and empire by the return of trade to at least its former level, it would go a long way toward providing in this 
country jobs for the unemployed, whose members may greatly increase within the next few months or the next few years. We believe that if men and women were brought together in such a conference, responsibility would be placed on the shoulders of those who are responsible for diverting trade from Canada; for that is what the Minister of Agriculture's statement means, if it means anything at all. We would have an entire blueprint of production within the commonwealth and empire, and we would have arrangements made in the spirit which has actuated members of this commonwealth and empire in the past, to the end that prosperity may be assured, at least to the extent of preserving the markets which we had and which are lost.
Exercising, therefore, the traditional right of parliament when a motion such as the one before us has been made I move in amendment, seconded by the hon. member for Duf-ferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe):
That all the words after "that" to the end of the question be deleted and the following substituted therefor:
"ihis house is of the opinion that the government should take immediate steps to convene at the earliest possible date a conference of the nations of the British commonwealth and the countries of the empire to devise policies to restore our lost markets, and thereby to provide jobs for our Canadian people."


Mr. M. J. Coldwell (Roseiown - Biggar):: The
hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker), Mr. Speaker, has proposed an amendment having to do with a subject which is of great interest not only to the house but to the entire country. I have no doubt that at this session much of the attention of parliament will be given, and properly so, to the problem of our trading relationships; and particularly will hon. members be desirous, I hope, of doing what they can to assist the government in restoring Canada's trade position and protecting ourselves against the loss of markets with which we are now threatened.
I agree with the hon. member when he says that for the last two years, after a very important debate in this house, and statements to the effect, as he has intimated, that the Geneva agreements were a forward step in the history of world trade and trade relationships, we have neither seen nor heard anything of the agreements. There was on the order paper for some time in the session, I believe, of 1948, a resolution calling upon parliament to confirm the Geneva agreements to the extent that they had then been entered into. It was left there because other conferences were being held. Since then we have heard nothing about the Geneva agreements. May I remind the house-


Mr. Abbott:: They are in effect.


Major James William Coldwell: They are in effect, but I am going to repeat what I said: this house has heard nothing about the resolution to confirm the Geneva agreements that we were supposed to consider over two years ago. If the agreements are in effect, I say they should be in effect by and with the consent of parliament, not merely by order in council. That is not good enough, particularly in view of the fact that some of us believed, and so stated, that these Geneva agreements, becoming effective as they did on January 1, 1948, would militate against our trading relationships with our best customer-the United Kingdom.
We adopted the non-discriminatory clauses of the agreement, clauses which need not have been adopted for a whole year if the monetary situation as between Britain and Canada remained difficult. Under the agreement, as I remember it, even at the end of that year we could have gone to the contracting parties and asked for further consideration and an extension of time for putting those trade agreements into effect. That we could have done, and that we did not do. The quotas and prohibitions made effective in 1947 with respect to certain classes of imports into this country, having regard to the trade position as between this country and the United Kingdom, militated more against our trade with the United Kingdom than they did against our trade with the United States.


Douglas Charles Abbott: Exactly the reverse.


Major James William Coldwell: Well, let me call the hon. gentleman to witness. A short time ago he made the announcement that quotas and prohibitions were to come off within the next few months, and he said he hoped that would enable the United Kingdom to sell British goods to Canada in larger quantities.


Mr, Abbott:: I do not want to interrupt my hon. friend, but when did I make the statement that quotas and prohibitions were coming off?


Major James William Coldwell: The minister made the statement a short time ago that on the first of April and on the first' of July-


Douglas Charles Abbott: Just to keep the record straight, again this year, as last year, I announced that there would be further relaxations in the import restrictions, some of them on the first of April and some on the first of July. That follows what was done last year. It implements a policy which I set out as government policy, namely, that they would be removed as soon as our exchange position justified such relaxation.


Major James William Coldwell: That is exactly what I was referring to.
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Douglas Charles Abbott: These are the facts.


Major James William Coldwell: As I understood the announcement at the time it was made, it was suggested that it would be of more assistance to the United Kingdom; that the United Kingdom would therefore be able to market more goods in this country. If it was to be of assistance to our trade with the United Kingdom and with the sterling area generally, then the natural inference for one to draw was that these prohibitions and quotas, when they were put on, were barriers against that same trade with the sterling area, and particularly with the United Kingdom.
The hon. member for Lake Centre referred to the statement of the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) on December 5. I have not the document before me. I recall that on December 10 last I referred in the house to that speech. I raised the question, and we had a debate upon it. While the Minister of Agriculture did not deny the accuracy of the statement as reported he did very considerably modify it-or, shall I say, explained away to some extent the implications of the speech.
I have been watching carefully over a considerable period of time the discussions in Great Britain about her trading relationships, and I have not been able to find, from any statement made by a responsible British minister, that the British did desire to discriminate-that was the interpretation- against Canada in the purchase of supplies from abroad. Never on any occasion have I seen a statement of that kind. On the contrary, as the hon. member for Lake Centre has already intimated, I have seen what the financial editor of Toronto Saturday Night indicated, namely, that this is not entirely a British problem. It is our problem as well; the earning of dollars by Britain will enable her to continue and indeed to increase her purchases of goods in this country. It seems to me that is the crux of the situation.
Reading in the London Times some of the questions asked during the recent election campaign in Great Britain of the British Minister of Food, and the answers thereto- and in other British newspapers as well that come by air mail; I try to read them as thoroughly as I can-I have noted that one of the difficulties which the ministry faced was the constant criticism of the rising cost of living, and the question why certain classes of supplies were bought in Canada at higher prices than those at which they could be bought elsewhere. It is suggested that there is a desire on the part of the British to restrict purchases of goods from Canada. But that is not so; and I am not thinking only of the present government; if there was a

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change of government in Britain, the attitude would be the same. No matter what party-may be in power in Great Britain, every attempt will be made to trade as much as possible with this country, because of course our economy is so largely complementary to theirs. No matter what government may be in power in this country, we too must realize that their economy is complementary to ours, and that consequently our best market is in the sterling area. For these reasons I have suggested-and I am going to make the suggestion again-that we should discuss with the British ways and means of maintaining our market in Britain; ways and means of enabling them during this temporary period of difficulty to purchase in Canada the supplies they need. I know there may be some doubt as to whether this can be done, but I believe it is worth while discussing with them the possibility of our accepting, on a temporary basis at least, sterling in payment for Canadian goods-not sterling that will be frozen in Great Britain and therefore an obligation upon them at some future day. It might be used as sterling was once used on this continent, namely, to invest in the undeveloped areas of the world, and of the sterling area particularly.
If the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Lake Centre contemplates that the conference to be called will bring about agreements of the kind that were arrived at in this city some years ago, then I do not think we could possibly agree to it. I do not think we should endeavour at any time to build up around ourselves, or around the commonwealth of nations, trade barriers that would result in other trade barriers being placed around other areas. I did not understand that that was the idea the hon. gentleman had in mind, but I wanted to make it clear that we could not approve that kind of arrangement.
One other thing I want to say is that we in Canada can do something else; we can look over our tariff schedules. There are many Canadian industries that years ago received protection from competition from Great Britain and other parts of the world because they were said to be infant industries. Their infancy has long since passed-not only have they passed their infancy; they have passed their adolescence. They have now grown up and are able to compete in the markets of the world. Therefore we should look over our tariff schedules and customs regulations to see what we can do to ease the duties against countries in the sterling area, so that we may receive more goods more freely and thus enable those countries to earn dollars in this country with which to buy the goods that we have to sell and must sell abroad.

I should like to hear some further discussion by members of the official opposition on what they have in mind with regard to the proposed conference. I do not believe that a conference is ever a bad thing; as the hon. member for Lake Centre says, it is a good thing. But you must have no ulterior motive in attending or calling such a conference. I should like to hear more about what would be considered and what should be done at such a conference. Anything that will enable this country to restore confidence in our markets, that will protect our great agricultural community from the loss of markets with which it has been threatened over the last few months, should be undertaken.
I believe I speak for my colleagues when I say that one of the principal obligations of this house at this time is to review our trading relationships and our tariff structure to see if there is any interference with the sale of our goods abroad. Let us always bear in mind the fact that a tariff wall is not only a wall against imports; in reality it is a wall against the national income. Therefore what we can do to assist in maintaining our production and our income we should endeavour to do, individually and collectively-individually as members of parliament trying to make our own contribution to the welfare of the state, and collectively through the political parties represented in this house, and, perhaps even more so, as the parliament of Canada.


Mr. Vicior Guelch (Acadia):: Mr. Speaker, I was surprised that this question should have been brought up in this way, because after all there are before the house amendments to the address in reply to the speech from the throne which deal with this matter. In saying this I do not mean to indicate that the question is not of vital importance. The peculiar thing about the so-called dollar shortage and the loss of markets is that this is not something that just developed all of a sudden; it has been developing for many months, in fact for a number of years. The thing that people in this country are not able to understand is why we have allowed the situation to reach a climax before taking the necessary steps to stop it.
I was amused at an article which appeared in Toronto Saturday Night of February 7 under the heading, "In praise of fear," by P. M. Richards, and I should like to quote briefly from it as follows:
The silly feature of all this is that the inevitableness of the world dollar crisis should have been obvious from the start. Our politicians and economists and' bankers must surely have known it, yet they consented to follow the line of least immediate resistance.
I think we all feel that way. Then the writer indicated what he thought would be

a solution for the problem. Perhaps this article was written in a somewhat frivolous vein; nevertheless there is a germ of truth in it. Here is the way in which he says such a depression could be avoided:
I have a plan for the avoidance of economic depressions. It's simple, but, I think, should be effective. Each nation would appoint an economic czar, pay him handsomely and treat him with honour so long as he did well, but hang him-no excuses accepted-immediately the economy dipped below a certain level. He would get nice cash bonuses, and extras like beautiful Egyptian dancing girls, if results were extra good. If, unfortunately, they were extra bad, the economic czar's staff would be executed too.
I think men who accept positions of great responsibility for which they are well paid should have some obligation to produce results. What happens is that when they fail they are appointed to the Senate or made judges of the supreme court, or are paid higher salaries in order to encourage them to do better in the future. They suffer no penalty because of their inability to accomplish the task given to them.
I have been interested in recent months reading the speeches of the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner), and I want to congratulate him upon the way in which he places responsibility upon those whom he terms financial crackpots, the economists. I notice that the other day he said that some people are making it difficult to get our surpluses to the areas where they can be consumed. Who are those individuals? I think the Minister of Agriculture, having gone that far, should go a step farther and inform the house just who the people are who are making it impossible to distribute goods that are surplus so that they may be made available to people who need them.
We were told by the conference of the FAO that it would not be wise to adopt the ICCH proposal because it might delay convertibility. I do not believe the people in India, China or other parts of the world who are suffering from starvation consider it a good excuse when they are told that they must continue to suffer, in spite of the fact that there are large surpluses, just because it might delay convertibility of currency. I think they are far more interested in getting goods that might be made available to them than in seeing the convertibility of currency established.
As I say, the matter was crystal clear many months ago-in fact many years ago, back as far as 1944 and 1945. During those years this house debated at great length the question of the financing of international trade, and the matter was referred to the committee on reconstruction. We had Dr. Clark, the deputy
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minister of finance, before us, and the question was discussed at some length. I criticized the proposals that were placed before the committee, which were the forerunners of the Bretton Woods agreement, on the ground that they did not provide the means, in the first place, by which the devastated areas of Europe could be rehabilitated. It did not provide a method whereby these nations could get back rapidly into production. Furthermore, there was no provision under these financial arrangements whereby the creditor nations would be obliged to accept payment for their exports by taking imports from the areas that had rebuilt their industries.
The same argument was advanced on the discussion of the Bretton Woods agreement. I want to remind the Conservatives that at that time apparently they did not realize exactly what the Bretton Woods agreement stood for. Therefore we are suffering today from the consequences of that agreement because nobody in the house could possibly suggest that the funds provided under it could meet the great unbalance of trade today. Yet we were told then that that proposal would meet the financial needs of the world in the postwar transitional period and for a long time afterward.
The other day I put on the record a statement by Mr. Snyder to that effect. We have been told time and again that we do not want to have a recurrence of the kind of trade restrictions and controls that we had in the depression years. Indeed, anybody who studies that period will find that the reason these controls had to be put into operation was to bring about an adjustment in trade relations. The depression came first and then the controls were adopted to rectify the situation. I think that is made quite clear in a publication issued by the United States department of commerce entitled "The United States in the World Economy". At page 13, under the heading "Future Problems and Policies", I find the following:
Unless the supply of dollars is more adequate to meet the requirements of other countries, they assuredly will insist on their rights to exercise a close selective control over the use of the amounts available and to promote more intensive relations with third countries under preferential trading arrangements. And unless dollars are made available with greater regularity than in the past it would be both unjust and unwise to demand the removal of restraints and controls largely designed to protect the internal economies of other countries against external shock and pressure.
During the discussion of the Bretton Woods agreement we pointed out time and time again that it had a definite pro-creditor bias, that it placed absolutely no responsibility whatsoever upon creditor nations to accept payment from debtor nations in the only

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way that the debtor nation could pay, by the exports of goods. At that time we were told it was a question of trade agreements, and that later on international trade agreements would be brought down which would place the responsibility where it should be. Later on we had the Geneva trade agreement. Did that take care of the situation? The Geneva trade agreement made the matter ten times worse. Not only did it leave on the debtor nation the obligation to balance trade, but it also placed upon the debtor nations restrictions that made it absolutely impossible for them to protect themselves against excess exports from creditor nations.
I am referring of course to the nondiscrimination clause. The pamphlet to which I have referred, "The United States in the World Economy", emphasizes the fact that debtor nations must be allowed to exercise controls and restraints on trade in order to protect their balance of payments. The Geneva trade agreement was referred to the standing committee on banking and commerce, but was not endorsed by it. It was returned to the house without being endorsed, and it has never been brought back to parliament. Why? It. is a very strange thing. This government is operating under the Geneva trade agreement. The government made agreements with other nations endorsing it. It was sent to the banking committee, failed to get endorsation, and has never been brought back before parliament. Nevertheless we are continuing either to operate under it or to pay lip service to it.


Mr. Low:: Hear, hear. Where did they get their authority?


Victor Quelch: The vicious thing about the Geneva trade agreement is the so-called policy of non-discrimination. Surely it must be obvious that if a nation has an unbalance of trade with one nation and a favourable balance of trade with another it should be allowed to restrict its imports from the nation with which it has an unfavourable balance and increase its imports from the one with which it has a favourable balance. Yet, under the Geneva trade agreement, if a nation curtails its imports from one country it must curtail all similar imports from all other nations as well, even though it may have a favourable balance of trade with some of the other nations. The thing is absolutely unjustifiable. It cannot be defended on any score. I notice at the time we were discussing it no real defence was made for the so-called policy of non-discrimination. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) made some slight excuse in the house one day. He said that the United States was very keen on it and he thought we

should play along with them, or words to that effect. I am not quoting him exactly, but he certainly gave the impression that just because the United States was insistent upon this policy, and we were very much dependent upon the good will of that country-


Douglas Charles Abbott: Not at all; the Minister of Finance believes in non-discrimination himself, and he said so.


Victor Quelch: Who said so?


Douglas Charles Abbott: I did, and not because the United States believe in it but because we believe in it.


