CANADA SHIPPING ACT AMENDMENT

[Stage Direction]
Mr. McLEiVN (Queens) moved for leave to introduce Bill (No. 118) to amend the

Canada Shipping Act. He said:	The object of this Bill is to amend section 477 of the Shipping Act so that coal barges under tow may come into the ports of Canada without being obliged to pay pilotage fees. Up to a recent decision of the Privy Council, coal barges have been coming into our ports in the maritime provinces without paying pilotage dues. Under this decision it is held that the words in the Act ' ships propelled wholly or in part by steam ' do apply to coal barges under tow. For example, the Cumberland Coal and Railway Company send from Parrsboro' to St. John coal in barges towed by a steam tug, two or three barges in tow; and they have been coming in under the decision of the court as to the meaning of those words I have just quoted, holding that they do apply to coal barges under tow. This decision of the Privy Council holds that they are obliged to pay pilotage. The object is to allow coal barges of that description towed by steam to be exempt from paying pilotage dues.
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first time.

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

*Mr. FOSTER:: 1.	When was the commission appointed to settle the difference between the Intercolonial railway and Grand Trunk railway in refer-ence_to matters in dispute in Montreal?
2.	What were the points-to-be determined?
3.	What have so far been settled and how?
4.	What has been the cost so far?


Mr. GRAHAM:: 1.	Board of arbitrators appointed under agreement of February 1, 1898, clause 46 thereof, for award and determination of questions, arising under said agreement prior to the appointments of said arbitrators, June, 1904.
2.	Questions arising under agreement of the 1st February, 1898, confirmed by statu-tues of 1899, chapter 5, and brought into force on September 26, 1899, in the matter of issue of bills of lading, routing of freight, diversion of traffic, disputed accounts. The several matters were submitted for arbitration under the provisions of the said agreement, either at the initiation of the Crown or of the company and disposed of by the arbitrators, some in favour of the Crown, and others adversely, and were practically questions of interpretation of the provisions of said agreement as applying to matters from time to time arising in connection with the operation of the respective railways, subject to the agreement. Other questions submitted were not disposed of by the
board of arbitrators, owing to the death of the then chairman, the late Judge Kil-lam, and are now for the consideration of the board of arbitrators as at present constituted.
3.	Answered by number 2.
4.	Amount paid by Intercolonial railway to date is $49,737.97.


MEN DISCHARGED FROM INTERCOLONIAL RAILWAY.
Mr. CROSBY:: 1.	How many men have been discharged from the Intercolonial railway since the 1st of November, 1908, who were working at a daily wage, at what points on the Intercolonial railway, and the number discharged at each point?
2.	What number of men have been taken on since the 1st November, 1908, working at a daily wage; and also the number of men that have been taken on as clerks and officials generally, working by the week, month or
year?


Mr. GRAHAM:: No. of men
At what points on I.C.R.	discharged
at
each point,
Amqui	 2
Amherst	 2
Bartibog	 l
Bagot	 l
Cross Creek	 l
Chaudiere	 28
Chaudiere Curve	 1
Campbellton	 23
Chatham	 2
Doaktown	 1
Dalhousie	 1
-Greenville		..	1
Gibson	 4
Harbour au Bouche	 1
Halifax	 35
Richmond	 141
Levis	 12
Mount Uniacke	 1
Moncton	 151
Mulgrave	 2
Moffatts	  1
Newcastle	 14
North Sydney	 2
Oxford Junction	 2
Oxford	 1
Point du Chene	 2
Point Tupper	 2
Rothesay	 1
Riviere du Loup	 57
St. John	 15
Sydney	 34
St. Arsene	 1
Stellarton	 12
Ste. Fla vie	 8
Shediac	 1
St. Moise	 1
Sackville	 1
St. Apollinaire	 1
St. Eugene	 1
Springhill Junction	 5
Truro	 44
Windsor Junction	 1



2.	The number of men that have been taken on as clerks and officials generally, working by the week, month and year, is 175.


RECIPROCITY-TRADE OF OTHER COUNTRIES.
*Mr. SHARPE (Ontario):: 1.	What is the number and the names of the countries, if any, that will be entitled to have their natural products and manufactured articles come into Canada under the same terms as the United States under the proposed reciprocity agreement?
2.	Was there any understanding reached at the recent conferences regarding reciprocity that the Canadian tariff or articles not specifically mentioned in the treaty would not be increased ?
3.	If the tariff of Canada on all or any articles not specifically mentioned in the agreement was considerably increased, would the United States have any cause for complaint or excuse for terminating the reciprocity agreement ?


Mr. FIELDING:: 1.	France is a favoured nation country to a limited extent, that is to say, as respects the lists of articles specified in schedules B and C to the French Treaty. Twelve countries:	Argentina Republic,
Austria-Hungary, Bolivia, Colombia, Denmark, Japan, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Venezuela-are accorded most favoured nation treatment generally. These are consequently enjoying the benefits of the French Treaty. As respects the dutiable schedules in the agreement with the United States, the concessions to be granted to the United States are largely the same as already have been granted to France and the favoured nation countries. As respects a large part of the list, therefore, no additional advantage will be enjoyed by such countries. There are however, a few articles in the French schedules which in the agreement with the United States are made free or dutiable at lower rates. In these cases the advantages granted to the United States will extend also to France and the favoured nation countries. In the case of a few articles which are not to be found in the French Treaty the favoured nation countries will be entitled to receive the concessions on the same terms as the United States, but France will not be so entitled. Although not arising from any agreement, in no case has any advantage been granted to any foreign country that did not at the same time extend to all parts of the British Empire. In the few cases in which the rates to be established are lower than those already enjoyed by British countries the reductions will apply to such countries. _
2 and 3. There is no understanding of any kind except what is found in the cor-Mr. GRAHAM.
respondence and schedules already before the House.


Mr. SHARPE (Lisgar):: 1.	Is the tariff agreement with the United States made to apply with that country alone so far as Canada is concerned?
2.	If not, what other countries besides the United States would be allowed to import into Canada farm products on the same terms as the proposed arrangements with the United States?


Mr. FIELDING:: The answer given above also applies to this question.


INTERCOLONIAL RAILWAY MILEAGE.
Mr. DANIEL:: 1.	What is the present mileage of the Intercolonial railway?
2.	What is the value of the rolling stock
on said railway ?	_
3.	What is the number of locomotives, freight cars and passenger cars, respectively, included in above valuation?


Mr. GRAHAM:: 1.	1,456 miles.
2.	First cost, $19,049,837.93.
3.	397 locomotives; 454 passenger cars; 12,491 freight cars.
IMPORTS AT KINGSTON FROM UNITED STATES.	.


Mr. EDWARDS:: 1.	What quantities of cheese, butter, eggs, dead poultry, potatoes, hay, straw, oats and barley, with their respective values, were entered at the port of Kingston, Ontario, from the United States for home consumption during the fiscal year ending March, 1910?
2.	How many horses, cattle, sheep and pigs, not for improvement of stock, were brought into Canada from the United States by way of Kingston, Ontario, for the fiscal years 1908, 1909 and 1910, and the respective values thereof ?
3.	What were the quantities and values of pork, bacon, lard and other animal products entered at the port of Kingston, Ontario, from the United States during the fiscal years 1909 and 1910?
4.	What were the quantities and values of fresh vegetables entered at the port of Kingston, Ontario, from the United States during the fiscal years 1909 and 1910?


Mr. PATERSON:: 1.	The quantity and value of cheese, butter, eggs, &c., entered for consumption at the port of Kingston, from the United States, during the fiscal year 1910, was as follows:

Quantity- Value.
$
Cheese	
Butter	
Eggs	
Poultry	and	game	Potatoes	bush. 67	87Hay	Straw	Oats	Barley	2.	The imports for consumption of horses, cattle, sheep and pigs (not for improvement of stock) at the port of Kingston from the United States during the fiscal year 1910, were as follows:
No. Value. No. Value. No. Value.
1908.	1909.	1910.


Horses ....: 1	$150	1	$155	2	$340
Cattle	
Sheep	
Pigs	
3.	The quantities and values of pork, bacon, lard and other animal products entered for consumption at the port of Kingston, from the United States, during the fiscal years 1909 and 1910, were as follows:
1909.	1910.
Lbs. Value. Lbs. Value.
Lard	 10,437	1,197
Pork	
Bacon	
Other animal
products	 1,145	.... 2,987
4.	The quantities and values of fresh vegetables entered Tot- consumptionr at the-port of Kingston, from the United States, during the fiscal years 1909 and 1910, were as follows:
1909.	1910.
Melons.. ..	.. No.	Quan- tity. 2,259	Value. $180	Quan- tity. 1,258	Value. $106


New Brunswick.   ..@: Bush.	406	451	68	87" sweet.	175	149	262	212Tomatoes.. .	. "	10	39	13	24V egetables,	n.o.p.	82	277Total	$706


GRAND TRUNK PACIFIC LABOURERS' WAGES.
Mr. TAYLOR (Leeds):: 1.	Is the government aware, as alleged, that men working for the Grand Trunk Pacific railway at Lafond, in Alberta, have not been paid moneys owing to them by this company, w-hich have been long overdue?
2.	Is the government aware that these men after alleged repeated demands have been absolutely unable to obtain either payment or satisfaction ?
3.	Does the government intend to take any steps in this matter?
4.	Is there any reason why these men should not be paid what is owing to them?


Mr. GRAHAM:: 1.	There is no such station on the Grand Trunk Pacific railway as Lafond.
2.	The government has no knowledge of men on the railway not having been paid; the general manager reports that all men employed on Grand Trunk Pacific railway are paid promptly.
3.	Answered by No. 2.
4.	Answered by No. 2.


GLACE BAY BAIT ASSOCIATION.
Mr. MADDIN:: 1.	How much money was paid to the Glace Bay Bait Association, Glace Bay, N.S., during the years 1906, 1907, 1909 and 1910?
2.	What were the dates of payment?
3.	Who are the members of tbe Glace Bay Bait Association?


Mr. BRODEUR:: 1.	1906, nothing; 1907,	$1,000 advance
on account of construction of Freezer; 1909. $100 on account of bonus earned by association during 1908; 1910, nothing.
2.	October 21, 1907, and January 28, 1909.
3.	The department has no list of the present members of the association, the freezer having become the association's exclusive property when it was completed.


PELAGIC SEALING.
Mr. SPROULE.: Before the orders of the day are called, I wish to call tire attention of - the government to an .item which I see in to-day's ' Citizen ', which reads as follows :
Washington, Feb. 15-Action was taken to-day by the senate committee on foreign relations which if sustained by the senate will not only put an end to pelagic sealing in the Behring sea, but will also stop the killing of seals on shore for a period of years. The committee to-day ordered a favourable report on tbe draft of a treaty between America and Great Britain providing for the protection of seals in this manner. It is based upon tbe declaration of experts that tbe seal herd, now nearly exterminated, will be completely restored to its original strength in the course of a few years if left completely undisturbed. Russia and Japan must also make similar treaties to make this effective.
I would like to inquire of the right hon. the Prime Minister ('Sir Wilfrid Laurier) if such a treaty is being negotiated, and if he can communicate to the House any information regarding it, or upon what lines it proceeds, or tell us if we are bartering away -any rights which we possess in the seal fisheries at the present time.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER.: There ha* been a treaty signed between Great Britain and the United States, of course Canada being a consenting party, not for the abolition but for the cessation during a

term of years of pelagic sealing upon terms which have 'been mutually agreed upon and which, I have no doubt, will be found satisfactory. I am not in a position to-day to put the treaty before the House, but I hope to do so within a short time, and *certainly as- soon as we have received it.


Mr. FOSTER.: Can the right hon. the Prime Minister say whether that treaty goes into operation unless it includes the other pelagic sealing nations?


Sir WILFRID  LMIRIER@: I cannot say as to that at the present time. I do not think it does, but I cannot say certainly.


Mr. HUGHES.: Does it cover sealing on the American islands off the coast of Alaska or only upon the islands which are common to tlie two countries?


Wilfrid Laurier: No, it applies to pelagic sealing on the high seas. It affects only, as far as I remember, the Pacific ocean.


THE FLAG ON PUBLIC BUILDINGS.
Samuel Hughes: I desire to bring the attention of the government to the fact that it has never been customary to fly the flag on the public institutions of Canada on St. David's Day. St. David's Day is the 1st March. The white cross of St. David forms a part of our Union Jack and I am satisfied that the people of Welsh descent in Canada will be only too glad to find the government ordering up the flag on public buildings on that day. The eldest son of our Sovereign takes his title as Prince of Wales from that part of the United Kingdom and Welshmen have always been found to the front doing their duty in defence of the empire. I trust the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Pugsley) will be good enough to order the flag to be flown on public buildings on the 1st March.


Mr. PUGSLEY.: The suggestion of my hon. friend (Mr. Hughes) will receive due consideration. While the question of flying the flag on public buildings is before the House I might refer to a question put by an hon. gentleman a short time ago. He asked me for information with regard to flying the flag throughout Canada. There are certain days, with which hon. gentlemen are no doubt familiar, upon which the flag is always flown upon all the public buildings, and then it may .also be flown upon other days to be named by the Minister of Public Works. Latterly the question has come up with reference to flying the flag upon public buildings upon every day in the year. It has been thought that would be a somewhat expensive matter, and, therefore, it would be worthy of some consideration before deciding to do it. In an informal way I have conferred with my colleagues upon this subject, and they Sir WILFRID LAURIER.
approve of the suggestion that in the border cities and towns, including the seaports of Canada, it would ibe desirable to have the flag flown every day in the year. The reason for that is that the United States flag is flown upon the American consulate every day in the year. It was a matter of remark in the city of St. [DOT]John that a stranger coming by steamer to the city, upon whatever day he came, saw the Stars and Stripes flying to the 'breeze and unless it happened to be a special occasion he would not see the Union Jack. Therefore, in the seaports to which strangers are constantly coming, and in the border towns I have directed that the flag shall be flown upon our public buildings every day in the year. With regard to having it flown upon all public buildings in Canada upon every day in the year, that is a matter that is still under consideration.


Samuel Hughes: Will the minister consider the flying of the flag on public buildings on St. David's Day?


William Pugsley: Yes, I have told the hon. gentleman that it will be taken into consideration.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I have thought sometimes that it would be a good plan if the flag were flown on public buildings during the time that parliament was in session so that in any ipart of the country, if the flag were seen flying from public buildings, it would foe known at once that parliament was in session.


OTTAWA IMPROVEMENT COMMISSION.
Mr. LAKE.: I would like to ask the right hon. the Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) when the report of the Ottawa Improvement Commission will be brought down. Under the statute it should be down fourteen days after the beginning of the session. I mentioned this to the Prime Minister about a month ago.


William Stevens Fielding: The finances of the Ottawa Improvement 'Commission have already been reported to the House by the Auditor General's Report but the formal submission that the hon. gentleman (Mr. Lake) asks will be made immediately. I thought I had the report here, but there is really nothing which is not already before the House in the shape of the Auditor General's Report, I think.


RENTAL OF OTTAWA BUILDINGS- LIGHTING CONTRACT.
William Pugsley: Mr. Speaker, I desire to rise to a question of privilege. In the Evening ' Journal,' published in the city of Ottawa last evening, I find a statement prepared lay Mr. Ellis, the treasurer of the city of