Victor Quelch: The Minister of Finance stated that the United States was making a fetish of it, and because they were so strongly in favour of it we were supporting it. Do not forget that under the Geneva trade agreement there were escape clauses which were put in there because it was recognized it would be impossible for certain nations to live up to these proposals. But the Minister of Finance said he was not prepared to use the escape clauses. He thought we should live up to the principle of the agreement. Why were the escape clauses put in there? They were put in because it was recognized apparently that they would be necessary in the transitional period, and it was evidently hoped that within a few years they would no longer be necessary. It is recognized that by 1952 we will not have established an equilibrium in world trade. That is frankly admitted by the interim report of ERP.
A lot of discussion has taken place as to what measures will be taken after Marshall aid ends. I think it is recognized by all people that some other kind of measure will have to be found. I am greatly disappointed that the government did not see fit to support the proposal put forward by the commodity experts of FAO. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) stated he believed in the underlying principle, but on the other hand he was not going to support it because he apparently felt that we in Canada could do many of the things proposed thereunder. He believed we could store our surpluses and could finance directly with the nations concerned instead of financing through the international commodity clearing house. I am not criticizing the government on that score if that is their policy. If the policy of the government now is to take steps to store our surpluses until they are needed, if it is their policy to finance exports of goods to nations that have not the dollars to pay for them, if they will do that, then I will have no criticism of the government for failing to support the international commodity clearing

house. On the other hand, if they do not do so then I say they have definitely committed a breach of faith with the people of Canada and other peoples of the world. After all the lip service we have paid to such organizations as the United Nations and FAO, if we allow surpluses to accumulate and production to be reduced when there are starving people in need of them I say it shows a lack of sincerity on the part of the people who are dealing with these measures.
So far as the amendment is concerned it could mean a lot and it could mean nothing at all. If the proposal is that we convene a conference of the members of the commonwealth, if we are prepared to consider realistic proposals such as will recognize that the creditor nations have an equal responsibility with the debtor nations for balancing trade; if we will recognize that to the extent of being willing to accept imports in exchange for exports, investing surplus pounds in the underdeveloped countries, then perhaps we would have some chance of success. Furthermore, if we are prepared to recognize that the so-called policy of non-discrimination under the Geneva trade agreements is not a sound policy, then I think a conference of that kind might accomplish something. On the other hand, if the Conservatives are advocating a conference in order to bring in the kind of proposals they continue to support in this house, such as the proposal to make currencies convertible today, the thing would be doomed before it ever met. We have heard so many statements by members of the Conservative party criticizing the government for not having made currency convertible. To talk of the convertibility of currency in a world where there is an over-all disequilibrium of over $6,000 million is of course absolute and utter nonsense.


Douglas Charles Abbott: Mr. Speaker, I do not propose to take a great deal of time speaking to this amendment. I had not contemplated doing so, but in the course of the discussion two or three points have been raised on which I might say a word.
The amendment proposed by the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) asks that Canada take the initiative in calling another conference, as he puts it, of the nations of the British commonwealth and empire, to devise policies to restore our lost markets and thereby provide jobs for our Canadian people. As the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) said, conferences of this kind are always helpful. I am not just sure what my hon. friend would suggest as the agenda for such a conference. I am not sure, as was indicated by the hon.
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member for Rosetown-Biggar, whether this would be another conference such as was held in the early thirties, for raising tariffs and creating a special, preferred area. If it were to be that sort of conference I for one, as the hon. member said, would not want to take part in it.
It is true that there are many difficulties in connection with trading in the world today; but my experience has not been that those difficulties are due to a lack of conferences. I have attended some myself, including the Bretton Woods conference to which allusion was made a short time ago. On short notice I went to London last July to a meeting which was attended by the finance ministers of the nations of the commonwealth, at which inevitably trade matters were discussed. It was a very helpful conference, and led to the further meeting in Washington in September, at which trade and financial matters were again discussed, and at which I think certain desirable long-term objectives were laid down and certain short-term policies were agreed upon which have proved helpful. Frankly, however, I do not think the trading problems of the world are going to be solved by simply calling another conference. I for one do not like to either initiate or attend a conference unless I know exactly what we are going to talk about. While I have no doubt it will be found desirable to hold further conferences to discuss trade matters, I do not know that the holding of a full-fledged commonwealth or empire conference at this time would add very much to the knowledge of this or any other member of the commonwealth in reference to specific solutions which can be found for these trade difficulties.
Now I want to say just a word about the references that have been made to the Geneva trade agreements. As the house knows, those agreements have been given only provisional application as far as Canada is concerned. They are in effect, and have been in effect for some eighteen months, I think. They have proved of the greatest benefit to this country; and in my opinion the substantial increase in our exports to the United States last year was in large part a result of the very definite tariff concessions we obtained under those Geneva agreements. They are subject to ratification by the congress of the United States, as they are subject to ratification by this parliament; and it is perhaps just as well that we should not try to rush them through our parliament before they have been brought up for consideration in congress.


Major James William Coldwell: Were they not on the order paper for a long time?

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Douglas Charles Abbott: That is quite true; they were on the order paper but were not reached before parliament dissolved.
So much for the Geneva agreements themselves. I want to say just a word about the policy of non-discrimination to which such exception has been taken by the hon. member for Acadia (Mr. Quelch). If any country in the world had an interest in establishing as a trading policy that one country should not discriminate against another by putting on arbitrary embargoes, prohibitions and' the like, that country is Canada. My hon. friend comes from' a part of the country which, I understand, is very interested in exporting beef cattle to the United States, as well as other agricultural products. If we got into this ring-around-a-rosy of discrimination nothing would be easier than for the United States to say, "We will just put an embargo against Canadian cattle coming into the United1 States," and I do not think that would be in the interests of Canada. The same thing goes for a great many other things; and that applies not only to the United States but to many other countries as well. So, as far as I am concerned, and I believe I am expressing the views of the government in this respect, we stand four-square for a principle of nondiscrimination. As far as this country is concerned a reasonable tariff is the only form of barrier we want to place against importations; and we are constantly striving to reduce tariffs by reciprocal agreements with other countries.
If hon. members will recall for a moment the history of this country since 1935 they will remember that as soon as this government got back into power it negotiated the first reciprocal trade agreement with the United States. That was followed by two later treaties, one of which was really a three-way treaty with the United Kingdom; and it was then that our trading position with the United States began to improve. Now we sell to that country, speaking from memory, something of the order of a billion and1 a half dollars' worth of goods and1 services each year. That is an absolutely vital factor in our trade; and any policy we adopted which might be considered by our southern neighbour as unfriendly would, I think, be an extremely undesirable policy for Canada.
There was only one other point raised to which I want to make brief reference; that is the suggestion by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar that we should accept sterling for some of the surplus products we have available for sale but which some of our customers in the soft currency areas say they have not the money to buy. The hon. member qualified his suggestion by saying we

should not accept blocked sterling, but should take sterling we could use a little later to do something or other with, or to invest in some other part of the world. I would point out that, nevertheless, in effect we would be taking blocked sterling, because today sterling is not a convertible currency. Our producers and our workers cannot take sterling and use it to pay their bills. So for the exports we sold in exchange for sterling we would have to provide Canadian dollars to our own citizens; in other words we would be extending additional credit to those purchasers. That may or may not be desirable; but I think the house and the country should realize that in taking sterling in payment for our goods we are extending credit; and in addition, for what it may be worth, we are assuming an exchange risk as well.
My view, which I have voiced here previously, is that if we are able and willing to extend additional credits to other countries, we should do so in terms of our own currency. At the present time, as the house knows, we are continuing to extend credit to the United Kingdom at the rate of $10 million a month on the very substantial credit originally arranged. In my opinion that is all we can afford to extend at the present time, because it must be remembered that one country cannot extend credit to another except in one of three ways. It must consume less than it is producing, and in Canada today we are consuming very close to what we are producing. There is little surplus for extending credit abroad. Second, we can borrow money somewhere else, in order to lend it to a third party. In other words, it would be quite possible for us to borrow money in the United States, in order to extend credit to the United Kingdom or western Europe. But I have never heard it seriously suggested we should follow that course. Third, we could extend that credit out of our accumulated reserves of gold and United States dollars. I do not think I need to tell the house that those reserves today, while they are improving, are certainly no more than adequate for the requirements of a trading nation such as Canada.
By imposing still more rigid import restrictions, embargoes and one thing and another, which would prevent people importing from the United States such essential things as steel and coal, we could reduce our consumption, and so have more available for lending abroad. Perhaps I need hardly point out to the house that Canada today is a country which requires substantial capital investments. The oil fields in western Canada, which are in the process of development, require a substantial capital investment.

I must say, therefore, that I feel it is unrealistic to expect that we in Canada can produce any substantial over-all surplus which would be available for foreign lending. We will do what we can in the future, as we have in the past. I do not think anyone should be under the illusion that we can extend additional credit, whether by accumulating sterling for investment in Burma, India or anywhere else, or any other form of credit, unless we are prepared to restrict our own consumption in this country.
I do not know that there is anything more I have to add. The motion which has been proposed by the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker), on a motion to go into supply, amounts to a motion of want of confidence. I repeat what I said at the beginning, that I do not think anything is to be gained by a further conference of the kind suggested. Whatever our difficulties may be, they are not due to a lack of conferences. Such conferences, however, are always helpful. We have never refused an invitation to attend a conference of this kind. May I close by saying that I do not think any steps need be taken by Canada to initiate such a conference.
Hon, W. Earl Rowe (Dufferin-Simcoe): Mr. Speaker, I am happy to second the motion moved by the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker). I believe it is of vital importance to this country. I am not at all disturbed, and I trust other hon. members will not be disturbed, by the suggestion of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) that this is some devious means by which v/e are going to raise tariffs in some imperial trading club, and thus interfere with the trade we have with the United States of America. Let me assure you, sir, and assure this house that that is not the sort of motion that has been moved. I feel that no one should know that better than the Minister of Finance, or his colleague the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner).
I recall the same bogey being raised in this house long ago. I was here at the time the famous statement was made by Mr. Mackenzie King, who on a similar occasion, about 1930, told us v/e must not provoke the United States of America. We have grown up, Mr. Speaker, and the United States is prouder of us because we have. A few years after that the countervailing duties were proposed by the same party. Only five years before, they had ridiculed the brick for brick policy of the Right Hon. Arthur Meighen when he led this party. We are not talking about tariffs. Whenever there was any mention of tariffs, there was an immediate cry, "Hush, hush; we must not provoke the United States."
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The United States of America, Mr. Speaker, does not look on this.great independent country of Canada as a child in swaddling clothes. They realize we are one of the greatest trading nations in the world. I agree with the Minister of Finance when he says that Canada will develop into a great trading nation. As our country grows and develops year by year, whether the Liberals, Conservatives or any other party is in power, the natural evolution of Canada will be to trade more and more with the United States of America. Since we live beside the United States, that is the natural thing. I agree with the Minister of Finance when he says we need that country. I understand that at the moment $100 million is needed to develop the great oil fields of western Canada in that rich province of Alberta. Some day it will be, if it is not now, the richest province in the dominion.
As one who has watched the growth of this country, Mr. Speaker, I can visualize pipe lines carrying oil out of Canada, instead of dusty railway cars bringing coal into Canada. I know that one plant has already spent a million dollars in converting the boilers to burn Alberta oil instead of Pennsylvania coal. No one can think of the future of this country without realizing that we are bound to have increased trade with the United States of America. As a farmer, I can even visualize the possibility of the United States increasing its population to such an extent that it will buy more of our agricultural products. There are now 150 million people in that country, while we, with all these natural resources, have such a small population. During election campaigns, we talk about our great hinterland, the oil of western Canada, our coal and such natural resources-[DOT]


Douglas Charles Abbott: And our great paper mills.


Mr. Rowe:: Yes, we have some great paper mills. They are run just as well as this government is running the country, too, but I do not think that is much of a compliment. I do not mean to say that the Minister of Finance could not run a paper mill quite well, either. X am not going to discuss that, however, or be sidetracked. In all seriousness, I do want to say that this motion does not involve any particular commodity, or any particular group of manufacturers. It involves the general economy of this country. In the utmost sincerity, I say that I am appalled and amazed at the attitude of this government.
Last year I read an article in _Montreal
Gazette to the effect that the Minister of Finance inferred there was a great possibility of developing trade with the United States. He seemed to emphasize it. I read another article which stated that the Minister of

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Trade and Commerce had made the same type of speech. There is not an hon. member in this house, from any part of the dominion, who has not a friendly feeling towards the United States, or a most optimistic outlook concerning trade with that country. It is natural. But, Mr. Speaker, surely we can arouse this government from their lethargy. Surely we can impress upon them that we are trying to find a market for products that the United States now has a surplus of, and which they are trying to sell as well. I cannot understand the government's attitude. For instance, the United States is a country that has 230 million pounds of dried milk, 95 million pounds of butter, 22 million pounds of cheese, 64 million pounds of dried eggs or the equivalent of 192 million dozen, 172 million bushels of wheat, 83 million bushels of corn and almost 4 billion bales of cotton now owned by the government


An hon. Member:: Potatoes.


William Earl Rowe: And somebody says potatoes. There are millions of hundredweight of potatoes going at one cent a hundredweight. How can any sane businessman, let alone a member of parliament, think for a moment-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


William Earl Rowe: Yes; probably I might have put it the other way round. How can they judge for a moment that we are going to open up trade avenues for the surplus agricultural products of the mixed farmers of Canada? Stop and think about it. What we are doing today, Mr. Speaker, is pleading with all the sincerity that we possess that this government will continue our friendly trade relations with that greatest country in the world, the United States of America. But we ask them to sit down around a table with the prime ministers of the other British dominions and representatives of the other empire countries. It is true that plenty of excuses can be put up, as has been done by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) today, in order to show what cannot be done. But whether it is in business or private affairs, I find that you never get anywhere by sitting down and trying to find a reason why you cannot do something. We want to show the reasons that it can be done. It has been done before, Mr. Speaker.
What alarms me even more is this. We know that today, even outside our economy, probably the most vital concern of every one of us is security. Those of us who have children and children's children coming on are concerned, as is every hon. member of this house, with the safety and security of our people. The government has the Atlantic

pact for the defence of our security in that respect. We are spending, I believe, $400 million this year and I understand that perhaps next year we may spend even $800 million. I am not criticizing that expenditure. Perhaps it will be necessary to spend a billion. God only knows. We all pray to God that it will not be necessary to go on and on spending in preparation for war. We can talk all we wish, but it is in the power and control of others whether we are going to safeguard our peace or not.
We have learned through history, in the first great war as well as in the second, that armies march on their stomachs, and that the agricultural production of nations is of vital concern. We know how difficult it was in the first war to feed the troops overseas. We know how, in the second war, the poor children of Europe almost starved to death. We know how the British housewife got along-without going into what has been presented in the magazines-living on three or four ounces of butter per week, and with the shortage of other foods. I should like to urge upon the government the vital importance of our production of food and the maintenance of markets to encourage that production, as it is linked, dovetailed and interwoven with our whole defence policy itself. There is no question about that, Mr. Speaker. What are we going to do?
Not so long ago I heard the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner), as did every other hon. member who is here now, telling what might have to happen if the war continued. I remember that one evening he gave an interesting speech in which he told us that the people might have to eat more cereals and less other foodstuffs, and that it might come to the stage where we might have to handle our foodstuffs and our cereals production so that the people could even exist if the war lasted long enough. That is of vital importance. In this cold country, where you have costly machinery and high-priced buildings, you cannot maintain that production unless you have some place in which to market the products at a reasonable rate, even though it is not as high a rate as we have been receiving. I know that some will say, "You are getting better prices today." That is irrelevant. We are not talking about the high prices we have had during the war. There were high prices in 1919, and following the first great war. Wheat went to enormous prices. Hogs went to $26 a hundredweight. I can remember, as can many others in this house, the period back between 1925 and 1930 when even the farmers said, "Oh, this will never end", and so on and so forth. We had enormous markets at that time in Britain.

After 1914 and 1917, when we developed our ability to supply the old land, in normal times when she did not have her food rationed she took enormous quantities from us. In 1921 we sold Britain $77 million worth of meats alone. We sold her 250 million pounds of bacon in 1920. In 1900 we sold her more cheese than we are going to sell her in 1950.
What is wrong? It is all very well to talk about the dollar; but I leave it to you, Mr. Speaker, and to this house to answer that question. Again I say: Would any sane businessman, who had had a customer for fifty years, change customers or forsake him because that customer got a little hard up for a year or two? It is not going to deprive us of the United States markets. The Minister of Finance is only repeating verbatim speeches that were made here when Mr. Robb was minister of finance. I remember an occasion, because I was here in the house at the time-I think it was in 1926-when the same speeches were made. It will be recalled that in our election campaign we used Mr. King's statement:	"You must not provoke the
United States of America." It was used in one of the monthly books we put out as campaign literature.