Ottawa, and who is the head of the municipal lighting department of the city. Referring to certain statements which I made in the House with reference to the lighting of certain buildings owned .by the Imperial Realty Company, Mr. Ellis is reported as making the following remarks :
On my return from Toronto a few days ago I found that the Hon. Dr. Pugsley had in the House of Commons charged me with having issued false vouchers in connection with the electric light consumed by his department in the buildings rented from Mr. Woods.
I emphatically say that no vouchers or accounts, false or otherwise connected with this matter were ever issued by me, or on my instructions, or with my knowledge.
When the department became a tenant of Mr. Woods, he had a flat rate from the Consumers' Company. The department was offered but refused a flat rate, and determined to pay according to the meter rate. It then requested Mr. Woods to instruct the Consumers' Company to place meters in the building in order to measure the current. The company complied with this request, for the sole purpose of enabling the Public Works Department to be furnished officially with correct statements of the amount which they had agreed to pay. Mr. Woods had nothing to do with the meter readings. He had a flat rate with the Consumers' Company and he continued it.
The position therefore was that Mr. Woods, as landlord of the buildings, had a flat rate with the Consumers' Company, and the department, as tenant, desiring to pay according to the amount of electricity which it should actually consume, obtained installation of meters and required for its own information quarterly statements taken from the meters. These statements were furnished by the Consumers' Company until the city took oyer its plant, and since then have been furnished by the city. There is no other way in which the department could have been informed as to what it ought to pay. Neither the Consumers' Company nor the city need have taken the trouble which they did to give the department the information which it desired to have. Both did it merely as a business courtesy, and the return which the city gets is a recklessly untruthful villifica-tion.
In March, 1906, the city offered to give the Department of Public Works direct, Mr. Woods' flat rate contract, but this offer was not accepted, the department thus refusing a flat rate for the second time. The government therefore could from that time have had a contract direct with the city at the same rate which Mr. Woods paid the city, but instead continued paying him the full meter rates. If Mr. Woods has made a profit in the meter out of the government the Public Works Department is alone to blame.
Mr. Pugsley has no justification whatever for the statements he made regarding myself or for bringing my name into the matter at all. In fact, _ he had information at his disposal at the time he made the statements which conclusively showed this.
The remarks which I made and to which Mr. Ellis refers will be found on page 3240 and following of ' Hansard.' I have looked over the statement I made and I have nothing to add to and nothing to retract from that statement, except in one respect. I find that upon page 3240 I stated that when I became minister there was rendered to my department by the Imperial Realty Company bills upon a meter basis.
I stated, further, that these bills were rendered by the company, that they were accompanied by bills on their regular account forms rendered by the electric light department of the city of Ottawa, presided over by the city treasurer, Mr. Ellis, showing the indebtedness of the Imperial Realty Company, or James W. Woods, as the case might be, to the city for the amount of current consumed based upon the meter rate, and that these bills were marked ' settled ' by the electrical department of the city, that they were receipted as vouchers, and that they accompanied the bills which the Imperial Realty Company rendered to my department. You will observe, Mr. Speaker, that I stated that these bills had been rendered by the electrical department of the city of Ottawa. I did not mention Mr. Ellis's name then, although I knew that Mr. Ellis was the gentleman who presided over that department, and who I would suppose would be responsible for vouchers or bills that would be issued bv that department. A little later in the discussion, as will be seen by page 3241 of ' Hansard,' the hon. member for North Ontario (Mr. Sharpe! referred-to Mr. Ellis-and this was the first mention that was made of Mr. Ellis's name in that connection, as follows:


Mr. SHARPE.: Would not that arouse suspicion ?


William Pugsley: No, because I would never dream that the treasurer of the city of Ottawa would issue a false voucher.
Then the member for North Ontario (Mr. Sharpe) proceeded to say:	[DOT]


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: It is only fair to the city treasurer to state that the president of the Imperial Realty Company went to him and personally asked liim to supply the amount of electricity that was consumed on a meter basis. He said he did not know what purpose it was to he used for; lie had been personally requested by the president of the company to furnish the amount on the meter basis. He did not get paid for it and did not do it with intent to deceive the department.
Then I replied:


William Pugsley: So also the Imperial Realty Company say they did not do it to deceive the department.
That was the first intimation that Mr. Ellis, the treasurer of the city, had personally intervened in the matter. All that

I was concerned in was to inform the House of the fact that the electrical department of the city* over which Mr. E'llis presides, had rendered these bills, as showing the indebtedness of Mr. Woods to the city, and which showed an indebtedness for the identical amount as contained in the bills which the Imperial Realty Company rendered to the department, and which were paid by the department. Now, in the statement of Mr. Ellis, he says:
I emphatically say that no vouchers or accounts, false or otherwise, connected with this matter were ever issued by me or on my instructions or with my knowledge.
Now, I am not concerned with the fact as to whether Mr. Ellis actually put his hand to these vouchers, or whether they were issued by an official of his department. That was of no importance to me; it would be of no importance to the department.; it would be of no importance to the Auditor General, whose duty it would be to examine into the accounts; the question of importance was that the electrical department had issued these accounts and that based upon them were the bills which were rendered. Now, Mr. Ellis, says that no vouchers, either erroneous or otherwise, were ever issued with his knowledge.


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: Would the minister allow me? Was the Department of Public Works deceived by these accounts?


William Pugsley: Yes; I say they were.


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: Was the city treasurer mistaken in his letter when he stated the department was not deceived?


William Pugsley: The city treasurer could know nothing with regard to that. The various departments of the government are made up of officials, and above and beyond the officials of the departments is the Auditor General, and then comes the Public Accounts Committee, and it is all important, it seems to me. that in matters with which the government, or the various departments are connected everything should be open and above board, and I can imagine nothing which would be more calculated to deceive the officers of the department whose duty it is to check the accounts than to have erroneous statements presented as. vouchers; statements which were, not true on their face, but which contained statements which were absolutely incorrect. If hon. gentlemen will turn to page 580 of the report of the Public Accounts Committee of last session they will find a sample of these accounts which were rendered and which Mr. Ellis, in his statement, says never were rendered with his knowledge or authority. I find that one of these, which is printed here, is as follows: Mr. PUGSLEY.
The Municipal Electric Department.
Ottawa, September 20, 1909.


Mr.  J. W.@: Woods,
Slater street, Ottawa.
Acot. Polio 32 Meter No. 20212.
1909-to electric current supplied as follows:
Watt Hours.
Sept. 17-Present meter register.. .. 86,207,000 June 15-Previous meter register.. .. 80,281,000 Consumption, 5,926,000 W.H., at 8c. $474 08 Discount of 10 per cent if this account is paid on or before October
5, 1909	 47 41
Net balance	$426 67
Meter rent ($1.00 per annum)	 20
[DOT]	_	$426 87
Arrears on which no discount is allowed

Settled by Imperial Realty Company.-Municipal Electric Department. (Sgd.) G. E. Pennock, September 23, 1909.
Now, I understand from the statement of Mr. Ellis that no accounts, no vouchers, no bills, were issued by his department with his knowledge or authority. Well, we have here a statement showing the indebtedness of Mr. Woods to the municipal electric department of the city of Ottawa, charging him with the quantity of electric current consumed, charging him by the meter rate upon that quantity, showing the balance which Mr. Woods paid to the city of Ottawa, and showing that the account had been settled by the Imperial Realty Company. Now, Mr. Speaker, I leave it to you and I leave it to the House, as to whether or not that is a mere statement of the meter reading which Mr. Woods, or the Imperial Realty Company might hand over to the Department of Public Works. I ask you, Sir, whether I was wrong in the statement I made that the municipal electric department, from the time I became minister at all events, had furnished the bills showing the actual indebtedness of Mr. Woods to the municipal electric department of the city.


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: Would the minister permit another question?


William Pugsley: Certainly.


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: Did the electric department offer a flat rate to the department in 1906?


William Pugsley: No, it did not.


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: Then Mr. Ellis is mistaken in that?


William Pugsley: Mr. Ellis is absolutely mistaken.


Samuel Simpson Sharpe: After reflection, will the minister say now that his department was deceived by these accounts?


William Pugsley: Yes, it is true as I stated, and as is found in ' Hansard,' that away back in 1904, before I became minister.

when the question was put to Mr. Ewart, chief architect, as to whether he would prefer to pay by the meter or flat rate, he preferred the meter rate, because he said the department would prefer to pay for the electric light actually consumed. But so far as the records show, at all events during the years that I have been in charge of the department, it does not appear that the government was paying one cent more for electric light than the city was charging Mr. Woods or the Imperial Realty Company, that, in other words, the accounts show that the department was paying to the Imperial Realty Company the identical amounts which the city was charging for the electricity consumed. You will observe that these accounts show that they were settled by the Imperial Realty Company, and so the accounts go along all in the same way. A little later on I find in the very last account rendered a statement exactly in the same form upon the bill-heads of the municipal department of the city. Here is a statement of what it was alleged by the city Mr. Woods was indebted to them for lighting, and on it there is this statement. ' Settled by cheque, Municipal Electric Department,' signed by Mr. Pennock. That is a little stronger than these others, because there is here an allegation that a cheque had been given by Mr. Woods to the city of Ottawa for the identical amount which Mr. Woods was charging to the Department of Public Works.
Mr. Rllis refers to the -three buildings The evidence before the Committee on Public Accounts discloses that in respect to the Queen street building the city of Ottawa was paid by a meter rate and not by a flat rate, and if you take the accounts from beginning to end, you will find that the city dealt with the lighting of the Queen street building in exactly the same way as it did with the lighting of the buildings on Slater street, so far as the issuing of these accounts and vouchers was concerned.
Mr. Ellis says:
In March, 1906, the city offered to give the Department of Public Works direct, Mr Woods' flat rate contract, but this offer was not accepted, the department refusing a flat rate for the second time.
I have examined the records of the department and I cannot find a trace of any such offer having bee'n made. No offer was made, so far as I have been able to discover, but I do admit that in 1904, and I so stated when I addressed the House previously upon this question, the department, through Mr. Ewart, had the opportunity of paying for lighting by meter or flat rate, and it preferred to. pay by a meter rate, but there is nothing to show
that the officials of the department knew that Mr. Woods was receiving anything from the Public Works Department beyond what he was paying to the city of Ottawa, and I wish to emphasize the statement which I have already made that I cannot conceive how it is possible for Mr. Ellis to be mistaken in regard to these accounts. It may be that he did not see the accounts which were rendered by an official of his department, who is acting under his supervision, it may be that they were issued in entire ignorance upon his part, but that they were issued and were presented as vouchers from time to time there can be no doubt, as appears from the vouchers as they appear in the report of the Committee on Public Accounts, and as they appear also in the records of the department.
I ought to call the attention of you and of the House to what took place upon the 23rd of May, because I think I will show that the official of the municipal department recognized that what he had done had misled the Department of Public Works. Upon the 23rd of May, 1910, I wrote this letter, addressed to the mayor of the city of Ottawa:
Dear Mr. Mayor,-During the recent session of parliament it was stated by a member of the Public Accounts Committee, who professed to know, that the government was paying a considerably larger amount for the lighting of buildings owned by the Imperial Realty Company, Limited, in this city, than was actually charged by the city.
Yu looking over the accounts, I find that the Municipal Electric Department of the city furnished from time to time bills charging the company meter rates, and which bills were for the same amounts, as paid by the department. These accounts were submitted as vouchers, and the proper officials of my department, as well as the Auditor General, acted upon these vouchers, presuming that they were correct, and paid the hills.
As an illustration, I find that an account was rendered by the Imperial Realty Company on the 22nd September, 1909, a copy of which is attached. Accompanying the account are vouchers, copies of which are also hereto annexed. These accounts are marked "Settled by the Imperial Realty Company," and are signed by the Municipal Electric Department.
I shall esteem it a favour if you will kindly advise me as to whether or not my information in regard to there being a difference between the amounts paid to the city, and the amounts of the vouchers, signed on behalf of the city, is correct, and, if so, I shall be glad to have such explanation as the officials of the city have to offer upon the subject.
I am, dear Mr. Mayor,
Yours very truly,
(Sgd.) WILLIAM PUGSLEY. Charles Hopewell, Esq.,
Mayor, Ottawa.

On the 27th of May I received the following reply:
City of Ottawa,
Mayor's Office,
Ottawa, May 27, 1910.
The Honourable
The Minister of Public Works,
Ottawa, Canada.
Dear Mr. Pugsley,-Your letter of May 23rd to hand, re lighting of the buildings owned by the Imperial Realty Company, Limited, in this city. I beg to say that I have written to the officials in charge asking for an explanation and will forward to you, a copy of same as soon as received.
Believe me,
Sincerely yours,
(Sgd.) CHAS. HOPEWELL, Mayor.
On June 9th, I received the following from His Worship the Mayor:
To the Honourable
The Minister of Public Woi'ks,
City.
Dear Mr. Pugsley,-I am enclosing you copies of letters sent by me to Mr. G. E. Pennock, and his reply in explanation of yours to me of some days ago.
Believe me,
Very sincerely yours,
(Sgd.) CHARLES HOPEWELL.
And this is the letter of Mr. Pennock, the accountant of the Municipal Electric Department, an official under Mr. Ellis, to His Worship the Mayor:
Ottawa, June 3rd, 1910.
His Worship,
Mayor Hopewell,
City.	_
Dear Sir,-I have your letter of May 27th, regarding a letter received by you from the Minister of Public Works in reference to account for electric current furnished to the Woods Building.	.
You say that the Minister of Public AVorks asks: 'Whether his information in regard to there being a difference between the amounts paid to the city and the amounts of the vouchers signed on behalf of the city is correct, and also if such be the fact what explanation can be given.'
In reply I beg to say,-
Mr. Woods pays the city for the Queen street Building the regular meter rates and for the Woods and Canadian Buildings, the fiat rate. I am informed that his agreement with the government provides that they shall pay him on a regular meter rate for all the buildings. The meter rates are invariably higher than the flat rates. In order to enable him to render his account to the government on the meter basis, meters were installed in these buildings and meter readings have been regularly made, first by the Consumers Company and afterwards by the city.
The practice of installing meters for this purpose was commenced in 1904 before I was employed by the company.
The accounts referred to in the minister's letter were made up from such meter readings and for the purpose only of enabling Mr. Woods to render to the government his accounts upon the regular meter rate.


William Pugsley: The statement put upon them by me 'Settled by the Imperial Realty Company' was not intended to lead anyone to believe that the company or Mr. Woods had paid the city the amounts of money shown in them but only that the claim of the city against that company and Mr. Woods had been settled.
On the fuller consideration which I have recently given to the matter, I believe it would liave been better for me to have made such a statement in a separate document and that I should not have made the memorandum on the copies of the accounts.
Yours truly,
(Sgd.) G. E. PENNOCK.
Having presented those facts to you, Mr. Speaker, having called your attention to the vouchers issued by the city and the accounts which profess to show the indebtedness of Mr. Woods to the city for the supply of light charged by him to the Department of Public Works, I think you will agree that the city treasurer is not justified in making the statement that no accounts or vouchers were submitted to Mr. Woods by the city treasurer or with his knowledge. If Mr. Ellis means that he had no personal knowledge of it and that it was done by the accountant of the city behind his back, it may be that his statement would be correct; but if he meant that the city did not issue those statements and vouchers, as I said in my previous explanation, you will agree with me that in this he was not in accord with the facts. I therefore have felt it my duty to bring this matter to the attention of the House at the earliest opportunity. I desire to repeat now what I said before that I did not charge either the Imperial Realty Company or the electrical department of the city with fraud.
What I said was that they both had made the statement that they had no intention to deceive the department, but that they did deceive the officials of the department. I came in as minister in 1907 and a year or so after, or a considerable number of months after, my deputy came in, and he would not know what had taken place some years before. So far as I am able to discover neither did any of the other officials know that a lesser rate was being charged Mr. Woods by the city than was being charged by him to the department from time to time. It is true, as I have said, that Mr: Ewart had the opportunity in 1904 of getting the light at a flat rate, but he decided it was better to take it by the meter rate; but so far as I am aware, there is nothing on the files to show that Mr. Ewart or-any other official of the department supposed that Mr. Woods was making anything -out of this contract. So far as I am concerned, I never knew it, and my deputy says he never knew it, and so far as the Auditor General is concerned, whose duty it is to protect the interests of the department, these vouchers which were issued from quarter to quarter for ' the amounts which the department was

called upon to pay, would indicate that the department was simplv paying Mr. Woods the charges made by the electrical department of the city of Ottawa from time to time.


THE WATERWAYS TREATY.
Mr. CURRIE (Simcoe).: Before the orders of the day are called, I would like to recall the promise made by the hon. the Minister of Public Works some time ago to the effect that before we discuss the Waterways Treaty, the plans, so far as they are made by the commission, would be laid on the talkie. I would like to ask the hon. minister if those plans are ready and when they will be laid on the table.


William Pugsley: I made the inquiry at once and found that the plans were not completed and it was supposed they would not be for some time. I shall make further inquiry and if my hon. friend will bring the matter to my attention I will let him know.



WAYS AND MEANS-RECIPROCAL TRADE WITH UNITED STATES.