Mr. Gardiner:: It is a nice thing to belong
to a party that can keep its leaders and its policies.


William Earl Rowe: Yes, it is; but, Mr. Speaker, a former leader of the minister's party, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, said that it was better to break a bad policy than to keep it. I think the minister might look over some of that former leader's words; because if you have failed two or three times, you should at least take the hint and start to learn.
In 1922 the Fordney-McCumber tariff cut our markets off overnight for beef cattle in the United States. Then after we tried not to provoke the United States of America, in 1930 the Hawley-Smoot tariff cut us off overnight. There was nothing wrong about their doing that in the United States. Probably the odd cattle man was a little bit sore for a while, but no hon. member in this house thought any the less of the United States of America for handling their own business. We were selling cattle here in Ontario just a while before that time for about twenty cents a pound. I can well recall selling them, after the Hawley-Smoot tariff-and they were just as good cattle-for a nickel a pound. I remember selling hogs for less. That is all very fine, but we had lost that market.


Douglas Charles Abbott: We are getting a lot of them back now.


William Earl Rowe: Will the minister tell me any of those articles that I have mentioned for
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which there is a permanent market in the United States, when their milk is going rancid?


Douglas Charles Abbott: We are still selling potatoes, coarse grain and beef.


William Earl Rowe: That must be a grand market in which you are selling potatoes, when in that market potatoes are selling for one cent a hundredweight. The minister says sure, that is all right.


Douglas Charles Abbott: We are selling them.


Mr. Sinnott:: That is not our worry.


William Earl Rowe: There you are, Mr. Speaker. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. They do not care what is happening to them.


John Sylvester Aloysius Sinnott: That is not our worry.


William Earl Rowe: The hon. member does not seem to worry much about anything in this regard. I should not say that, because I see he is busy writing a letter and did not hear what was being said. Surely, Mr. Speaker, there is no one within the sound of my voice who will say it is not our worry. What would the minister say, as a capable lawyer and a good businessman, and as Minister of Finance? Would he say that it would be wise to sell our products, and hope for a long time sale of them, to somebody who had more of similar products than he knew what to do with?


Douglas Charles Abbott: I believe in selling our products where we can sell them and getting paid for them.


William Earl Rowe: That is exactly what I am trying to say about the market that we have had. The market to which we have sold the most of our agricultural products in the last three-quarters of a century is the United Kingdom. There is no question about that.


Douglas Charles Abbott: We have never sold potatoes in that market.


William Earl Rowe: I am not going to be disturbed about whether we sell potatoes or not.


Douglas Charles Abbott: Page the hon. member for Victoria-Carleton (Mr. Hatfield).


William Earl Rowe: I never grew many potatoes-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh.


William Earl Rowe: So far as this issue is concerned at the present time I know that in the United States at different times there has been a market for a lot of potatoes.


Douglas Charles Abbott: There surely has.


William Earl Rowe: There surely has, yes; but in 1920 we sold in the British market 250 million pounds of bacon; and in 1930, when we were in somewhat the same position as the minister

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indicates today, we were importing from Denmark bacon which was being sold on the butcher shop counters in Regina, and which had been fattened on western grain as well in Denmark. Denmark was selling to Britain over 600 million pounds of bacon a year. We actually lost that market, as the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) so well knows.
It is true that at the present time there is a socialist government in Britain, but even that might change-
An hen. Member: We hope.


William Earl Rowe: But regardless of that, we have been losing these markets, and no one knows that better than the Minister of Agriculture. He seems to say these things himself but he does not like my saying them. He knows we are losing this market. Several years ago he told us in the house how many trade agreements we had with Britain. He named them over and over. We had trade agreements for cheese, for bacon, for wheat, for eggs, for powdered milk. We had all sorts of trade agreements. We have lost them.


James Garfield Gardiner: We never had as many as you fellows say we had.


William Earl Rowe: We have lost them so fast it was difficult to keep track of them.
In 1946 the United Kingdom drew up new trade agreements with foreign countries, with other parts of the empire, with other parts of the sterling area, and indeed with countries inside and outside the iron curtain. But, Mr. Speaker, that is not the most alarming feature of these trade agreements. The most alarming feature is that they have been drawn up for five and ten years. That is why in all sincerity I urge this government to take cognizance of the motion that has been moved and try to sit around a table with other members of the British commonwealth and empire to see if there is not something they need. I know very well that we have been importing into Canada in the last couple of years millions of dollars' worth of goods that could have been purchased in the sterling area. I know, and other hon. members know, that the United Kingdom was selling to Russia, to Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Poland, heavy steel equipment that we could have used here. Surely, you could sit around with a group of businessmen and work out something on that score. What is going to happen? Why are we going to spend a billion dollars to get ready to support the Atlantic pact unless we are going to be secure in trade? Would it not be the feasible thing to ask around the conference table when you are having a caucus of all the members of the British commonwealth and empire? What is going to happen if some 
time, like a flash in the night, we are in a death struggle with that great power to the west? Could we not say to one of the members of the commonwealth: You have been getting pit props from there; you have been buying your lumber from there; you have been buying a million tons of barley and wheat from there at a time when we cannot sell our wheat. These are conditions that could be developed.
I know that the Minister of Agriculture, every member of the government and every member of the House of Commons must be a bit concerned about the near future. There would have to be a change overnight because we would have to be their suppliers again. Therefore, if we are so essential to them in time of trouble, and we talk so much about the Atlantic pact, and how we must stick together in time of trouble, surely there is a chance to sit down and talk in time of peace.


James Garfield Gardiner: The Tory press will be getting after you.


Mr. Smith (Calgary West):: The Free Press has been getting after you.


William Earl Rowe: I hope I am -not like some hon. members. If the Tory press or the Liberal press gets after me I will not say that I have been misquoted.


Douglas Charles Abbott: Sell them the paper.


James Garfield Gardiner: Sometimes they misquote you.


William Earl Rowe: No, I don't sell them the paper.


James Garfield Gardiner: You may get someone after you because of this speech.


William Earl Rowe: I am not at all disturbed, nor am I ashamed to help make something that brings a lot of money into this country. Not at all. I appreciate the humorous remarks of my hon. friends, but I am still interested in agriculture. I may have too much of agriculture along with the other interests I have at the present time. I have farmed probably as long as the average member in the house, and I still farm a lot of land. I am a little interested in the beef cattle business. I have a hundred head of purebred Shorthorn cattle if any of you wish to buy them. I am now doing a little advertising. I am not going to be sidetracked- somebody said "Sell them to Great Britain." In all seriousness, Mr. Speaker, I do say that we should consider trying to hold this sterling market. Contracts were made with the countries that I have mentioned. These countries were buying Britain's heavy material. Forty-six trading contracts were made for bacon, eggs, cheese, grain, apples, fish, lumber, pit props, newsprint and other

materials. We use enormous quantities of heavy steel. We use a lot of coal. Before the war we bought a million and a half tons of Welsh coal. We are now buying about 50,000 tons. We use a lot of chemicals and other things that Britain could supply. These agreements that were made with Poland, Hungary, Russia, Sweden and the Netherlands are all agreements for the very things that we want to sell; and they are taking in place of them a lot of things that we want to buy.
I notice in the press, in red headlines, the Minister of Agriculture is reported as having said that he is very confident about the British market. He said that Britain would remain one of Canada's major markets until 1952.


Mr. Lennard:: What date is that?


William Earl Rowe: The press clipping is dated February 12, 1950. It said that Britain will remain one of Canada's major markets until 1952 and then she will immediately become one of the dominion's best markets. If he believes it is going to be good until 1950 and then it is going to be one of our best markets, I do not understand it. I can hardly understand why that is. I should like to refer again to the Toronto Star, which I know has never misquoted the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner). They report that the minister said that the United Kingdom will be back in two years as strong as ever. You will notice that that is just about the time the Marshall aid is finished, the plan that has helped us to sell what we are selling now. It will be finished in 1952 but that is the time the Minister of Agriculture says they are going to bounce back. I hope that he is correct.
Mr. Towers of the Bank of Canada says that the future is very gloomy, that it will take a long steady pull. He says the over-all picture is very gloomy indeed and that so long as these customers have difficulty in securing enough dollars to pay for their requirements in foodstuffs and raw materials they will certainly give low priority to fully manufactured goods. However, he said that there was a silver lining, that the people of the world would eventually be brought back to a more even keel, through the functioning of multilateral trading.
Then the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) said that the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) had suggested that a conference should be held but he was very much concerned about what the agenda would be. If you want the hon. member for Lake Centre and myself to write an agenda we probably could do it, but I do not think you
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should expect the hon. member for Lake Centre to make up the agenda for a conference of members of the British commonwealth. We believe he is one of the most brilliant members in the house but we have never felt that he should be asked to lay out an agenda for an all-empire conference in one afternoon. At least you should give him time. He says that he would never agree to any such conference because he believes it would mean tariffs.


Douglas Charles Abbott: I said that if it were to do what was done between 1930 and 1935 I would never agree to it.


William Earl Rowe: Apparently the minister cannot conceive of a conference being suggested by this side unless it was going to bring in the question of tariffs in some way. I can assure you that that has no relationship with this issue. I am glad to get your nod of approval. You believe me this time.
You say that to have a full conference is not desirable, but I do not know what other kind of conference would be desirable. When you get into such trouble as we are in at the present time, that is what must be done. 1 have every respect for the Minister ol Finance; I have a great deal of respect for the Minister of Agriculture because we farmers must stick together the best we can; I have respect for the minister of external affairs. As the hon. member for Lake Centre said this afternoon, these pilgrimages are travelling all over the world and are creating nice public relationships.


Douglas Charles Abbott: Attending conferences.


William Earl Rowe: They are flying here and there. We love to hear them say how well they were received. I think it was grand the other day when the minister of external affairs said that they banged the gavel and said, "Come on with the tea." I wish I had been there. However, these things do not buy shoes for the baby and they do not give men jobs. My friend says that he sold some tea, but I tell you that I do not think it is anything to be proud of if we cannot make money in any way except through what we drink.
I urge the government to really take this matter into serious consideration. I am not saying anything against the members of the cabinet, because they are respected men. Despite the fact that I do not agree with the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) in matters of policy, I am satisfied that when he sits down at the table with representatives of the countries of the commonwealth he will represent Canada with dignity and decorum ano ability. While he is over there, even we in the opposition will consider that he is our

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Prime Minister as well as your Prime Minister, as you claim he is because he happens to be the leader of your party.


Mr. Siewari (Yorkion):: Not if this motion carries.


William Earl Rowe: You be a little careful, he might not be Prime Minister if this does not carry. Whether he is going to be Prime Minister or whether you are going to be Prime Minister, let me say: Do not sell the British commonwealth short. Any businessman who is selling the British commonwealth short today should take a look at the record.
Without discounting our contact with and our promotion of sales to the great republic to the south, we should still not sell the British commonwealth short. We will be prouder members of the United Nations, we will be more important associates of the United States, if we develop closer trade relationships with Britain. Then our farmers will be able to pay for their combines and tractors, they will be able to break up new fields. We will be able to develop our great resources so that if we ever have to strike again in our own defence we will be rich in our ability to produce agriculturally and industrially.
It is not only farm products that go to these countries. In Toronto they are building a complete new mill to be set up in India. In Montreal a complete textile mill is being built. I understand that a further 2,000 or
3.000	men would have been employed in Montreal in one plant if they had been able to sell an order for heavy material in the Far East. While they lost that order it indicates that can be done. I know there are other people besides the farmers in this country. My heart aches for the man who cannot get a job. I fear and shudder to think of the return of the days when men will be standing at factory gates waiting for jobs, good men, intelligent men, honest men.
If there is anything we can do, we should do it. I think the Minister of Finance will admit that it would not do any harm. Surely he is not so careful about the treasury of Canada especially when we have groups flying
26.000	or 27,000 miles. The cost of this would not be so great. If you think it would not do any harm, we suggest that it might do some good. If it will do some good, if it will help the farmers of Canada, if it will help the factories of this country to sell articles in the sterling areas, if it will give work to men, then I believe it is the thing to do.
Great Britain has consistently given us great favourable trade balances for three-quarters of a century and I urge the government not to lightly pass that off. If I have the privilege of being in this house much longer

I hope I shall never hear again what we heard in the thirties, that we must not provoke the United States. They do not like us any better when we take that attitude. They expect us to mind our own business. They expect us to be strong. They expect us to be grown up. Canada is the greatest producing nation in the world for its population. We are a proud people and we never have provoked the United States of America. We live on a friendly basis beside them and we have great trade relationships with them.
But they have cut our products off overnight. That was not done in any spirit of antagonism or bitterness; it was done because they had to save their own markets. Only two weeks ago it was stated in congress that when a commodity became surplus it would not be allowed into the country. I would like to know what was written in the Geneva agreement which is in effect now before it has even been ratified by parliament. I would like to know what is in that agreement that says, when the man from Texas or Oklahoma states he has more beef or bacon than he knows what to do with: "Keep your steers down in Texas because we are going to buy from the Canadians. They have been very nice to us and have never provoked us so you can keep your cattle on the ranch because we are going to buy from the boys in Canada". Stop and think about it, Mr. Speaker. It has happened now two or three times, and it is in no spirit of antagonism that I suggest it may happen again. It is just because the United States minds its own economic business. They want and expect us to be economically strong, and they believe we are capable of minding our business.


Mr. J. W. Noseworihy (York South):: Mr. Speaker, the question before the house this afternoon is one of great importance to Canada. I certainly think it is too important to be brushed aside in the manner in which the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) has just treated the entire question. In a recent poll of public opinion it was shown that there is no other public question today with which our people are so much concerned as that of the loss of our markets. That is not surprising because over the years governments and political parties have been dinning into the ears of our people the importance of our export markets. The reason why our people place so much importance on the loss of them today is that they are associated in their minds with employment. There is a fear in Canada today that their loss will simply be the forerunner of unemployment and another depression such as we experienced in the thirties.

The minister has rejected the amendment. He has suggested that, although there may be no harm, certainly no good could come out of the calling of another conference as recommended by the amendment. He informed us that the government is already in possession of all the information that could possibly be obtained in such a meeting. In other words, he has told us that such a conference would be a mere waste of time. Then he suggested that possibly the Conservatives would be formulating the policy of that conference, and he asked the mover of the amendment to tell him what the agenda for it would be. He suggested he would not want to attend another conference to deal with subjects such as were dealt with in the thirties. Surely there is a difference. I am rather surprised that the minister should even suggest that the Conservatives would have any voice in determining the agenda. Can you imagine the great Liberal government of today asking the handful of Conservatives on this side of the house to suggest the agenda for a conference initiated by the government? Surely the government would be in a position, if it called such a meeting, to determine exactly what subjects should be put before it for discussion.
Of course the minister also forgets that since 1930 the Conservative party has become the Progressive Conservative party, and it is not beyond the realm of possibility that even concerning the matter of foreign conferences the Conservatives may have become much more progressive than they were in the dark days of the depression. Unless the minister can suggest some other alternative for meeting the problem, then I am prepared to support the amendment even at the risk of the Conservatives dictating to the Liberals what the nature of the conference should be.
Our problem today is one of finding markets for our goods. The minister has told us clearly that there are only certain ways in which we can hope to sell our goods to other countries. We must take their goods in return. If, as is the case in many countries which need our surplus goods today, they just have not the goods to give us in return, then we must find other means whereby they can pay us for our products in some way. The export of our surplus products is so essential to the economy of Canada that I submit the house should not allow the motion to go into supply to pass until the government show us that they have something to put before the house that, in their opinion, is a solution to the problem, if the amendment is not the answer to it.
The minister says that we can export our goods by lending dollars to these countries,
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but he told us that our supply of dollars is not sufficient to warrant our doing so. He told us we could borrow from the United States and lend the money to the countries wanting to purchase our goods, but he suggests that is not the solution and that no one wants to do so. He suggested that a third possibility was the reduction of consumption within our own country in order to accumulate money that we could lend. He suggested that the reduction of consumption in Canada would put us in a better position to lend to those countries that want to buy our goods, but he did not suggest that the government would even entertain the idea of advancing that as a solution to the problem.
I want to say to the minister that in my opinion the Canadian public are far out in front of the government in this respect. It is no credit to us as a nation, and I am quite sure the Canadian people do not consider it creditable, that we should attempt to consume all of our own production that we possibly can while millions of people in other parts of the world are in want, and when at the same time we have surpluses of goods that we ourselves cannot consume and which we cannot sell to them. It might not be as impossible, as the minister suggests, to institute a modified program of austerity in this country whereby we can provide these other countries that need our surpluses with the means to purchase them. I suggested that if the government are not prepared to accept the amendment they should come forward with some other concrete policy to show us that they are taking measures to meet the problem facing the country today.