[Stage Direction]
House in Committee of Ways and Means.
["The hon. gentleman must remember that under these circumstances, we would have a preference in the British market, for our products, and that would more than compensate for the small amount of New Zealand butter that might come in. Let the hon. Minister of Railways who is interested in Transportation remember that 77,000,000 tons of freight passed down the River St. Clare last year, and let him remember what the result of this policy will be, our shipping industry will be crippled on the Atlantic ports, on the ports of the Great Lakes and on the Pacific coast. To-day Canada stands at the parting of the ways. For years we have spent our energies towards developing our markets and our tariff has been framed with that object in view, but just as everything is going along smoothly, there comes the cry: we must trade with the United States, and not with Great Britain. It is proposed to dam the trade and commerce of Canada so that it will flow through American ports and channels, break up our commerce with the old land and divert our great trade which\n\nflows east and west to north and south. There are few citizens of Canada, who are not affected adversely by this arrangement entered into by this government to sell our heritage and endanger our national existence. The Finance Minister apd the Minister of Customs who made the agreement, after 14 long years of office without any apparent effort or change in the fiscal policy of the country, have at last found the opportunity to open the door to continental free trade. A tottering government in the United States has entered into an arrangement with a government tottering to its fall in Canada. I believe, Sir, that this is the first step towards the dismemberment of the British Empire. We possess a country so vast and so rich in grain producing and mineral wealth and so advantageously situated that of all the lands on the globe we offer the most favourable outlook of any nation. This land belongs not only to us, but to our children's children, and it is our duty to preserve it intact for their heritage.\nWe are building a nation and building it our own way and according to our ideals to-day but what of to-morrow?\nOur neighbours to the south say: Come in with us, we will help you but you must build as we desire. We answer: Canada is not for sale-our laws are firm, yours are lax. Our marriage vows are sacred, yours are lax. We can control our trusts if our government will only go about it in the proper way while yours are running rampant. We were kicked out of the American market in 1866. Who will say that we cannot be kicked out in 1912? In 1867 we started a system of interprovincial trade, the development of our natural resource^, the creation of home industries, and the disposal of our surplus products in the permanent market of Great Britain.\nThe government of that day opposed unrestricted reciprocity. They advocated national development, and opposed conti-nentalism. They were right and time has proved it. The United States ignored us then, they are courting us to-day. In 1831 this country registered the course it would follow. This government registered its protest against reciprocity in 1897 when they came back from Washington. The power rests to-day with the United States to cancel this agreement, unrestricted reciprocity means free trade, free trade means direct taxation. Using the words of Sir John Macdonald in 1891: 'Shall we endanger our possession of the great heritage bequeathed to us by our forefathers, and submit ourselves to direct taxation, for the privilege of having our tariff fixed at Washington with a prospect of ultimately becoming a part of the American Union?\nCanada is sure of her future, if she remain free, Canada has to-day a trade for her goods outside the United States, Can-119}\nada has to-day a market for her goods outside the United States, Canada is independent of the United States, Canada would not be independent of United States if this treaty went into effect. Our infant industries have had a struggle and have survived without the United States tariff'. In 1910 we sold the United Stares $100,000,000, they sold us $223,000,000. The Canadian tariff is 26 per cent; the United States tariff 42 per cent. This is a sample of Yankee fair trade. I am opposed to this arrangement because it is not consistent with the policy of conserving our natural resources. Are Winnipeg, Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and other leading cities and towns throbbing with life and activity to be content, with the left over trade of the United States.\nQuebec, Halifax and St. John cities which the Grand Trunk Pacific were to help will be sidetracked and the trade go and come through the United States. Why disrupt our general business conditions, disturb the activities of our cities, lessen the earning power of our trunk lines of railroads if we are to be a united people with common political ideals and aspirations? Let us throw out this measure.\nAs a people we are only emerging from childhood; let us leave well enough alone. As Canadians for Canada let us guard well the political destiny of our future.\nThere is no use offering amendments to the deal, any change would nullify the whole agreement. Canada by adopting this policy will bid a long farewell to her greatness, and as the handmaid of the American trusts, contribute the 51st Star to the flag which will control the continent. It is the work of little Canadians. I belong to a nation to-day that is full of hope and prospect. In a few weeks if this measure passes the future of this country will be fixed. The wealth of our forest are the heritage of our workingmen and capitalists alike.\nThe labour interests of our cities and towns are vitally affected. You send the raw material to United States to be finished instead of at home. Let us keep the raw products at home and employ our own men in preparing them for the market. Taft cannot wait. The United States government say ' Canada dig your ore, send it to us and we will refine and perfect it. Canada give up your raw materials, and we will finish them and export the finished product.'\nIf you pass this Bill you will lead us back to pre-confederation days when the eastern provinces traded with the eastern States, Ontario with New York and the western States and British Columbia traded with the States on the western coast. You have sold the salt men, meat men, the fruit men, the manufacturers, the financier, the railroad, the lake freighter, labour man and farmer. These men"]
Mr. HAUGHTON LENNOX (South Simcoe).: I am glad to see that the very general attendance of members on this side indicates the deep interest the Conservative party are taking in this question. It is no wonder that this should be the case because never during the past 15 or 20 years, or perhaps a-longer period,-has-anything been presented to this House which will probably have such far reaching consequences as the resolution now before us. I paid very careful attention to the very able address made yesterday by my hon. friend from South Wellington (Mr. Guthrie), and if I have to take exception to that address, it will not at all be as to the fluent and eloquent way in which he presented his argument, but rather to the attitude assumed and his failure to carry out the promise he made in opening his speech. After making a very elaborate and carefully prepared statement of figures and drawing from them many somewhat strained and difficult conclusions, he closed his address by saying that in the bargain made between Canada and Washington, every interest affected had been guarded both as regards this country and Great Britain. I submit that my hon. friend will hardly be prepared to stand by that proposition if he gives the matter a moment's reflection. Around about the city of Guelph, comprising some 16,000 inhabitants, there are market gardeners and others raising fruit and vegetables-a growing industry- so that he need not go beyond his own riding to ascertain that interests of a very important character have been struck, and struck very hard by the proposed arrangement. In the exuberance of words in which he indulged yesterday, he forgot that within the last week we had within this very chamber some 1,500 representatives of the two important industries of fruit growing and market gardening who protested that their interests were about to be injuriously affected, and he forgot also that the right hon. the Prime Minister had to admit that he was absolutely helpless to assist that large delegation which had so ably pressed on him its views. *
I might multiply instances and point out that, whilst my hon. friend may think this is a matter of comparative insignificance, yet these men represent families probably aggregating 8,000 or 10,000 people; that they employ perhaps tens of thousands of labourers in their industry-which is a growing industry, and in the early stages of its development,-and that the people in the towns and cities which are surrounded by these industries, are receiving large emoluments from dealing with these people. So I submit to you, Mr. Chairman, that this is not a trifling matter to be brushed aside by my hon. friend as beneath his consideration. And it does not end there. Does my hon. friend forget that the whole future of British Columbia is practically sacrificed by the proposals which the government have presented to this House; that, so far from guarding the various interests of this country, the government, or the government's representatives, negotiating behind closed doors, utterly ignored the rights and interest of a Yvhffie^province of this- Dominion-? -
Now, the hon. gentleman saw fit to attack the leader of the opposition (Mr. Borden, Halifax), in a very animated, if not. to say vicious way. He greatly deplored that the leader of the opposition had spoken in reference to the appointment of a tariff commission, and he pointed out that this would be a complete departure from precedent and from the system upon which British countries are usually governed. Not to do the hon. gentleman any injustice, I will read what he said:
No doubt such a plan would meet the desires of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association; but if my hon. friend would adopt such a system, he would be reversing: one of the cardinal principles of British politics, which is that the right to tax must remain with the peoples' representatives. The right was established many long years ago, and I have no doubt will survive to the end; but if the leader of the opposition desires to depart from that principle and appoint a permanent tariff commission to regulate our tariff, the sooner the people should know it the better.
Was that-especially as coming from a gentleman of the ability of my hon. friend -a fair way to present the remarks of the

leader of the opposition ? Did the leader of the opposition propose to rob representatives in parliament of any of their rights; did he ever propose to shackle parliament in the exercise of its powers ? No, Sir. It conies with rather poor grace from a supporter of this order in council government, which has been so actively at work, in this direction, in the last few years to talk of limiting the rights of parliament. But so that we may know exactly how that matter stands, I will read a few lines of what the leader of the opposition really said. And I might call the attention of the committee to the fact that, while my hon. friend was brave enough to start out with the idea of reading the language of the opposition leader, he changed his mind and could not afterwards be got to do it. What the leader of the opposition said was this:
Upon what should our policy he based ? Should it be based upon an attempt to create millionaires in this country or to impose unfair conditions upon any portion of the community?
Not by any means. Does my hon. friend object to that proposition? I believe that we in Canada, in the future still more than in tiie past, should attempt to shape our tariff upon scientific consideration of known facts. I believe it would be well that we should have exact information as to these matters laid before parliament. I believe it would be well if we established a permanent tariff commission in Canada so that our tariff should not he made by rule of thumb. An agitation arises in some part of the country against a duty of 25 per cent, and it is said it should be reduced to 15 per cent, and the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Customs get together and the industries affected declare in stringent tones that a reduction of 15 per cent would absolutely wipe out their industry, and throw thousands of men out of employment, and then the Minister of Customs and the Minister of Finance say: We will compromise, and we will make it 20 per cent. I do not think that is the manner in which onr tariff should he framed; I think it should aim at equalization of cost of production so far 'as that can reasonably be accomplished. We ought to give the people of this country a fair opportunity to create industries and to give employment, but we ought not to give it under conditions as would impose burdens upon a portion of our people.
Does my hon. friend object to that proposition which he would not read ? He seems to think that we should not consider the Manufacturers' Association. He had his little fling at this side of the House, in connection with that matter. Therefore, I can assume, surely, that neither he nor any hon. gentleman on that side of the House has been coquetting with the Manufacturers' Association upon this subject. Let us see what the records show. There was a meeting of the Manufacturers' Association in Montreal in October, 1908.


Haughton Lennox: At that meeting, several distinguished members of this House were present. A gentleman addressing the banquetters said:
It is in this spirit that I am authorized to state to you, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, that while we recognize that the responsibility rests upon the government of the day of settling the tariff, this association will heartily welcome the establishment of a permanent tariff commission, to which the multifarious details that enter into the tariff question must he referred for investigation and report. Such a suggestion does not flow from any desire to infringe upon the rights of parliament or to restrict its responsibilities, hut rather to aid it by bringing to hear upon the difficult and complicated tariff problems which are constantly calling for consideration, the fullest possible light from every possible quarter.
What the leader of the opposition proposed was, that we should not be dealing with this question in the dark, that we should have a permanent tariff commission to investigate matters pertaining to the tariff; that they should collect data and that the information which they collected should be reported to parliament so that parliament could intelligently act upon and deal with the question. Well, Sir, I have the opportunity of showing that a reasonably prominent gentleman in the ranks of the government entirely concurred in that view.
There is just another idea as to which I want to have a word of expression. You have stated, Mr. Chairman, in your address, that you desired to have a permanent tariff commission. I do not exactly realize yet what is meant by a ' Permanent Tariff Commisison/ but I am free to say that if it be meant that you would have a permanent commission such as I think they have in the United States to follow the workings of the tariff from day to day, to follow the incidence, to follow the effects upon the producer and the consumer, and its daily effects upon the community, I do not see any reason why such a commission should not be appointed.
That was the statement of the right hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier. But he did not stop there; as he so often says, ' that is not all,' because he also pointed out to them that he had decided to appoint a commission, which would not be composed of politicians or party heelers, but of business men and of experts, to make inquiry in foreign countries. And that was not all, either. He told these gentlemen whom my hon. friend is so much afraid of, that if that did not satisfy them, he was willing to appoint another commission, and he was willing to have them represented upon that commission. So the government, to say the least of it, has gone one better upon that question of a tariff commission.
Now. my hon. friend also thought that the leader of the opposition was very weak

in using the expression ' let well enough alone/ Well, if he had read what the leader of the opposition said as the foundation for that advice, he would have realized that it is pretty sound advice. The leader [DOT]of the opposition had pointed out the policy upon which this country has been built up, with transportation lines running from east to west. He had shown that we had for a great number of years, for forty years, pursued the steady policy of self-reliance, that every industry in this country was practically booming at the present time, and he intimated that in this condition of things, for a shadowy chance of gain it was not wise to make this radical departure. without consulting the people, and it would be wise, perhaps, to leave well enough alone. I want to say. Sir, that 1 believe there is a large majority of people in this country v'ho would echo that sentiment to the full. Why, listen to some facts in addition to those referred to by my honoured leader as showing the prosperity of the country at the present time. Take the building permits, last year they amounted to $94,000,000, and in 1909 to $65,000,000; so there was a net gain in the building industry, indicating the prosperity of the cities, of $29,000,000, or 45 per cent. Back to the farm, said my hon. friend; the rural population is also in a thrifty condition. We must lemember that Ontario is being drained to some extent by the flow of her sturdy sons to the west, yet notwithstanding that- drain, Ontario, according to the last report, has gained
5.000	in population iiT Two~ "years, while the annual products of the farm now amount to $250,000,000. Live stock in Canada, in 1910, was valued at $599,768,000; in 1909 it was valued at $555,879,000. So there has been a net gain in the value of live stock alone of nearly $35,000,0000. Let me give you a summary of other evidence of progress. Since 1868 we have doubled in population; we have enormous American industries planted in Canada, representing $250,000,000; we have more than that number of millions of capital waiting to come to Canada, and halted by reason of the attitude of the government at the present time. The area of Canada under cultivation is ten times what it was in 1868; the hanking capital is ten times what it -was ; deposits in the banks are "nearly thirty times what they were; our railway mileage is about twelve times what it was, and the freightage is about twelve times what it was in 1868. We have an unexcelled system of railway transportation in Canada; we have a greater railway mileage and greater facilities for carrying our products to the markets of the world, rated per population, than any other country in the world. Therefore, having made this progress in face of the steady opposition of the Americans for forty years, is it not wise, even without regard to what this may lead us to, in a political sense, is it not somewhat wise that we should adopt the motto of leaving well enough alone?
My hon. friend from Wellington (Mr. Guthrie) promised us something that he was not able to carry out; he promised us that his address would be nonpolitical, but he could not keep that promise.	I do not think there is
an hon. gentleman on that side of the House who could redeem a promise of that kind. Within four or five sentences, he had plunged deeply into politics. He did not lash and slash the leader of the opposition to any great extent, but there is one man whose influence upon him cannot be withstood, and that is the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster). So within a few sentences the hon. gentleman got into his old habit, he forgot all his good resolutions, and he plunged deeply into politics, where he wallowed until the end of his address. My hon. friend had a leader whom he could not disregard in that respect; he was only following in the lead of the Minister of Customs, who, after he had uttered four sentences, following the speech of the leader of the opposition, in which not one political sentence is to foe found, in his fifth sentence, plunged into a comparison of the old way and the new- the prosperity of the country was all due to the Reform party-it was all brought about by this magnificent government now in power. I ask you, Mr. Chairman, and von are a fair man, what has that got to do with the matter? How does it affect this great issue, whether our prosperity was brought about by the Liberal party or by the Liberal-Conservative party? It is business we are after, and it is safety we are considering in this matter, and in the consideration of these questions, it is a poor policy to descend tp the discussion of which party has brought about prosperity.
Then my hon. friend referred to geographical conditions-a boundary line of 4,000 miles contiguous to the United States, it was a pity that these geographical conditions should be ignored. In that he is only following the lead of American newspapers The New York ' American ' is very eloquent upon the geographical conditions of the two countries. Do not fight against nature, they say ; it is not right, it is not Christian, it is not kind, it is not wise, and yet for thirty years these same Americans fought against ' geographical conditions ' and the geographical conditions have not changed one iota in these forty years. Then if that is so, we want some better explanation of not fighting against geographical conditions than we have got so far. My hon. friend spoke of the wheat industry. I must say he was