Solon Earl Low: Mr. Speaker, I feel that the matter now up for discussion is of such importance to the future of Canada and the well-being of the Canadian people that I should say just a few things in connection with it. I believe the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) should be congratulated on bringing this most important question of Canada's trade before the house today. Before I conclude I shall have a brief word to say on the amendment the hon. member moved; but, Mr. Speaker, I have been tremendously surprised at the jaunty attitude this government has displayed towards this most important question facing Canada today, the question of our trade.
My colleague from Acadia (Mr. Quelch) mentioned that step by step this situation has been developing over a period of years. It is nothing new that has suddenly come to our attention. Our trade predicament today has grown up over so many years that if people in administrative positions had been watching the situation and had been free and willing

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to take independent action, facing the facts, the present situation could have been alleviated and our predicament could have been avoided. Back in 1946 the governor of the Bank of Canada, Mr. Graham Towers, had this to say in his report dated February 8 of that year:
Looking to the future, however, there is no reason for complacency. Most of our real problems of post-war adjustment are still ahead. The backlog of demand will not be large in relation to productive capacity when industry has been fully reconverted and inventories built up to normal levels. When the time lag involved in demobilization is over, government expenditures will fall rapidly. Nor will our foreign lending to finance the purchase of Canadian goods remain indefinitely at the present level. The prevailing optimism on the North American continent is dangerous if it diverts attention from the problems which have to be faced.
That is the end of the warning which was given by the governor of the Bank of Canada away back in 1946. That warning has become a prophecy; and the last part of Mr. Towers' statement has been vindicated in the action and lack of action by the government opposite. The Liberal government has continued to consistently disregard the warnings not only of Mr. Towers but of others who saw the situation developing. We do not have to start in 1946; we can go back further than that and point out to this government definite actions they took which have had the cumulative effect of precipitating the present bad trade situation.
With respect to the proposal of the hon. member for Lake Centre, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) says he does not want to go to a conference unless he knows exactly what the conference is going to do. The minister was not a member of the government back in 1944, but he was on the government side of the house. At that time, when the conference was called at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, did the government say they would not take part in that conference without knowing exactly what it was going to do? I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that they jumped into that conference; they not only went down completely ignorant of what it was going to do but came back completely befuddled and confused as to what it had done. If anyone wants proof of that statement all that is necessary is to go back to 1945 and read the debates that took place in this house in connection with the Bretton Woods proposal.
So I say that while the present minister was not there, he must assume some responsibility for what was done; and let me say just one other thing about this business of not knowing what a conference is going to do. Following the war Canadian influence throughout
CMr. Low.]
the world was great. There has never been a time when Canada's word, Canada's counsel or Canada's warning has meant so much. At that time the people of the world would have been likely to heed what Canada said. Well, if at that time Canada had used her influence to see to it that a clause something like this was written into the Bretton Woods agreement: "The creditor nations agree that it is their obligation to accept goods and services in payment for the goods and services they export, and that this obligation will be continuously recognized and observed", I feel satisfied that something of the kind would have been included. But instead of using our influence in that way we plunged in without full recognition of what that agreement was going to do to us and how impossible it would be for the convertibility of currencies to take care of the trade situation which was developing, since the United States insisted upon following the program she had been following for quite a number of years, a program which they think must have attached to it a favourable balance of trade for the U.S.A. every year.
Well, sir, everyone knows that if the United States is not going to buy enough goods in the markets of the world to provide the other nations with dollars, then those other nations cannot buy from the United States, or from Canada. That was patently clear at the time, so I am going to ask the minister why the Canadian delegation went to Bretton Woods without knowing a single thing about what the proposals would be, and why it came away without any definite idea of what it had done. I do not see why in the world he should be afraid of a conference such as that suggested by the hon. member for Lake Centre. I would not want to go to a conference without knowing something of what was proposed, of course; but getting a definite idea of what the agenda might be would not be out of the question. I believe if the government showed some inclination to sit down and discuss this whole thing honestly and straightforwardly with all parties in this house, an acceptable agenda could be drafted; and I am satisfied that such an agenda could be made also acceptable to the other members of the commonwealth.
The minister says the Geneva agreements have been of the greatest benefit to Canada; and as an example he cited the increase in our trade with the United States which has resulted from certain tariff concessions. That is perhaps one of the good results; but I will say the minister certainly has a fetish on Geneva, and I do not think he can possibly

justify the weakness in the non-discrimination clause. The great weakness in the nondiscrimination feature of the Geneva agreements is that it does not permit a country like Canada to choose her source of supply. Nor does it permit any other country that is a party to it to choose its source of supply. I do not believe it is right in a world which is now crying for fair dealing in trade. As a matter of fact, I thought that the Minister of Finance would be the last person in Canada to try to defend the non-discrimination features of the Geneva agreements, because he was caught in the meshes of it in 1947. Not only that, but he put Canada in a most ridiculous position, by making it impossible for Canadians to buy their own production without paying a tax on it, simply to placate certain interests in the United States who insisted on the Geneva non-discrimination clause.
The Minister of Finance should be the last man to defend that clause, because it prohibited Canadians from buying green vegetables and tomatoes in the fall of 1947, since the minister had prohibited their entry from the United States, in order to protect our dwindling supply of United States dollars. The Canadian people have not forgotten that. They are the people who are demanding that the minister justify that with something more than the assertion that we benefited greatly by having tariff reductions. Those tariff reductions could have been made without the nondiscrimination clause. I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that any country in this world that wants to be fair and' just in its trade relationship will not insist upon a non-discrimination clause. Such a country will first see what sort of reductions can be made in. the tariffs without the necessity of such a clause. There would be no need for the non-discrimination clause, if the United States and other creditor nations were to fully recognize their responsibilities in a world in which trade is so seriously unbalanced as ours. This unbalance arises mainly from the serious unbalance in industrial capacity.
I do feel that the United States is not bound to follow the policy which she has been following for many years, that is a policy of economic conquest. Surely it would be possible for Canada, with her influence, to stand up and say that we will enter into negotiations to make trade easier and to help remove the restrictions, provided you will not insist upon this diabolical non-discrimination clause. The minister mentioned Canadian cattle going to the United States. He suggested that the member for Acadia (Mr. Quelch) was perhaps wrong in his assumption, because of the fact
Trade
that the United States was ready to take in many of the cattle from, his own constituency. Let me say that the United States ought to be the last to put an embargo against the entry of Canadian cattle into that country. It is a creditor nation and has a favourable balance of trade, which we do not have. I do not take what the minister said too seriously.


Douglas Charles Abbott: Discrimination, can work both ways.


Solon Earl Low: The sort of discrimination the minister suggests is the same sort as Pat said he was going to exercise against the railroad. He said he was going to buy a return ticket, and he was not going back. It is discrimination to balance trade, of course, not unbalance it. The Minister of Finance stated that if we were to accept sterling it is likely we would have to reduce consumption within Canada. I do not take the same .position as the member for York South (Mr. Noseworthy). I should like to draw to the attention of this house the surpluses that are here in reality, or that could be here, but for the policies of this government-policies of taxation and restriction that discourage production.
I should1 like to read briefly from what the Minister of Agriculture said in a speech before the Canadian chamber of commerce in London in 1948.
It is difficult for us to understand, wily anyone should expect us to be other than disappointed with the 1949 contracts. They provide for 160 million pounds of bacon, for 50 million pounds of cheese, and no cattle or beef.
A little further along, he says:
There are no dollars available in the United Kingdom with which to purchase Canadian apples. Partly because of this we have financed the pulling out of 240,000 apple trees in Nova Scotia. There are no dollars available with which to purchase Canadian fish.
I suppose if it were possible to pull out the fish beds, the government would do that, and pay for it. It is a policy of discouraging and restricting production. I say that when you do that you are making it impossible for the Canadian people to help a world that is sadly lacking in food.
It is important for us to keep in mind that the minister went over to England, and negotiated with the British people, not for 160 million pounds of bacon. At another point in his speech the minister said:
All of our discussions on food bulk contracts were proceeding satisfactorily until difficulties arose in adjusting the relationship between dollars and sterling. We were aiming at being able to provide the United Kingdom with 350 million pounds of bacon, 125 million pounds of cheese, 75 million dozens of eggs and having 400,000 head, of cattle which we could dispose of either to the United States or the United Kingdom.
324

Trade
Instead of that, we had to sign a contract for 160 million pounds of bacon and 50 million pounds of cheese. There is no question about it, if the market had been provided under an agreement, the Canadian farmers would have put up the 350 million pounds of bacon. They would have produced to the utmost of their capabilities if the market had been there, and if taxation and other government policies had not been imposed upon them which restricted that production. I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that these amounts of food, which have gone unproduced, could be looked upon as at least potential surpluses of goods that would have been available to send to these other countries, making it unnecessary to do what the minister said, reduce consumption. In the light of what has happened, I believe that is stupid in the extreme. I would say that no pound of food should go unproduced, so long as there is a need for it or a market for it anywhere in the world. No man should go unemployed for the lack of producing those things, as long as there is a willingness on the part of other people to buy and consume those things.
There is no question but what we could accept sterling, and finance it internally until such time as that blocked or non-convertible sterling could be traded around the sterling area for goods that we could bring back to this country. I have not been convinced by any argument to the contrary thus far. I would refer the Minister of Agriculture to one other thing. At the C.F.A. conference which took place in Niagara last month, it was brought to the attention of the delegates that poultry production had been reduced by 8 to 12 per cent, because of the failure to keep our markets with Britain. That is a serious reduction. It represents an amount of poultry and egg production that could well be available for trading if it had not been restricted by the fear that there would be no market. When I say, Mr. Speaker, that we cannot just look at the situation as it is, but must look at it as it could be under the proper inducements, you will see what I mean.
Before I close, there is one other thing I should like to mention. In common with the member for York South (Mr. Noseworthy) and others who have spoken, I believe that if the government feels this proposed conference is not the answer to our trading problem, if it does not hold out any hope for the success of such conference, the government should bring forward a program that will do something. Until that is done, my followers in this house and myself can do nothing else but support the motion put before us by the member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker).


Mr. E. D. Fulton (Kamloops):: In supporting this amendment, Mr. Speaker, which has been moved by the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker), I must join with those who have preceded me in saying that they are unable to understand the reasoning and the attitude of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott), in his apparently ill considered and certainly very quick dismissal of the idea of holding at this time a commonwealth conference to discuss trade and related matters.
As I took note of the minister's remarks, he said in effect that he could not see that any good purpose would be served at the present time by having more conferences. It seems to me that the thing we should bear in mind is that, so far, we have not had since 1932 a trade conference of the type envisaged. We have not had a full-scale commonwealth trade conference since then. It is true that the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Pearson), as he told us in his report recently on his trip to southeast Asia, did discuss or talk about trade matters with the other representatives there; but the fact is that that conference was not called to deal with trade matters. There were no trade experts there. Certainly the impression given was that, so far as trade was discussed, it was an informal discussion and trade was discussed as a side issue. It certainly was not the main subject of the conference. Indeed, from what the minister told us in his report, it became obvious that not only with regard to trade but even with regard to the matters that they did meet to discuss, they had neither intended nor apparently expected to reach agreement. Indeed, he told us that it was rather nice to sit down at the conference table and find out how far apart the different views were without actually coming to blows because of those differences; whether it was merely because the countries concerned were commonwealth countries or whether the tea had something to do with it, the minister did not tell us; but it seemed to me to be an approach to a conference that was almost certain to lead to negative results.
Before coming to the subject matter of the resolution itself, I should like to refer to one other point raised by the leader of the C.C.F. party in his remarks when he said, as I understood him, that he agreed in principle with the amendment but that he would not be able to support it unless it was clear that it was not necessarily a motion in support of the building up of a tariff structure. That matter has been dealt with by the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe) in his remarks following the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell). But if further assurance is necessary, then as far as I can give

it-and I can speak for myself, at any rate- I can say that I would not support the motion or speak in support of it if I understood that such was its intent. But I do not understand that to be its intent. I understand it to be a motion advocating the summoning of a conference to discuss ways and means of eliminating trade barriers between the commonwealth countries, and as nothing more nor less than that. In that respect it is the very opposite of a high-tariff conference.
It seems to me that the motion calling for a conference is justified by the fact that the two thoughts uppermost in the minds of the Canadian people at the present time are, first, the increasing unemployment figures and, second, the loss of markets and the declining farm prices with which this country is faced. It was said recently, and I think it is certainly true, that it is not advisable nor desirable, particularly in the House of Commons, to emphasize fears, doubts and dismay as to the future. That is not my purpose in mentioning these two facts of unemployment and declining trade; but certainly those two problems do exist, and, in the minds of our people, they are large.
We shall not solve those problems unless we consider them, discuss them and meet them fairly and squarely. If we do that, Mr. Speaker, I for my part believe that we in Canada can solve our problems. I believe that those problems will disappear if we adopt the policies which can build this country into a great and prosperous trading nation, the senior partner in the commonwealth, the friend and ally of the United States. But as firmly as I believe that Canada can be made into that type of country, I believe that if we drift, if we allow this present tendency to continue, not only shall we not achieve that ambition, but we are in danger of facing conditions which are much worse than they are today.
In dealing with these two problems of unemployment and falling farm prices, may I say that it seems to me they are both the result of the same fact, namely, that we are losing our markets, particularly those in the commonwealth and sterling countries. In the same way they result from a remarkable unbalance in the Canadian economy, in the sense that we produce, particularly in the field of agriculture, far more than we can consume at home; and because of that fact we are dependent, as perhaps no other country is, to such a large extent upon overseas markets for what we produce. Our history up to the present has been one of constantly recurring surpluses in that those markets slip away for
Trade
one reason or another, and we are left with large quantities of surpluses here at home for which we can find no sale.
I want to discuss the situation both generally under the heading of this amendment before the house and particularly with reference to a problem which is vital to the area from which I come, namely, the problem facing our apple growers. There we have again, as we had in the 1930's and several times prior to that, a condition of recurring surpluses resulting entirely from the sudden loss of a market. As you know, Mr. Speaker, an apple grower's program is one taking from seven to twelve years to come to maturity. The marketing program of the orchardist cannot be changed overnight, because his tree takes some seven to eight years to come into bearing at all, and at least twelve years before it is bearing fully. He is therefore not in the happy position of some other producers who can change their program overnight. When his markets are lost, there is nothing he can do about it. That is the situation facing our apple growers in this country, particularly those in British Columbia today.
It is with that in mind that I want to discuss this resolution suggesting that we have a conference of commonwealth countries to discuss our trade problems, because our great market for apples has always been the United Kingdom. Unless we can restore that market, we are not going to solve the problem facing our particular growers.


Mr. Speaker:: We are expecting a message from the Senate at any moment.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Perhaps for the purpose of the debate I might be allowed to call it six o'clock.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: I do not think it would be regular to call it six o'clock, because we shall return here after the members have gone to the Senate. May I ask the hon. member to allow his speech to be interrupted at the present time.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Gladly.



THE ROYAL ASSENT

[Stage Direction]
A message was delivered by Major C. R. Lamoureux, Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, as follows:
Mr. Speaker, the Right Honourable the Deputy of His Excellency the Governor General desires the immediate attendance of this honourable house in the chamber of the honourable the Senate.
Accordingly the house went up to the Senate chamber.
[Stage Direction]
Alberta Natural Gas Company
And being returned:
Mr. Speaker informed the house that the Deputy Governor General had been pleased to give in His Majesty's name the royal assent to the following bill:
An act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1940.
At six o'clock the house took recess.

AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. Ralph Maybank (Winnipeg South Centre) moved: the second reading of Bill No. 7, to incorporate Alberta Natural Gas Company.


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


Ralph Maybank: Mr. Speaker, there is very little to say, as I think every hon. member knows about this bill. This bill is the same as the one that was introduced last session which was the subject of considerable discussion. I think all that is necessary is to remind the house that it is simply an application for a charter to do business; it is no more than that.
The only difference in the bill this year is in the names of the applicants; otherwise its terms are the same as all the other bills which have been passed by this house. The house will remember that the main objection to the bill before was to a clause which would permit the company, when incorporated, to apply for permission to build a pipe line in or outside Canada. That same right has been given to other companies which have come before the house.
There was a considerable amount of talk in connection with the counterpart to this bill and I fancy that the house is familiar with all the arguments brought forward at the last session. If I spoke further I would only be using up the time for private bills unnecessarily and I think the opponents of the bill will want to use up that time themselves. With that explanation of the matter I might as well stop now.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Where are you going to build it?


Ralph Maybank: I do not know.


Arthur Leroy Smith: You do know, don't you?


Mr. G. A. Cruickshank (Fraser Valley):: Mr. *Speaker, I should like to say a word or two on

this bill. As I said last year, while there are eighteen members from British Columbia no one was prepared to sponsor a bill to permit the building of a pipe line unless it was built over an all-Canadian route. It would appear tonight that that was the unanimous feeling of those members. I am not familiar with the rules of the house, except those that I break. This is not a political bill, yet it was not possible to secure a British Columbia member to sponsor it.
It was only by the indulgence of some of us who believe in an all-Canadian route that the house waited for the hon. member to move the second reading. I am a rather junior member of the house, having been here only since 1940, but it is the first time in my experience that we have had to wait for a sponsor of a bill to make the motion for second reading.
They had to go across this great country of Canada to find a sponsor for this bill, and finally they settled on one from the middle province. I have a great deal of admiration for Manitoba because my father and mother were married there. That was the best thing that ever happened to Manitoba. Any province that can inspire two people to bring into the world the great member for Fraser Valley must have something within its boundaries.


An hon. Member:: Cold weather.


George Alexander Cruickshank: A few remarks are being made by some of my Manitoba associates. As I said before, while there are eighteen members from British Columbia, not one would sponsor this particular bill, bighearted as we are out there. We have often bled for the maritimes and we have contributed to central Canada. Tonight out of our bigheartedness we waited for the bill to be called. I was almost going to sponsor it myself because I felt it should not be lost in the wilderness.
My attitude to the bill is the same as it was last year. I have no hesitation in so stating and no apology to offer. At the last session some of us were accused of staging a filibuster on this measure. Personally I do not think we did, but nevertheless, together with the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Hansell), may I say that I have no apology to offer for staging a filibuster if it is necessary in order to secure the best results for my riding and my province and if it is in the best economic interests of Canada. It is one of the few weapons a private member has when the interests of his riding and his province are involved.
Some remarks have been made, although belatedly, by the sponsor of the bill. I can appreciate that they hesitated to put before the house what they thought was right. If I

were the sponsor of a measure which was not in the best interests of western Canada, or of the majority of the people of the country as a whole, I too would hesitate before appearing to introduce the bill to the house. I want to make myself perfectly clear. I was criticized by some at the last session when I took the same stand that I am taking tonight. I am speaking tonight as the member for the constituency of Fraser Valley, and for no other riding in the province of British Columbia. Nevertheless I think I have the same right as any other member from that province to speak on its behalf. I want to make it clear I am speaking tonight in the interests of my own riding, and I say without fear of contradiction from anyone that I have the full support of each and every individual in the Fraser valley in the stand I am taking, irrespective of party, creed or race. I want to make that clear because it has been suggested that probably I took too much upon myself in speaking for the province of British Columbia. At the same time, I think I have the right to speak on behalf of that province more than any other member from that section of the country because I represent the finest part of the province.
Our attitude is not that of people who are opposed to any particular company. So far as I know, those of us who opposed the passage of this measure last year adopt the same attitude this year. I think I am speaking for the people of the province when I say we are prepared to withdraw our opposition, and certainly I am, the minute that the company, as the hon. member for Calgary West (Mr. Smith) said last year, insert some five words in the charter of incorporation, that it will be an all-Canadian route. We who are opposing the bill believe that we have a great future in Canada, and particularly in western Canada. In order to fulfil that future we believe we must develop the natural resources of our country.
At this point I should like to say to my friends of the maritimes, who in many cases have not had all they should have secured from the rest of Canada, that we in the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta have done our share to see that subsidies were paid to them. We have endeavoured to see that justice was done to the maritimes. I should also like to point out to the provinces of Quebec and Ontario that they have gained their great place in the nation through the efforts and the wealth of western Canada. We hear much of the St. Lawrence waterway scheme. I should like to say to the provinces of Ontario and Quebec that the only way you can secure the fulfilment of
Alberta Natural Gas Company the St. Lawrence waterway scheme is through the support of the people of the west, and Alberta and British Columbia in particular.


Mr. Fulford:: And the co-operation of the United States.


George Alexander Cruickshank: I am quite prepared to talk on Canada but Harry Truman will have to look after himself. We are prepared to do our share as we have in the past. I wonder who paid for the Welland canal? We paid our share. Why? Because it developed Canada as a whole, not just Ontario. We in Alberta and British Columbia paid our share of the cost, and we are again prepared to pay our share of the cost of the development of the St. Lawrence waterway.
I want to appeal to my friends from Ontario and Quebec. When we are prepared, as we have been in the past, to do our share to develop central Canada, is it not fair that you in turn should do your part to assist us to develop the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia? To hon. members from the maritimes may I repeat that we are aware of the injustices that were done to you since confederation. I defy any member from the maritimes to say that at any time any member from the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia has done anything but support your just claims for subsidies. I am appealing particularly to the new province of Newfoundland, the tenth province, which by its entry into confederation has completed our dominion. You should realize more than any other province what it means to secure justice within your own sphere. That is all we are asking for, Mr. Speaker. We are not interested in any particular company. We are not asking for any particular subsidy or assistance, but we are asking that the resources of Canada be developed within the country for the benefit of Canadians as a whole.
Naturally I am interested in my own riding just as every other hon. member is in his. I want to digress for a minute. There are 262 members in the House of Commons, all of whom are fine men, and all of whom are sincere in endeavouring to do their duty to the best of their ability on behalf of their particular ridings and the country as a whole. There may be one exception so we will make it 261. I want them to look at things as I look at them, and not with any intention of talking against time, because I have no such intention. I want them to look at the welfare of Canada as a whole, and I particularly want them to remember that the prosperity of western Canada means their own prosperity. Too often we have had sectionalism; too often we have had one

Alberta Natural Gas Company district pulling against another, one province against another. That is not in the best interests of Canada. I maintain that this bill is designed to disrupt the economy of Canada as no other bill ever brought before us was designed to do.
For a few years, as you know, Alberta was not in the best of circumstances financially. Fortunately for them this liquid gold has come flowing from the earth and we are very glad it has, because it put Alberta in a better position than it has ever been in. It is now able to pay its way, and my information is that very shortly the provincial debt will be liquidated. Paying taxes in British Columbia, as I do, I am not so sure when we will be able to liquidate our debt; but if the action is taken that I and those who are with me recommend, I believe we will soon be in the position that Alberta is in now.
At the present time the best prospects for liquid gold on the North American continent are within the boundaries of Alberta. I am also informed that prospects are equally bright in Saskatchewan. When I say that, I am speaking only of oil and gas, and I am referring to the kind of gas we burn and use, not the kind we hear of in that province at the present time. We in the Fraser valley are of one mind on this matter. I hope during the next four years I may have the same united support, coming from all parties, as I have had on this issue. As I said before, there are not eighteen people in British Columbia who believe in this United States route. They could not even get a sponsor for this bill within our province, because not a person there believes in the southern route.
When I make that statement it is supported by the attorney general of my province. After all, you know, a federal member may be accused of speaking purely in the interests of his own riding. I have not authority to speak for the provincial government. The only person who can do that is a representative of that government. In our province we had a competition for the leadership of the party, as I believe other parties have had competitions; and the man who was defeated for the leadership became the attorney general. I do not know about other provinces, but in British Columbia the attorney general is a very important man; and I want to quote briefly what he has said. I do not want to delay things; I should like this matter to be dealt with one way or the other. I am referring now to the Calgary Herald. I do not subscribe to that newspaper, nor do I know what kind of newspaper it is. I see the name "Calgary", however, which reminds me that I went to the Grey Cup finals last


year and lost a little money on the Stampeders. Under date of February 7 this newspaper says:
B.C. declared anxious to get Alberta gas
Attorney general presents government view to hearing
Hon. Gordon Wismer, attorney general of British Columbia, said his government was anxious that natural gas be made available to the people of British Columbia "if and when the government of Alberta determines that in the interests of the people of Alberta a permit for exportation can properly be granted."
Those are the views of the attorney general of British Columbia, the province from which I come; and to the best of my ability I am trying to give the feelings of that province with respect to the export of gas.
He made the statement this morning when presenting a brief on behalf of the British Columbia government to the petroleum and natural gas conservation board of Alberta, presently hearing the application of Westcoast Transmission Company Ltd. for a licence to export gas from Alberta.
Through you, Mr. Speaker, I want to bring this to the attention of hon. members from the central provinces and the maritimes, whom we have supported at all times in their demands for fair play. I ask them to pay particular attention to the remainder of this quotation.
Mr. Wismer said the British Columbia government "strongly supported the proposal that such a line should be built from northern Alberta into and through British Columbia and thence, if sufficient gas is available, to the Pacific northwest states of the United States.
I am sure hon. members will appreciate the significance of that statement, representing the views of British Columbia, urging that this line be built within Canada to serve our own people and in particular those of my province. We have reason to believe that in northern British Columbia we have oil and gas deposits equal to those of Alberta. We also believe there are deposits in northern Alberta equal to or greater than those already developed in that province. The only way these deposits can be developed is by providing an outlet. For that reason I think I am justified in reading a little further from the remarks of the attorney general of British Columbia, as they appear in the Calgary Albertan of February 8:
"If there is an exportable surplus of gas in Alberta the province of British Columbia would like to see Canadian requirements get priority over export to the United States," Hon. Gordon Wismer, attorney general for British Columbia, told the Alberta petroleum and natural gas conservation board Tuesday.
Mr. Wismer was welcomed by the Hon. Lucien Maynard, attorney general for Alberta. Said Mr. Maynard: "We are not so callous as to be unconcerned about the misfortunes of the past few weeks in British Columbia or a possible repetition of disastrous floods. Whatever remarks or suggestions

Mr. Wismer has to make before this board, I am sure will receive the most careful consideration by the board, the people of this province, and the government."
Mr. Wismer's suggestion was this:	"We are and
have been strongly supporting the proposal that such a line (gas export) should be built from northern Alberta into and through British Columbia, and thence, if sufficient gas is available, to the Pacific northwest states of the United States of America.
That is just part of it. There has been some suggestion that we were opposed to the export of gas to the United States. Those of us who are opposing this bill are definitely of the opposite opinion. We believe that the surplus must be exported to the United States in order to make the building of the line possible. The only stand that we take is that the export of gas must be made from the Vancouver end of the line, instead of having the end of the line come into Vancouver from the United States.
I have here a copy of an advertisement that appeared in the Calgary press last year. I shall not read it in detail because one of the members from Calgary read it. This advertisement was placed in the paper by the company now applying for a charter. It indicates that this company would like to take the gas through the United States, and if there is any left over, providing the United States permits it, that amount will be brought back into Vancouver. I say without fear of contradiction, Mr. Speaker, that Vancouver is the fastest growing city in Canada. The city of Vancouver and the lower mainland of the Fraser valley contain about 58 per cent of the population of the province of British Columbia. One company is proposing to build an all-Canadian route, although it is definitely opposed by the company now applying for a charter. The all-Canadian route has been termed feasible by the largest firm of engineers in that line of work in the United States. This company is prepared to put that line through and deliver gas in 1952 to the city of Vancouver. This route would serve the cities of Vernon, Kamloops, Penticton, Kelowna, and have a side line to the city of Trail. We hear a good deal about this city of Trail, and I am not surprised at that. As we heard over the C.B.C. on Sunday night, Trail is one of the best developed cities in the Dominion of Canada.
While I did not see this event, owing to the fact that I was sick in bed, it was a sad sight to hear of the people of my riding lining up for two sacks of coal to which they were entitled. Surely we are entitled to have this cheaper fuel delivered to us, as the company is willing and prepared to do. One company is willing to deliver gas which may be used as a fuel for commercial or domestic purposes, but the other company desires a charter to
Alberta Natural Gas Company deliver it through the United States, and thence back into Canada. I am well aware of the fact that copies of these private bills are not distributed to many homes in the province of British Columbia. It surprised me, Mr. Speaker, that in my riding, as well as the other ridings in the dominion, copies of Hansard are read by so many people. So that the people of my own riding, and I hope the people of other ridings within the province of British Columbia, will be under no misapprehension as to those who desire to develop the resources of Canada not for Canadians but for material gain, I propose to name those who are back of this company. The lust for gold equals the lust for power. I have never been able to understand why some people who are multimillionaires have a greater lust for gold. The only way I can understand it is to believe that they have a greater lust for power.
Beoause this bill will not be distributed in my riding, or throughout the province generally, I am going to read the names of the directors as they appear in the bill.
John Joseph Connolly, of the city of Ottawa in the province of Ontario, one of His Majesty's Counsel; William Joseph Dick, of the city of Edmonton, in the province of Alberta, consulting engineer; Abner Faison Dixon, of the city of Houston, in the state of Texas, and of the city of New York, geologist and engineer.
I hope the people of British Columbia will take special note of the next part.
Harvey Reginald MacMillan, C.B.E., of the city of Vancouver, in the province of British Columbia, industrialist; John Wray Moyer, of the city of Calgary, in the province of Alberta, oil executive; Cortelyou Ladd Simonson, of the city of New York, in the state of New York, investment banker;
Here is another name to which I hope the people of the Fraser Valley riding will pay attention.
Austin Cottrell Taylor, C.B.E., of the city of Vancouver, in the province of British Columbia, mining executive; together with such persons as may become shareholders in the company, are incorporated under the name of Alberta Natural Gas Company, hereinafter called "the company."
This company could not secure a sponsor from any of the members from the province of British Columbia. I hope the people of British Columbia will pay attention to that.
As I said before, some people may have a lust for power, or some may have a lust for gold. I do not know which one this is. I could go on talking for some time, but I do not want more than my fair share of the time. There has been some suggestion that this company would not be able to finance itself. At least two of us who spoke last year made the statement that it is not practicable to have two pipe lines to the coast, at least for a period of ten years. Everyone knows that these companies must be financed in the general money
330	HOUSE OF
Alberta Natural Gas Company market, that is in both the United States and Canada. These people are in it to make money, and1 I presume to make plenty of money. It is not practical to have two companies. It is now suggested that the one company which has had an application before the board in Alberta for almost three weeks, applying for an all-Canadian route, no "ifs" or "huts" about it, have been opposed at every step by this company that wants to go through the United States. I cannot quite understand this. Not so many years ago some men who aire a great deal smarter than I am had no more money than I have but they are now multimillionaires as a result of money made out of British Columbia, and they want to exploit Canada and their own province to gain millions by going into the United States and back into Canada.
Here is what the B.C. Electric, the people who distribute gas in Vancouver, say: Construction of a natural gas pipe line over an all-Canadian route from Alberta to Vancouver was supported today by the B.C. Electric Company.
_ The B.C. Electric Company is our largest individual company in the province of British Columbia. To continue:
The B.C. Electric got behind the Westcoast Transmission Company which applied to the Alberta Petroleum and Natural Gas conservation board for permission to build the line through the Yellowhead pass in the Rockies and Fraser valley to the west coast.
The board is presently hearing submissions on the application in Calgary.
The B.C. Electric brought a brief stating that widespread use of Alberta's natural gas for heating and industrial purposes would result throughout B.C. from construction of the line.
The company foresaw a swing from coal, wood and oil to Alberta gas-if the Westcoast Transmission Company is allowed to build the line.
So that there will be no misunderstanding about it I want to repeat that, in so far as my objection is concerned, if this company would just incorporate within their application an all-Canadian route", my opposition would drop immediately; and I have every reason to believe that other members have views similar to those I hold and would adopt the same attitude. The company have the opportunity, it is up to them. The one company is able to proceed, we are informed by a hearing before this Alberta board; and if I had the time I should like to quote from the report, but I am trying to speed up.
I should like to quote the premier of the province of Alberta when he said that no gas would be exported from Alberta unless sufficient guarantee was given that there was a surplus sufficient to take care of the needs of his own province. For that statement I commend him; I think he is using excellent judgment. The premier of Alberta also said 

that the people of Canada should be served first. That is all that we who are opposing this bill are suggesting. We say that the people of Canada should be served first. After all, if we are to develop a united Canada we must work together one with another. One province must co-operate with the other. Here we have great financiers of Canada, as well as of the United States, offering to finance an all-Canadian route to deliver gas from Alberta, affording opportunities for the development of gas and oil in northern Alberta and northern British Columbia.