rather fair in that. He said that he did not expect any great quantity of wheat to be exported to the United States, that he did not expect any immediate increase in price, but that he expected a gradual rise. He is contradicted in that by the President Mr. Taft who says that he expects a gradual fall. Mr. Taft has studied this question. The object he lias in view is to lower the cost of living in the United States. If the cost of living is to be decreased by bringing in Canadian wheat, of course, it goes without saying that you must reduce the price of wheat in the United States. Mr. Taft says :
Reciprocity with Canada must necessarily be chiefly confined in its effect on the cost of living to food and forest products.
_He says again :
I do not wish to hold out the prospect that the unrestricted interchange of food products will greatly and at once reduce their cqst to the people of this country. Moreover, the present small amount of Canadian surplus for export as compared with that of our own, production and consumption would make the reduction gradual. Excluding the element of transportation, the price of staple food pro-1 ducts, especially of cereals, is much the same the world over, aud the recent increase in price has been the result of a world-wide cause. But a source of supply as near as Canada would certainly help to prevent speculative fluctuations, would steady local price movements, and would postpone the effect of a further world increase in the price of leading commodities entering into the cost of living, if that be inevitable.
In other words, agreeing with Mr. Hill and agreeing with all people wbo have studied this question, the President recognizes that as both Canada and the United States have a surplus of wheat the price must be ruled by the price at Liverpool, and it is just as idle as anything possibly can be ; it is not appealing to the intelligence of the people of Canada, to argue that there will be any substantial or permanent increase of price by reason of this reciprocity arrangement. My hon. friend argued though that the United States would soon cease to be a country producing a surplus of grain. The hon. Minister of Customs (Mr. Paterson) tells us that there will be immediately an enormous increase in the production of grain in Canada by reason of this reciprocity and that reciprocity is going to be mutually beneficial. With the vast areas available for producing wheat in the United States, and -with an enormously increased production there, is it not idle for my hon. friend to talk about getting an advantage by reason of that feature of the argument? Mv hon. friend says that if we had a million more people in the west what a great stimulus it would be to the industry of Ontario. Yes, it would be if we were getting their trade. He says that Mr. LENNOX
the manufactured productions of his own city, and probably of Ontario generally, go to the west. Yes, they go to the west, but they go on the basis of exchange. Will that continue if the products of the west are poured down into the United States? My hon. friend says : How can you expect :ha"t manufactured goods will come into Canada? They will come into Canada because of a law which has been in existence for a long time that where you will sell you will buy, and the return cargo is something which enters very largely into the question, of the price. They will carry grain, cattle and other products of the west down into the various states of the union, they will have a cargo and what more natural than that we should deal very largely with people to whom we have sold. I notice that the hon. member for South Wellington is quite convinced on this subject- when he became convinced I do not know-but he is perfectly convinced-that this proposal is all right, and that Canada as a whole is going to gain by it. I admit he did not show us how but he said that Canada is going to gain. How long has my bon. friend been of that opinion? I remember that a little while ago a prominent gentleman from the Senate, Sir George W. Ross, made a very eloquent address before the Board of Trade in Toronto. He demonstrated as clearly as a proposition can be demonstrated that reciprocity would be prejudicial to the interests of Canada. He demonstrated that and he pronounced his opinion very distinctly at a time when reciprocity of a much more confined character was supposed to be what was in contemplation than what it has turned out to be. I have to ask my hon. friend from South Wellington if it is a fact that he wrote Sir George W. Ross approving of his attitude, or of the address he made upon that occasion, and congratulated him?


Mr. GUTHRIE.: I do not think I did.
I have no recollection of ever having done so, but I will verify that information. I have no recollection whatever of writing him on any subject within the last five years.


Haughton Lennox: We will leave it at that.


Hugh Guthrie: If my hon. friend knows anything I wish he would remind me of it now because I would like to be correct in my statement.


Haughton Lennox: I have reason to believe that the hon. gentleman did, but I am quite prepared to accept the statement that he does not recollect having done so.


Hugh Guthrie: I do not,


Haughton Lennox: And if the hon. gentleman will inform us later on I am sure that I

will appreciate it because 1 have a very considerable respect for my iron, friend's opinion.


Hugh Guthrie: That is very kind of you.


George Eulas Foster: Perhaps it is a case of sudden conversion.


Haughton Lennox: Well, he did not expect these gentlemen were going to get into such a hobble, and my hon. friend is one of those who very frequently has to come to the rescue. The forces would seem to be a little lacking on this occasion, they do not seem to line up as they used to do, there seem to be a number of them faltering and so my hon. friend is compelled in a sense to take the position that he takes at the present time. I have a great admiration for the hon. member for South Wellington as regards his power of speaking-everybody on this side of the House, I think, has -but I have no admiration for the hon. gentleman when he begins to deal with figures. Somehow or other, whenever that hon. gentleman begins to deal with figures, he seems to be lost and anybody who would follow him would be lost too.. I do not therefore, purpose following him through the dense mass of figures he presented yesterday, but at some time at my convenience I shall pick out the most glaring inconsistencies, which judging not only by the indications we had yesterday, but on many other previous occasions they undoubtedly contain. For instance, he was going to annihilate the hon. member for North ~ Toronto (Mr. Foster)-ho seems to lose his head when he gets after the member for North Toronto-and in endeavouring to show that every tittle of the British preference was being preserved, he takes what he says is the largest item namely rolled iron and steel billets to the amount of $3,490,000, and he says it is free all round. Well, he is just 5 per cent out. He told us Britain and the United States were on the same basis before with regard to this item and they are on the same basis now, and therefore the preference remains. That- is not a very strong argument in any event, but it turns out that the hon. gentleman is wrong, and that we have had up to the present time-I hope it will continue and that the common sense of this parliament will not allow this arrangement to go through-we have had 5 per cent against the Americans and nothing at all against Britain on $3,500,000 worth of imports of this character. Britain came in-to use a colloquial expression-upon the ground floor, and the Americans had to climb a wall, and Britain therefore, had a preference. And, it is proposed in this and other respects-and the Americans are gloating over it-it is proposed now that we shall wipe out the preference,
and that the Americans shall come in on the ground floor with Britain. Indeed, the Americans will come in on better terms than Britain, because the United States are at our doors and Britain has to transport her products over the sea and thence by rail to their destination. Therefore as a matter of fact on this item and on all items of the same class, Britain is actually in a worse position than the United States. But that is only a slight error for my hon. friend (Mr. Guthrie). A little while ago he pointed o,ut that in 1896 our import trade with Britain amounted to $41,090,000, and that to-day it amounts to $270,000,000.


Hugh Guthrie: What is the hon. gentleman referring to?


Haughton Lennox: I will explain.


Hugh Guthrie: If it is something that occurred in the debate'at the beginning of the session the hon. gentleman must not refer to it now, and as a matter of fact I explained it at the time.


Haughton Lennox: I have a perfect right to illustrate why I would not like to follow the leadership of my hon. friend with regard to figures.


Hugh Guthrie: I tuxe the point of order that the hon. member has no right to refer to a former debate.


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER.: A former debate may not be referred to for the purpose of entering into the merits of it in any way. But, if the reference is not too prolonged, it may be allowed as an illustration.


Haughton Lennox: I will try to make it brief. My hon. friend said that Britain sells us $270,000,000, but when his attention was afterwards called to it, after mature and careful consideration, he stated that in revising his speech he had changed it to $217,000,000, which, therefore, may be considered the best my hon. friend could then do in that regard". But the facts are that in 1910 our imports from Great Britain instead of being either $217,000,000 or $270,000,000 were $95,000,000, and in 1908 is was $70,000,000, and in 1909 $ 94,000,000 odd. On the original figures my hon. friend was out $175,000,000, and on the corrected figures he was $122,000,000 astray. But, in a matter of that kind he is not unlike the government, for on their estimate of the cost of the Transcontinental railway they also were woefully astray in their figures. Then, in order to show how weak the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) had been as Minister of Finance the hon. member (Mr. Guthrie) said that our trade is now a little more than five times what it was when Mr. Foster was Minister of Finance. This, and other figures introduced by my hon. friend in the debate are illustrative of the fact that he is utterly unre-

liable when he deals with figures. Latex he was dealing with immigration, and said he had applied to the Immigration Department and obtained the information that for a certain number of years-I think nine years and nine months-ending 31st March last, the total immigration had been 1,453,391, made up as follows:	From the
United Kingdom 562,054, which would be 38-67 per cent of the whole immigration ; from the United States 497,390, which would be 34-22 per cent of the total immigration; from other countries collectively 393,947 Or 27-10 per cent of the total immigration, and he sums it up by telling us that the immigration consisted of less than 25 per cent of foreigners. Well, he who runs may read; from the United States alone there came in 34-22 per cent, and from other countries 27-10 per cent some of whom certainly would be foreigners, but taking only the immigration from the United States the hon. gentleman makes the palpable error of saying that our immigration comprises only 25 per cent of foreigners, and therefore that the process of assimilation is easy.