Mr. Murray (Cariboo):: May I ask the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Cruickshank) a question? Will he kindly tell me why the company which he is espousing, and which he favours so greatly, refuses to service the city of Dawson Creek, British Columbia, from gas wells which it owns within six miles of the centre of that city?


George Alexander Cruickshank: I am not espousing any particular company, but I am glad my hon. friend raised that question. I do not know how much time I have left, but I wish I had time to go into the matter fully. I would be delighted to answer the question. Apparently I am near the end of my time.


Mr. Speaker:: I might inform the hon. member that his time has expired.


Some hon. Members:: Go on.


An hon. Member:: Answer the question.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: I do not think that there should be any extension of time during the hour for private bills, having regard to the fact that we know what happened during the last session of parliament.


An hon. Member:: There should not be any interruptions.


George Alexander Cruickshank: There were interruptions. May I have one minute in which to finish?
I was interrupted, Mr. Speaker.


John George Diefenbaker: Certainly.


Some hon. Members:: Go ahead.


An hon. Member:: Sit down.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Here is the sponsor of the bill telling me to sit down; he need not tell me to sit down.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The only way in which the hon. member may continue is with the unanimous consent of the house.


Some hon. Members:: Go ahead.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: Apparently it is not unanimous.


Arthur Leroy Smith: Between the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent) and the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Cruickshank), Mr. Speaker, I was a little bit slow in rising; believing that the hon. member for Fraser Valley is a most influential member in the house, I assumed that his simple request to be allowed to go on for one more minute would be granted in order that he might answer the hon. member for Cariboo (Mr. Murray). Since he did not have the opportunity of doing so, may I tell the hon. member for Cariboo this. If you want to build a line and its distribution system into Dawson Creek, you can have all the gas in the world. Don't blame anybody else for not spending money on building something that you, a local resident, would build for yourself, if you had any pride in your place.


George Matheson Murray: Is the hon. member speaking as counsel for the Westcoast Transmission Company, Mr. Speaker? Dawson Creek is interested in the proposition.


An hon. Member:: Sit down.


George Alexander Cruickshank: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker; the hon. member asks if the member who has the floor is counsel for the Westcoast Transmission Company. He is not, and I ask that the remark be withdrawn.


An hon. Member:: Let him speak for himself.


George Alexander Cruickshank: It so happens that when he is supporting me, I will support him. That is not a fair question.


Arthur Leroy Smith: 
Ralph Maybank: Quite right.


Arthur Leroy Smith: That was his answer. Let us examine what we are dealing with, what we are looking at. It is a charter.
I know that other things have to be done afterward. It is a charter to build a gas line -from where to where? Nobody has any idea.
It being nine o'clock, I move the adjournment of the debate.
On motion of Mr. Smith (Calgary West) the debate was adjourned.


Mr. Speaker:: The hour reserved for public and private bills having expired, the house will resume the business that was interrupted at six o'clock. fMr. Smith (Calgary West).]



The house resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Abbott for committee of supply.



TRADE CONDITIONS-PROPOSED COMMONWEALTH CONFERENCE-AMENDMENT, MR. DIEFENBAKER

['I was paired with the hon. member for Middlesex West (Mr. McCubbin). Had I voted I would have voted in favour of the amendment.\nMotion (Mr. Abbott) agreed to and the house went into committee of supply, Mr. Dion in the chair.']
Edmund Davie Fulton: Mr. Speaker, as I was saying earlier, the trade situation in Canada today is growing desperate and fully warrants the motion that we are discussing tonight, calling for a commonwealth trade conference. In fact, information which has come to hand in a release today from the dominion bureau of statistics more than supports that statement. I shall refer to the release later and to the figures of our declining trade given in that document.
Let us look at some concrete examples of what this loss of sterling markets means to the Canadian producers. To do that we should look at the situation of our apple growers of British Columbia particularly, for theirs is a position which exemplifies perfectly the desperate need of restoring trade with the sterling markets, and the figures which I shall give, Mr. Speaker, fully justify the use of the words "the desperate need". Our apple growers are faced with the complete loss of their market in1 the United Kingdom and in this connection I intend to refer to our export figures over a series of years. However, before doing that I would like to refer to a statement made last night by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner), who is reported on page 288 of Hansard as follows:
The only surplus today is the surplus of cheese and1 we are carrying that right now.
Our apple growers find that the only way they can get rid of their surplus apples is to make a gift of one million boxes to the United Kingdom. The British Columbia apple growers did just that over a month ago. I find that statement of the Minister of Agriculture one of the most extraordinary made recently. It is completely unsupported by the facts. According to the government's own figures they are now carrying in storage some 28 million pounds of butter. We have a surplus position in apples in British Columbia and1 according to all appearances the 1949 crop is going to be largely unmarketed.
Our poultry producers will be amazed at the statement by the minister that there is no surplus except in cheese. Our egg producers would be glad to know where they can market their eggs. I am sure the berry growers of the Fraser valley, on whose behalf the member for that constituency raised his voice last year, will be glad to know that

there is no surplus in Canada except that of cheese and that the Minister of Agriculture is going to take care of that.
I do know that there is a surplus of apples. When we look at our export figures, when we look at what happened to our production, we see that there is a surplus. We no longer have the great export market that we used to have in the United Kingdom. Figures taken from the Canada Year Book show that from 1933 down to 1939 we exported an average of close to two million barrels of apples a year to the United Kingdom, and I ask you to bear in mind that a barrel contains a little more than three boxes. In 1936 we exported 2,202,000 barrels; in 1938, 2,473,000 barrels. In 1939, which was interrupted by the outbreak of war, we exported 1,427,000 barrels. Trade was interrupted during the war years but in 1946, the first full year of trade after the war, we exported 1,151,054 barrels to the United Kingdom or approximately 3,500,000 boxes.
In 1948 the United Kingdom purchased no apples f*om Canada, and in 1949 they purchased none. The figures show that our exports of apples pre-war and post-war up to the time when we lost the British market were approximately equal. In spite of what has been said in this house and outside the house, the figures given by the United Kingdom food officials as to their domestic requirements of apples indicate clearly that the British market is still the potential market for Canadian apples provided they can find the means to purchase them. The figures for British imports up until 1946 and 1947 as given by the United Kingdom food mission show that after the war years their imports of apples from Canada were approximately equal to the imports pre-war and that if it were not for exchange difficulties a great market for Canadian apples would still exist in the United Kingdom.
Remember that in 1948 and 1949 the United Kingdom purchased virtually no apples from Canada. The only shipments so far this year have been the million boxes sent as a gift by British Columbia. Naturally enough our apple producers are in a desperate plight. Their economy has been geared to the existence of the British market. Apple production is based on a twelve-year program. It takes from seven to eight years for a tree to begin bearing and it is at least twelve years before it reaches full production. You cannot change such a program overnight.
Certain solutions have been suggested for the difficulties in which the apple growers find themselves. An immediate solution, for this year at any rate, and for the years until there is a restoration of our markets, is the
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provision of a floor or support price for the apple production of British Columbia and I believe of Nova Scotia as well. A floor price is necessary in the present emergency, but that is not the aspect I want to discuss now. I hope to have something to say about that when the agricultural estimates are up. Representations are being made to the minister and I understand that negotiations are under way so perhaps it is not timely to say anything more at the moment about a floor price.
The provision of a floor price is only a short-term solution, and a long-term solution is necessary for our agricultural problems. It seems to me that our efforts must be directed toward finding an answer to the recurring surpluses of agricultural products here in Canada. It seems to me that that could be done in one of two ways. We produce more than we can eat at home and therefore we must either sell overseas or build up our population in Canada so that it is able to consume at least a greater proportion of what we produce.
It seems to me that the aim and object of the resolution now before the house is the restoration of our overseas market. The first requirement is to remove currency restrictions. In spite of what the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) has said, I do not think we have had any proof as yet that the imposition of currency restrictions with their resultant non-convertibility offers much hope for a solution of our trade problem. A commonwealth trade conference should be called. The imposition of restrictions hampers trade, and in this connection I should like to quote an article in the February 13 issue of Newsweek by Henry Hazlitt, the business commentator. He tells a little story which I think is apt to the matter under discussion, and I quote:
A poor peasant, according to an old folk tale, went to the wise man of his village for help and advice. The peasant lived in a one-room mud hut with his wife and four children. He was driven to desperation by the noise, the quarreling, the smell, the dirt, the poor scanty food, the poverty, sickness, and squalor in which his family lived.
"I will help you," said the wise man. So the next day he brought a male goat to the peasant's hut, saying: "You must feed this goat and take him in and let him sleep in the hut."
"Why, O wise man?" asked the peasant. "You will see," replied the wise man. "Come back to me at the turn of the moon."
On the night of the new moon the peasant was back. "O wise man, my life is unendurable. The noise in the hut is hideous. The smell is beyond belief. The goat knocks down the children and eats us out of hut and home. I am sunk in wretchedness and despair."
"I will help you," said the wise man. And he came and took away the goat. A week later the peasant came to him again, his face wreathed in smiles.

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"O wise man," he said, "my life now is wonderful. You cannot imagine the change since you took away the goat! The hut is quieter. The horrible smell is gone. My family has once more almost enough to eat. How can I ever thank you enough for taking away that goat? How infinitely wise you must be to have thought of such a marvelous plan!"
We find ourselves in practically the same situation. We heard the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) today, in his discussion with the leader of the Social Credit party (Mr. Low) or it may have been the leader of the C.C.F. party (Mr. Coldwell), say: We are taking off these restrictions and it is having a very beneficial effect on our trade with the sterling area and the United States. Mr. Hazlitt went on to say:
I keep thinking of this tale as I read about the new plans of the bureaucrats all over the world. They impose an endless network of restrictions, burdens, coercions, and1 prohibitions on their own peoples: they all but strangle production and trade. And then their most happy solutions consist in removing one or two of the burdens and1 prohibitions that they themselves have decreed.
That is about all we have offered to us by the government in the way of prospects for increasing trade in the future. The Minister of Finance has imposed a few goats on us, and he has taken one or two away. Now he says: Look what I have done for Canadian trade. Furthermore, he says that we have had a number of conferences. There was the one in the Far East that was mentioned this afternoon which was not about trade at all. The Minister of Finance goes to Washington and discusses currency restrictions but he does not have the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) or the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Howe) with him. On another occasion the Minister of Agriculture sits down in Ottawa and discusses food contracts with the United Kingdom authorities but he does not have the Minister of Finance or the Minister of Trade and Commerce with him. The Minister of Trade and Commerce goes overseas and discusses trade but he does not have the Minister of Agriculture or the Minister of Finance with him. Nevertheless the Minister of Finance said this afternoon that he thought we had had enough conferences. We have not had a single trade conference, Mr. Speaker, of the sort we are talking about, and the sort which is necessary to solve commonwealth trade relations, since the conference of 1932.
In the face of the conditions which we have described, the situation facing agriculture, the situation facing our apple growers, the situation facing the workmen of this country, it is a sort of fantastic nightmare of unreality to hear the Minister of Finance say today, when we have not had
IMr. Fulton.]
a conference yet, that another conference would serve no useful purpose and that it is not up to Canada to take the initiative.
The other solution which I mentioned is, I think, a long-term one for our agricultural problems and must go hand in hand with the efforts to build up our overseas markets again, something that can only be done by removing currency restrictions and removing them now. It is to take positive steps to build up our population at home because we produce more than we can consume. Although it will help greatly to restore overseas markets, nevertheless if that is the limit of our solution we will still be peculiarly vulnerable to any depression or upset in these overseas markets. As soon as they stop buying we will have recurring food surpluses. The two efforts must go hand in hand. Until the country begins to realize the potentialities of which it is capable, both in terms of population engaged in useful production and as a consumers' market at home to eat more of what we produce, we will be faced with the problem of recurring surpluses. Under these circumstances it is no answer to say that our effort must be in the direction of cultivating our trade with the United States. Look again at the situation of our apple producers. What prospects have Canadian apple growers in the United States market?


An hon. Member:: Quite good.


Edmund Davie Fulton: Before this debate is over, perhaps the hon. member will make his contribution and tell us of the growing sales of our apples in the United States market. I will be glad to hear him substantiate his remark if my understanding of what he says is correct, namely, that the United States market offers a useful alternative to the British market. The Minister of Finance also said he would not like to have a conference without knowing what was going to be the agenda. It seems to me that a mere examination of the problem suggests the items for discussion. In order that we may have the problem fully before us, perhaps I might now refer to the dominion bureau of statistics daily bulletin which was released today, February 28. The first paragraph reads:
Canada's domestic exports to the United States- for the third successive month-were substantially higher in value in January than a year earlier. Shipments to commonwealth and other countries were generally lower and the total value of domestic exports to all countries fell below that of January last year.
Further down it continues:
Total exports to all countries in January declined in value to $221,200,000 compared with $237 million a year earlier.

I might interpolate that this was a reduction of $16 million. The release continues:
Shipments to the United States thus accounted for about 59 per cent of the month's total value as compared with slightly more than 50 per cent in the twelve months of 1949.
But the position is that our over-all trade picture is deteriorating. The release goes on as follows:
Sales to the United Kingdom-which have been subject to fluctuations during recent months-were valued at $48,608,000, down from $55,813,000 a year earlier, but only slightly under the December figure.
We might point out that in January sales to the United Kingdom declined by over $7 million. Continuing it reads:
There were decreases also from a year ago in exports to other commonwealth areas. The largest decline was in exports to commonwealth countries in Asia which fell to $3,473,000 from $14,937,000, with shipments to India down to $495,000 from $11,190,000 in January last year. . . . Exports to the British West Indies, including British Guiana, Bermuda and British Honduras, declined to $2,512,000 compared to $4,608,000; to commonwealth countries in Africa to $3,831,000 from $4,991,000; and to the Oceania group of Australia, New Zealand and Fiji to $2,612,000 from $3,145,000.
The paragraph concludes with this sentence:
Total value of exports to all commonwealth countries, including the United Kingdom, was $62,336,000 as against $83,706,000.
For the month of January, Mr. Speaker, there was a decline in our exports to commonwealth countries of $21 million.
With that general background, together with the knowledge all hon. members have of the situation facing individual producers or producer groups in their own constituencies, it is no answer for the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) to say that a conference would not serve any useful purpose, and that he does not know just what such a conference might discuss. A conference might discuss ways and means of restoring trade, of removing trade restrictions, of trading between commonwealth countries to our mutual benefit. It might discuss the removal of currency restrictions; it might discuss the kind of goods available in one country for shipment to another and the kind of goods that can be shipped back, and a means of providing for the balance of payments resulting. It might also discuss immigration and emigration as between commonwealth countries. There are many things such a conference might discuss, problems the Canadian people want to see solved. They are problems for which the government so far has offered no solution. While it is not generous to decry the efforts that have been made by various ministers and missions who have been sent abroad, I think it is
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fair to say that these isolated, separate missions hither and yon all over the map, each consisting of an individual minister or group of experts without any co-ordination such as a trade conference must have, are foredoomed to failure in attempting to deal with the trade situation faced today by this country and the world in general.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I want to echo what has been said before by hon. members on this side of the house and what I know is in the hearts of all members on all sides. Canada's greatest customer over the years, the nation or group of nations that has taken more from us than it has sold to us, is the British commonwealth of nations and particularly the United Kingdom. We would be making a grave mistake if, as one hon. member put it, we sold that commonwealth short. The fact is that owing to currency restrictions the United Kingdom can no longer buy from us more than she sells to us, because the currency she has with which to pay for what she buys is not convertible. That is the problem that must be solved if we want to restore commonwealth trade and if we want to halt the trend which is going on, as the release issued today by the dominion bureau of statistics makes quite clear.
Together with other hon. members who have spoken this afternoon, in behalf of the group of producers I mentioned specifically, the apple producers of British Columbia, but also in behalf of the lumber producers of that province and of the maritimes and of all Canadian producers of goods which other people need, I hope the government will not close its mind to the necessity of a conference such as that suggested in the amendment moved this afternoon by the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker), and the beneficial results which could flow from it.


Mr. Angus Maclnnis (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, I desire to speak briefly to the amendment now before the house, which asks that the government take immediate steps to convene, at the earliest possible date, a conference of the nations of the British commonwealth and the countries of the empire to devise policies to restore our lost markets and thereby provide jobs for the Canadian people.
Without agreeing with the Progressive Conservative opposition that our trade situation is in a desperate way, and without agreeing with the government that the position is a matter of no great concern, I think there is a general feeling that not only Canadian but world trade relations are getting into

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difficulties. In my view this would not necessarily be a serious matter were it not for the fact that, as I see it, the present deterioration in trade and in world economic conditions follows a pattern we know so well. That was the pattern after the last war, when we had a few short years of economic activity when we were urged by businessmen to produce more and consume less. But shortly came the debacle, when a great many people could not consume at all, not because the things were not there to consume but because something had gone wrong with the exchange of commodities both between nations and within the nation. At the present time we see the very same pattern developing. When we finished the war we had a tremendous backlog of needs to be met, both in consumer and capital goods. This was more so with the countries of Europe than on this continent of North America, but in four or five short years we have overcome that backlog of consumer needs, we have added to our capital resources so that now we can supply a greater amount of goods and services than ever before. Now, the paradox of the situation is this: just when we are better equipped than ever before to supply the needs of our people and raise the standard of living, the standard of living is going down. How far that deterioration may go on this particular lap I do not know; but if we do not find some way to distribute the wealth we can produce so abundantly, nothing can save us from falling into a depression such as we had from 1930 to 1939, from which we were rescued by the war.
Whether, as the Minister of Finance (Mr. Abbott) has said, the present trade slump is not due to a lack of conferences, or whether it would not necessarily be improved by calling another conference, certainly I believe one thing is true; that is, that it will not settle itself. Either we are going to try to find a solution for our problems in such ways as solutions can be found, or we are going to throw up our hands and say there is nothing further we can do. For that reason alone, I would favour a trade conference. I am sure that once representatives met at such a conference they would not only discuss the matter of the exchange of commodities, but they could discuss the underlying difficulties, economic conditions and methods of distributing wealth, as well as the mere exchange of commodities.
During the last two sessions, I have been appalled to hear members stand up in this house and condemn the British government for its refusal to buy more Canadian goods. I believe that anyone who has sufficient intelligence to become a member of this house,

and who makes a statement of that kind, is unpardonably ignorant. If the Minister of Agriculture made the statement that was attributed to him to the effect that there was some conspiracy in the United Kingdom not to buy Canadian goods, then I have not words to express what I think of that.
It is the generally accepted understanding of international trade that the goods we import are paid1 for by the goods we export. If we have no goods to export, then we will have to stop importing goods; that is the general picture. Let us look at the situation as between Canada and the United Kingdom. I have in my hand a copy of Foreign Trade, a publication issued by the Department of Trade and Commerce. This issue is dated February 8, 1950. I find that the total Canadian exports to the United Kingdom for the calendar year 1949, excluding gold, amounted to $705 million; that was the value of the goods we exported to the United Kingdom. We bought from the United Kingdom goods to the value of $307,400,000. In other words, for every dollar's worth of goods we bought from the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom bought $2.30 worth of goods from us. Unless there is some way by which the United Kingdom can get dollars or gold, she cannot buy anything more from us than she is buying. It is sheer nonsense, it is sheer hypocrisy, for members of this house to complain about the United Kingdom not buying more goods from Canada.
Let us look at the picture as between Canada and the United States. For the same calendar year of 1949, we sold to the United States goods totalling $1,503 million. We bought from the United States goods totalling $1,954 million. In other words, for every dollar's worth of goods we sold to the United States, we bought $1.30 worth of goods from the United States. Bear in mind that it gives us great concern to conserve our dollars, so that we can continue to buy from the United States. Supposing the trade picture between the United1 States and Canada were represented by Canada buying $2.30* worth of goods from the United States for every dollar's worth of goods the United States bought from us, would the Minister of Finance be so emphatic about the value of non-discrimination in trade as he was this afternoon?
In 1947 when we imposed restrictions on United States imports there was a certain amount of tongue in the cheek attitude on the question of non-discrimination. Although the balance of payments was not nearly as bad as it is today between Canada and the United Kingdom, restrictions on imports from! the United States were imposed, the same restrictions being imposed on imports from other

countries, including the United Kingdom. But I heard the Minister of Finance say in this house that although it was quite true we were imposing the same restrictions on the United Kingdom, it did not matter because we were not buying any of the prohibited goods from the United Kingdom. It seems to me we should be realistic in these matters and realize that we cannot sell to a country very much more than we buy from that country. All the nations of the world must realize, and for the purpose of what I am saying now I mean the nations of the free world, that if they are going to expand1 their economies, increase prosperity, raise the standard of living of their people, then we will have to do much more and go much further than we have so far in the matter of deciding what we can sell to each other, and what we can buy from each other.
In my opinion, it is not just a question of improving Canada's trade position, it is a question of international prosperity-the prosperity of the countries of the western world. But it is more than that; it is as much a part of our defence against aggression as is our military preparedness. If we do not keep the western world prosperous, we will lose out in the struggle with the totalitarian world. Let us remember that to maintain the prosperity of the western world is part of our defence against aggression. It is for that reason this question is so important- That is why increasing unemployment and falling markets are so important to everyone who believes in co-operation and peace. We also must not forget that we cannot have co-operation in military matters to defend ourselves against an enemy, and have trade wars between the co-operators. Surely the time has arrived when we should see that that sort of economics no longer fits the needs of the world of 1950. Whether or not a conference of this kind would accomplish anything, surely it would be an advance if we could bring the nations of the commonwealth close together-the commonwealth now is both east and west-and find out more definitely what each nation has to sell and what each is willing to buy. Surely if we did not do anything more than make an advance in that direction, the conference would be worth while. Unless those who are opposed to such a conference have some better solution for meeting our economic problems, they certainly should not turn this one down without giving a serious consideration indeed.


Mr. Speaker:: Is the house ready for the question?


Some hon. Members:: Question.
Trade


Mr. Speaker:: Before putting the question,
I should like to observe that I have had some doubt as to whether the amendment is in order under our rules.
It is true that wide latitude is given in respect of amendments to the motion for going into supply. It is equally true, however, that there are well-established classes of amendments which, for good reason, cannot be moved on such a motion. For instance, a matter of which notice has been given or which stands upon the order paper cannot be introduced as an amendment to a motion for going into supply. See Bourinot's Parliamentary Procedure, fourth edition, at page 420.
The opening clause of the amendment to the address in reply to the speech from the throne, moved by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Drew), reads as follows:
We respectfully submit to Your Excellency that Your Excellency's advisers have:
(1) failed to take adequate measures to preserve and expand markets for Canada's surplus products of farm, forest, sea and mine, and to deal with the problems of increasing unemployment and reduced income to Canadian farmers and other producers;...
The present amendment is similar to the amendment just quoted in that it deals with a particular phase or aspect of the broader question, and recommends a particular method for resolving it. The subject matter of the present amendment could be, and I believe already has been, introduced in the debate on the address.
I feel bound to disclose to the house the doubt I entertain as to the admissibility of this amendment. It is a borderline case, but I think that the doubt should be resolved in favour of the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker). For that reason I am not going to rule the amendment out of order.


["Before putting the question,\nI should like to observe that I have had some doubt as to whether the amendment is in order under our rules.\nIt is true that wide latitude is given in respect of amendments to the motion for going into supply. It is equally true, however, that there are well-established classes of amendments which, for good reason, cannot be moved on such a motion. For instance, a matter of which notice has been given or which stands upon the order paper cannot be introduced as an amendment to a motion for going into supply. See Bourinot's Parliamentary Procedure, fourth edition, at page 420.\nThe opening clause of the amendment to the address in reply to the speech from the throne, moved by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Drew), reads as follows:\nWe respectfully submit to Your Excellency that Your Excellency's advisers have:\n(1) failed to take adequate measures to preserve and expand markets for Canada's surplus products of farm, forest, sea and mine, and to deal with the problems of increasing unemployment and reduced income to Canadian farmers and other producers;...\nThe present amendment is similar to the amendment just quoted in that it deals with a particular phase or aspect of the broader question, and recommends a particular method for resolving it. The subject matter of the present amendment could be, and I believe already has been, introduced in the debate on the address.\nI feel bound to disclose to the house the doubt I entertain as to the admissibility of this amendment. It is a borderline case, but I think that the doubt should be resolved in favour of the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker). For that reason I am not going to rule the amendment out of order."]
Mr. White (Middlesex East):: I was paired with the hon. member for Middlesex West (Mr. McCubbin). Had I voted I would have voted in favour of the amendment.
Motion (Mr. Abbott) agreed to and the house went into committee of supply, Mr. Dion in the chair.



[Stage Direction]
64. Departmental administration, $2,378,880.
Item stands.
[Stage Direction]
202. To provide for the defence forces of the navy, army and air services, and to authorize total commitments for this purpose of $579,301,670, including authority, notwithstanding section 29 of the Consolidated Revenue and Audit Act, to make commitments for the current year of $438,178,000 and commitments for future years of $141,123,670 against which commitments it is estimated that actual expenditures in 1950-51 will not exceed $384,932,304.
Item stands.
[Stage Direction]
1. Departmental administration, $293,670.
Item stands.
Progress reported.


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Monday, February 27, consideration of the motion of Mr. F. H. Larson for an address to His Excellency the Governor General in reply to his speech at the opening of the session, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Drew and the amendment to the amendment of Mr. Coldwell.
Mr. A. E. Dewar (Qu'Appelle):: Mr. Speaker, in my opening remarks last evening I had intended to make reference to the illustrious group of governmental supporters in this corner of the house. Having once had a reputation for boisterous behaviour, this group is today quiet and serene. However, let no one think for a minute that we do not lend weight to this august body. As a matter of fact, we are almost the weightiest in the house, including the hon. member for Nipis-sing (Mr. Garland), whose home is in North Bay. At the present time we can more than

pull our own weight and in time it is our hope that we will be able to lend a lot to other sections of the house.
Continuing along the theme of trade with Great Britain and the so-called lost returns to our farmers, I have a few observations I should like to add to what I had to say last evening. Our good friends in the official opposition have suggested various sums that have been lost because of the contracts that were made for prices below the world level. We are not in disagreement with the statement that the prices were below world level, but why in heaven's name are they not consistent in their arguments?
One hon. member will get up and make a tear-jerking speech with reference to the commonwealth and the British people, and then in the next minute another speaker gets up and says that this country has lost $500 million. Then a day or two later another speaker gets up and says that we lost $1,000 million. Then another fellow, not to be outdone, says that we have lost $2,000 million.


Mr. Fleming:: You have lost your seat or your head.


Austin Edwin Dewar: You answer for your own head or for your own seat and I will answer for mine. If anyone stops to consider the limited number of dollars that Great Britain had during the post-war years and where those dollars came from he will not suggest that we should have kept prices up to the world level. The government with which I happen to have the honour to be associated and will be associated with is the government that inaugurated this program. They supplied the dollars with which Great Britain bought our products.
The Canadian taxpayer makes a great holler about the atrocious taxes, but I can assure you that if prices had been fixed at the world level it would have meant so many more dollars that the taxpayer would have had to supply to Great Britain. Do not forget that Great Britain had only a limited number of dollars to spend and as a consequence this government made a deal to provide them with opportunities to purchase the foodstuffs that they could use.
The hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Fleming) was not in his seat last night when I made this remark, so I am going to make it again. He has confused the 16 per cent decline in farm revenues with that of trade. He states there has been a 16 per cent decline in income.


Donald Methuen Fleming: That was the decline in the value of field crops.
The Address-Mr. Dewar


Austin Edwin Dewar: Call it field crops or anything you like, it does not make any difference. We will call it field crops. Before trade can be carried on, goods must be produced and hence the 16 per cent decline is not the result of trade but is an internal production decline due to drought conditions. As a matter of fact when you consider the amount of money that we produce in the west from the sale of our products from year to year, and the fact that about one-third of the province of Saskatchewan has no crop, a 16 per cent decline is only a fraction of the over-all total production.
Much has been said, is being said and no doubt will continue to be said about what Great Britain has done for the commonwealth. I quite agree. As the expression goes, Great Britain cast her bread on the waters and it came back as ham sandwiches. Nevertheless I do not want anyone to forget that everything that Great Britain has been and is today is directly attributable to what she got from the commonwealth. In other words, if she continues on her present path of reneging on what we in Canada feel she should do, it is not beyond the realms of possibility she may some day be sitting alone, a lonely little island on the threshold of Europe. The businessmen of Great Britain are noted for their shrewdness. They are just the same as every individual in this House of Commons. The opposition party or parties would be the first people in the Dominion of Canada to criticize the government if they were to buy from any country a product which they could secure cheaper elsewhere. The same thing applies to the British empire. They are going to buy where they can do so most cheaply.


Joseph William Noseworthy: Speak for your own party.


An hon. Member:: He has not got a party to speak for.


Austin Edwin Dewar: Therefore the government of Canada has acted in good faith. Unfortunately we have arrived at the position we are in today owing to the ungovernable factors of our existence. At all levels of government in Canada that is an established fact. Similarly, as to external trade, it is the ungovernable elements that have to be mastered. So far as our position is specifically concerned, Great Britain and the United States hold the key. If their moves are wise and sympathetic we in this country are assured for the future. If not, no government group of any party can supply the solution beyond a certain point.
I should like to turn now to the wheat board. On February 21 the hon. member for Melfort (Mr. Wright), together with the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker),

The Address-Mr. Dewar
requested the government to announce further payments on wheat as well as coarse grains. Last evening the hon. member for Melfort charged the government with playing politics when they made the 20 cents per bushel payment on the first of April, 1949. I suggest that this same hon. gentleman was playing politics the other day when he asked his question in the first place, and as soon as he received the wheat board report he thought he was going to hang the government on the hook.
I am rather surprised that he has now reversed his position of concern for farmers receiving payments. As a matter of fact he is not in a drought area himself. I am amazed at his attitude in criticizing government payments made last spring. Contrary to what he led us to believe last night, these payments were announced five months ahead. Drought conditions had been widespread throughout the west and farmers' organizations requested that these payments be made as early as possible. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) challenged the statement that these payments had not been requested. I happen to have in my possession a letter and a resolution sent to the minister on December 7, 1948.


An hon. Member:: Where did you get that?


Austin Edwin Dewar: Not from anyone in your group. The letter reads:
Dear Mr. Gardiner:
At the regular meeting of our council held on yesterday's date, the following resolution was passed for your earnest-consideration.
Whereas it is understood that the wheat board is going to make a payment of 20 cents per bushel on the 1945, 1946 and 1947 wheat crop, therefore be it resolved that we request the wheat board to make this payment as early as possible in the new year in this municipality, particularly as it is in the crop failure bonus area and in dire neeed to purchase feed and seed oats prior to spring.
I do not see how anyone can honestly get up and accuse the government of playing politics in the making of the payment in view of the hundreds of letters and request that were received.


Mr. Johnston:: The announcement had already been made by the wheat board.


Austin Edwin Dewar: I did not quite get that.


Charles Edward Johnston: The announcement had already been made that there would be a payment.


Austin Edwin Dewar: Was it not perfectly all right for us to make it? Why should we be accused of playing politics by the hon. member for Melfort?


Charles Edward Johnston: So you were.


Austin Edwin Dewar: How were we playing politics? The announcement was made months before the election was even dreamed of.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Whom was the letter from?


Austin Edwin Dewar: I will tell you. The address is Strasbourg, Saskatchewan, which I believe is in the riding of the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker). It is from the rural municipality of McKillop, No. 220, and it is signed by Mr. C. H. Chapin, secretary-treasurer.


Charles Edward Johnston: Liberal organizer.


Austin Edwin Dewar: The hon. member for Melfort also took exception to the fact that interest payments had been made amounting to $5 million. How in heaven's name can you handle wheat through the wheat board if you do not borrow money at some time? Anyone who knows anything about the grain trade and how wheat is handled knows that the minute the farmer delivers a bushel of wheat he receives payment for it, but the fact that he receives payment does not mean that the bushel of wheat has reached the lakehead or an export port. Therefore the money must be found some place, and the hon. member was absolutely wrong in the point he raised last night by way of criticism of the federal government. There is no other way it can be handled. I rather think that if he were to suggest to his supporters in the Melfort riding that these payments be left until such time as all of the operations of the board for the year are wound up he would not be sitting in his seat very long.
Our good friends in the C.C.F. have been suggesting that we should hang our heads in shame.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Now you are learning.


Austin Edwin Dewar: They tell us we should hang our heads in disgrace. I have listened to that sort of thing all during the last session and for a good portion of this session. For clarification I should like to reiterate some remarks I made during my election campaign. My supporters and the people generally of the Qu'Appelle constituency know where I stand. I made them no promises. What I did say repeatedly was that I was in favour of anything they wanted provided they were ready and willing to pay for it. I would not insult them, as some have, by endeavouring to buy their votes with wild, rash promises, nor would I degenerate to auction sale tactics to gain their favour and support. Hon. members will notice that I am here in Ottawa.

Last Sunday I was privileged to attend church. At this time I should like to say that our churches are the greatest instrument for good we have in this or any other country of the world. We as Liberals, being a widely assorted and truly national group, acknowledge our errors and omissions. We are possessed of all the frailties of human nature.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Austin Edwin Dewar: From the speeches I have listened to which were made by those on the other side of the house I almost expect halos and wings to appear any day. Consequently on Sunday I noted a prayer of confession which I hope the opposition groups will include in their respective manifestos.


Mr. Wylie:: Be careful.


Austin Edwin Dewar: It is as follows:
If thou, O Lord, shouldst mark iniquity, O Lord who would stand? Enter not into judgment with Thy servants, for in Thy sight is no man living justified. In Thy presence, our Father, our disguises and pretenses do not avail, and' under the light of Thy holiness1 we know ourselves for what we are, mean and petty creatures who seek our own in spite of our noble pretensions.
Have mercy upon us. Give us the grace to see our faults more clearly that we may truly repent.
I would like hon. members to note the next words:
We acknowledge that the world's sin is our own, that the greed1 which we condemn when it results in obvious inhumanity is in our own heart; that the world is unjust because none of us love justice with sufficient abandon; that the vices of civilization are compounded of the lusts of us all. Give us grace to look into our own hearts before we cast a stone of condemnation.
In conclusion I would say it was faith in the future, and hard work, that built this country of ours into its present greatness. Canada, to fulfil her destiny, must correct her thinking; and when I say that I mean the people of Canada. This thinking has been and every day is being warped by the propagandists of the opposition groups, who are suggesting that the government more and more absorb the problems of the individual. They preach the gospel of "what the country owes me"-don't deny it-rather than "what may I do for my country?" I hope the current generation will say, as the fine men and women who sacrificed their lives in the last war said, "What may I do for my country?"
This brings me to "stop, look and listen." It seems the time has come when we should stop, look and1 listen before embarking upon vast new governmental projects intended to compel an increase in our material welfare. We should consider not merely whether the professed end is good, but what the process
The Address-Mr. Gosselin of getting there will do to the people's character if it involves more governmental compulsion and less personal responsibility. Also we should consider whether there are not alternative ways of achieving the desired ends that have more of a voluntary and less of a compulsory character.


Mr. Henri A. Gosselin (Brome-Missisquoi):: Mr. Speaker, this is the second time it has been my privilege to rise in this house and take part in a debate on the speech from the throne. In my first remarks I should like to congratulate the mover and seconder, who performed their tasks so well. I shall try to be as brief as possible, but I believe it is my duty to bring to this house matters which I feel have to do with the welfare and future of the coming generation.
As a railroad man I also feel that it is my duty to say a few words with respect to a matter which has been mentioned several times in the house during the last few days; that is, the shortage of coal which has caused a decrease in passenger service on the Canadian National Railways. After thirty-seven years of railroad work I believe I know the routine of its administration; and I feel that we should not be so ready to criticize our railways, which have made such a contribution to the development of this country. It is true that a lack of coal has forced a curtailment of passenger service by the Canadian National; but let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, that the financial position of our railway companies is not what it should be, and they are obliged to carry on at a loss while giving our people the best service possible. I am sure a great deal of the criticism that is being expressed comes from members of this house who never travel by train if they can possibly get where they are going by car or by plane. Our railway officials have believed it better to maintain the freight service so the people of the country would suffer as little as possible, and have chosen to reduce passenger service instead; and I congratulate them on having done so. It is necessary that those in charge of our railways should look to the future of this country, and at the same time increase the efficiency of our railways and develop more speedy transportation in order to compete with other methods of transportation. So I say we should not reproach those who are making every effort to develop rail transportation in this country. Affiliated with those companies we have ocean transportation and large hotels which give accommodation to the people of Canada and also provide essential facilities for our tourists.
342	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Gosselin
I repeat that the railway companies have greatly assisted in the development of this country. When there was no other form of either passenger or freight service, the railway companies carried on, even at a loss; and as a railroad man for so many years I greatly regret to hear this criticism. Instead of hon. members criticizing they should bear in mind that it is the duty of those administering the affairs of these companies to protect their finances and, in so doing, protect the finances of the country.
Then I should like to congratulate the government on doing everything possible to increase the value of education in this country; yet I am afraid I must say that to a certain extent education has been neglected. An educated population is the most important asset any country may have. I believe that, in many ways, education has been neglected, and that our governments should have taken a more active part in giving the necessary financial assistance to the raising of our educational standards. During the last few years our provincial governments, which are charged with the responsibility for education, no doubt owing to a shortage of finances, were forced to neglect the education of our children. The federal government recognized its duty to enter this field and assist the provinces in providing better education. This will mean, Mr. Speaker, that the professor and' the teacher will receive a better income than they have in the past. The character of our children, which is formed in the schoolroom, is carried through life. There is, therefore, no more important question than the provision of an education for the future population of our country.
I wish once more, Mr. Speaker, to congratulate the government on its efforts to assist our provincial governments in carrying forward the principle of education to such an extent that no public man who has that right may criticize the educational standards we have set. I wish to congratulate the government also on the action it has taken in connection with health. There is no category of social service which is more essential, Mr. Speaker, than health services. This is especially true in the years we are going through, because our population is in the mids of dangerous and contagious diseases. I feel it is the duty of the government, regardless of any other department, to use the money necessary to establish hospitalization and medical care for our population. This would enable our people to look forward to all the medical care that is necessary throughout their life.
Regrettably, Mr. Speaker, in this young country of ours, it is impossible to carry on everything at once. I still believe that this


government is establishing a sound foundation for social services. I believe that program can be divided into two principal parts, health and education. I repeat, Mr. Speaker, that an educated and healthy population is the fundamental basis for the prosperity of any country. I urge the government not to withdraw on those fundamental principles, which are of importance to the welfare of this Canada of ours.
There is another important question, Mr. Speaker, and that is ensuring the aged a pension sufficient to take care of their needs. After spending the greater part of his life-in the raising of a family, the aged person will feel that he is protected. I hope that this government will look into this matter, and find a way of guaranteeing the older element of our population a satisfactory pension without a means test. The old age-pension, as it is now, is highly appreciated, but I do believe it does not go far enough. I do not like the old age pension being recognized as a matter of charity. Those who have attained the age of 65 or 70, who have given their entire life to their country, are often, obliged to degrade themselves to seek this form of charity. I am sure that this government will investigate every possible means' of giving these people an old age pension without a means test, so that those who deserve it will not feel there is the stigma of charity attached to it. I know that to-many of us, Mr. Speaker, such a pension system seems to be beyond our financial capability. I am sure, however, that the administration of this country will provide someway of overcoming the financial situation, and will solve this problem.
May I congratulate this government on the-adoption of family allowances. This administration found the means with which to pay those family allowances to all families, regardless of wealth. This ensures that the younger element of our population will be provided' with the necessities of life.
My next remarks, Mr. Speaker, will be designed to give assistance to this government in regard to agriculture. As I stated a few moments ago, I am a railroad man by profession, but I am also a farmer. I am one of those who have followed the occupation of farming since childhood. I am the son of a farmer, and I intend to bend all my efforts towards improving the welfare and ensuring the prosperity of farmers. The farmers in my day, Mr. Speaker, as everyone will admit, were far from prosperous. They were not encouraged to remain on the soil. In the last few years new developments have taken place, as a result of which our products are sold to better advantage. Our agricultural

schools have also developed ways and means of obtaining higher revenues for those engaged in farming. But I believe that the present government, or any other government, should give consideration to further measures to ensure the prosperity of our farmers, who are fundamentally the basis of the prosperity and the guarantee of the financial stability of any country in the world. That being so, no government should neglect to maintain their stability, for by so doing they will be guaranteeing the financial stability of the country whose affairs they are called upon to administer.
Before going further in my remarks with regard to the farming situation, I wish to congratulate the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) who is a farmer himself and understands the necessity of maintaining the farmers on the soil. He knows that it is more than ever necessary to provide them with a comfortable living on their farms. He knows that is his duty, and he has shown that he recognizes it by providing for the farmers subsidies commensurate with the financial situation of the country.
We have often heard it said, in the last few months especially, that the farmer is neglected and is going to be discouraged. I say no. As I have said on several occasions, especially in this house before a group of administrators of the country, we should gather together to maintain those principles of guaranteeing prosperity to the farmers, who are, as we all understand, the basis of financial stability, instead of making speeches that may cause them to become discouraged, and stating that within six months or a year our farmers will be in a disastrous position because there is no market for their products. Let us have more confidence in the future, Mr. Speaker. Let us have more confidence that any public man who is willing to devote himself to public life, no matter to what party he may belong, will give this encouragement. Regardless of what the political beliefs of my farmer colleagues in this house may be, I should have preferred to hear them tell the government that at the present time we are facing a decrease in the value of our products but have confidence that we may trade with foreign countries and with the United States so that they may absorb the surplus and that we may maintain our prices for our farm products. By doing so, instead of trying to discourage them in a small political way, I believe they would have rendered a service to the farming community. I state this with all the sincerity that I as a farmer possess, as a result of my experience over many years.
The Address-Mr. Gosselin
We all know, Mr. Speaker, that after a war it is necessary for an adjustment to be made in the financial situation of a country. No doubt the United Kingdom faces the same problem that we face here, namely a readjustment of finances; and they find themselves in a position in which they are unable to make purchases in sterling and to expand further the exchange of commodities, as has been explained in this house. I believe that it is necessary for all countries to look at the past, but I also believe that it is necessary for them to look to the future. With all the sincerity of which we are capable we hope that we shall not be called on again to face the rigours of another war. If our debts were raised to such an extent, our working population would require higher salaries in order to maintain their families, and this would of necessity cause an increase in the payrolls of their employers. But let us hope once more that we shall not be forced to face another war.
May I congratulate the government on the principles they are adopting to try to readjust all categories of finance in order to protect this country of ours and its future. It is necessary for this house to group together, regardless of politics, and study ways and means of giving to our younger element the encouragement they deserve so that they will not feel themselves in the desert after having had the advantages of-and I feel I must say this-extravagant living as compared with that which men of my age and many years younger have experienced in the past. I do not say this by way of reproach, and I hope that I am not misunderstood. Because of the high revenues in all categories of employment, and the return we receive, we as fathers of families were not obliged to provide a real education in economy as was done in the past. May I therefore once more congratulate the present government on providing, by every possible means, that the finances of this country shall be on a sound basis so that the bondholders of this country shall never have reason to fear that their savings are in danger. It is the duty of the government to look first to the guarantee of its obligations; second, to adopt social laws so that its population may have faith in their security; and third, to establish trade with other countries, and the exchange of commodities in order to ensure the sale of our surplus products. I know that the present government are working on that principle, that they are looking forward, and that they are more advanced than the opposition seems to give them credit for in this house.
344	HOUSE OF
The Address-Mr. Gosselin
I have confidence that when it becomes necessary to export goods to the United Kingdom arrangements will be made, and we shall be assured that we shall continue to trade with the United Kingdom and also with our good neighbour, the United States. We should express words of encouragement to those with whom we are in communication; we should not try to instil il their minds the thought that we are gone forever. It is most important to our country to create in our minds the feeling that the future is worth boking forward to. We should not try to discourage the younger element by saying that the future before them is dark. No matter how we feel, we hold a responsible position in this house, and we should try to eliminate all expressions which might lead any of our younger element to believe that the future before them is dark. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I believe that every public man will do his duty toward the welfare and the future of the couritry in which he lives.
I believe that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) will provide ways and means of assisting our farmers to increase production.


An hon. Member:: Surplus production.


Henri A. Gosselin: Hon. members on the opposite side speak of surplus production. We should not look forward to the future as something black; we should do our work and conduct our activities as though the future were bright, and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred I believe that success will crown our efforts.
I hope .that the Minister of Agriculture, in his present capacity, will, in co-operation with the provincial authorities, give the necessary assistance to our farmers to increase production, and that that increased production will be brought about with the same amount of work. By so doing we will give our farmers encouragement to harvest their crops and to deliver the surplus which they will be able to offer to the labourer, at a reduction in price. In that way the farmer will be able to deliver the commodities of his farm to the cities at a lower rate, a rate which will compare with the reduction which is necessary among our working classes in order to stabilize conditions in this country.

May I give an example. So far as wages are concerned, the working classes have no desire to increase wages beyond what is necessary at the end of the week to take care of the obligations which they have toward their families and to buy the necessities for the table. Because of the high prices of commodities it is necessary for the labouring man to ask for an increase in wages.
I remember that during the years from 1914 to 1918' railroad employees were given increases in wages, and after the financial situation became stabilized, the credit for which should no doubt go to the government of the day, a reduction in salary took place in 1923 to compare with the reduction in the cost of living. It was accepted with assurance and satisfaction, as the working classes could buy with that amount of money that which was unattainable before. Farming is the basis of prosperity, and agricultural products are necessities to all classes of people. The farmer should be provided with ways and means to increase production. He should have guaranteed to him the financial assistance which is necessary to enable him to carry on in such a way as to give to himself and family all that is essential to encourage them to remain on the soil. High salaries and short hours of work that prevail in the cities should not be introduced on the farms.
A few days ago one hon. member mentioned that the hours the farmer works are unlimited. I agree with his remarks. However, I believe that if the farmer is given a reasonable return for the long hours he works he and his sons will not be apt to desert the soil.
On motion of Mr. Gosselin the debate was adjourned.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Fournier (Hull):: As announced by the Prime Minister (Mr. St. Laurent), before the orders of the day are called tomorrow we shall take up questions and notices of motions for production of papers. After that we shall continue with the debate on the address.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, March 1, 1950