Gilbert Howard McIntyre: Is the hon. member still referring to a previous debate?


Haughton Lennox: Yes.


Gilbert Howard McIntyre: It seems to me these figures are not being applied to the question before us, and are rather longer than I would feel at liberty to grant the hon. member permission to use, unless they apply in some specific way to the debate, and merely as a passing illustration.


Haughton Lennox: I will not go into details.


Hugh Guthrie: Shall I have a chance to reply?


Gilbert Howard McIntyre: In the committee there is of course always a reply.


Haughton Lennox: I may say that this is all illustrative of the fact that when my hon. friend is quoting figures I cannot follow him, much as I respect his judgment in some other matters.


Gilbert Howard McIntyre: I understand the reason offered by the hon. gentleman, but it was still my duty to protect another hon. member and to enforce the rules of the House, so while I permit this reference to a previous debate for purposes of illustration, it is my duty to see that it is not prolonged.


Haughton Lennox: I was in the middle of a table, I shall be at liberty to complete that ?


George Eulas Foster: Please let him out of the middle of that table.


Gilbert Howard McIntyre: I think the hon. gentleman understands my mind in Mr. LENNOX.
the matter, and will as rapidly as possible get through the reference to it.


Haughton Lennox: Bringing the figures down to the date with which my hon. friend was dealing, he says the foreign population was only 23 per cent, whereas I find there were from the United States alone, 37 per cent of the population and of course, that was foreign. The hon. member for South Wellington (Mr. Guthrie), made a statement, directly attacking the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster), that contrary to the statute as he understood it, the hon. member for North Toronto had, in 1896, failed to set aside a sinking fund to provide for the management of the public debt.


Hugh Guthrie: Is this from the former debate also ?


Haughton Lennox: Yes.


Gilbert Howard McIntyre: Does the hon member rise to a point of order ?


Hugh Guthrie: I do. This is another reference to a former debate.


Gilbert Howard McIntyre: If that is correct, the reference to former debates have been rather prolonged, more so than is usually allowed. I hesitated to interrupt the hon. gentleman, but it has been prolonged to such an extent that I think he should confine himself more directly to the question that is before the committee.


Haughton Lennox: I shall not attempt to argue that question. I shall take your ruling, Mr. Speaker. I think I could perhaps convince your Honour that inasmuch as this was a speech upon the address, when pretty nearly everything comes up for discussion, we would have a right to go into it. However, I shall not prolong the debate by insisting on it on this occasion, and I know there will be an opportunity of calling my hon. friend's attention specifically to this matter at another time, and as the charge against the hon. member for North Toronto is a significant one, I hope when he is challenged directly on the matter, he will withdraw the statement he made on that occasion.
Applying ourselves to the question of material prosperity, how will this affect the country ? I have referred to the question of grain, but theTe is another feature of it, that if a large quantity of our gfain goe3 to the United States without being converted into a more finished product such as flour, meal, food cereals and the like we will be losing all the advantage that results from the by-products, and that is a very important question in mixed husbandry such as we will have to practise in Canada. There is one feature of this tariff that I think will be invoked as being a source of profit to the farmers, that is hay. What

effect that will have in places where the farmer lives near the border, I am not prepared to say, I do not think it will have very much. It is not a question of course, of what the tariff is, but of what the prices are in the two countries, and if we do not want to ship hay into the United States, it matters not at all what the tariff may be. But having some practical knowledge on this question, as I always profess to have on agricultural questions, I would say he is rather a poor class of farmer who aims at selling his hay. The wise farmer, the progressive farmer, will not generally sell hay, he will convert it into the finished product by feeding and fattening his stock and thus getting an additional advantage. Further, he restores to the soil the fertility and the productiveness that has been taken temporarily from it in the production of this hay. So a wise farmer will not avail himself to any extent of this opportunity, and I would deplore it very much if any large quantity of our hay should go across the boundary line, because I feel it would be almost equivalent to transferring the fertility of our farms to the United States. Thus, after giving the Americans command of our fruit growing industry, we would be furnishing them with means to build up more and more -their fruit industry and proportionately impoverishing that industry in our country. I have never been in the cattle business to any extent and so do not profess to be an expert on that question, but it seems to me the same argument applies to it in regard to by-products. From the -hide which you take from the animaUdown to other less valuable by-products, all can be utilized in building up industries and promoting production in Canada, and we lose all this if we transfer the live animals to the United States.
By this arrangement, we rob the home market and we destroy our carrying trade east and west to a large extent. We will increase the cost of carriage and that is a very important matter. We have at enormous expense, built our transportation lines east and west. My hon. friend says that vast volumes of trade will flow north and south. It cannot flow two ways at the same time. If it is flowing north and south it will not be flowing east and west and in proportion as the volume flowing south increases, the volume flowing east and west decreases, and as you decrease the traffic on the trunk lines east and west, you will increase the cost of carriage to every farmer in the west and increase his expense in shipping his produce to the markets. It must be remembered that the Railroad Board cannot fix rates lower than what will enable the railway companies to live. My hon. friend says the Tailway companies have made no outcry. Well there are a good many interests in this country which
do not like to make much outcry against the government. From a minister of the Crown, who resigns his position and turns against this government to the most insignificant servant who makes a complaint against them, those men are hounded down and can get nothing whatever at the hands of this government. The railway companies, which are very human, know perfectly well that they had consequently better keep quiet, until they see which way the cat jumps. But they will have something to say in the near future. That is not however, the point. The Railway Board will have to fix the rates at which the railway company can carry their freights, but how will that affect the farmers in the west? The rates will be increased on the farm products and thus will be indefinitely postponed the era when our farmers may expect reasonable rates from the railway companies.
It will also necessarily check railway enterprise in this country. One of the great sources which cause an active flow of money is the enormous expenditures on public works and railway building. Check railway building and there is no industry in Canada, from the little shop at the corner of the four roads to the biggest manufacturing establishment, from the market gardener to the largest farmer, which will not be affected, and certainly a halt will have to be called in the building of public enterprises generally if this policy be carried out. Why do we build our transcontinental railway? We do so to complete -ou^-system

east-andjEeslg-and_ib is hpynnfl conception that, if this scheme be carried out, the Hudson Bay railway or the deepening of the Welland canal or the Georgian Bay canal can be proceeded with. It would then be perfect madness to go on with these works, and you could not borrow the money to build them. We want to be left in a position to build them.
That brings me to another point, and that is that we are going to impair our credit in Britain. We cannot repudiate our obligations, as we shall be doing by this agreement, and then go back to the British market and ask them to go on lending us money. Our hon. friends are no longer sane if they think they can go on with this scheme of theirs and then be able to finance any great enterprise in the markets of Europe.
Let me now call your attention to the message of the President of the United States to his government. The dominant note in that message is warning: That the Dominion of Canada has greatly prospered, that it has an active, aggressive and independent people, that ' they have come to the parting of the ways,' that the United States have repelled those people for 40 years, that the 'Canadians had been

looking to the United States for years for the development in their trade but had now turned their faces away from that country to Great Britain, that the United States had gone too far, and would have to act now promptly or Canada would escape altogether. Another note of warning in the president's message is this: We have wasted our natural resources, we have overrun half a continent, there is a rich half continent to the north of us in the possession of the Canadians, we need to be active now to take the opportunity of overrunning that other half. The Canadian people, he says, have now a definite self-Teliant, safe policy, a policy which they have implemented by a magnificent transportation system, and which is calculated to work in harmony with the interests of Great Britain, and therefore now is the time for the United States to act. The tables are turned on us, says President Taft, the Canadians have taken stock, they are guarding their pulpwood and at any moment they may take means to safeguard their forests and mines and fisheries, so that we shall be cut out from these permanently unless we act without delay. How shall we meet them? We must meet them in the bond or semblance of friendship before their policy becomes too crystallized and fixed for change. That is the statement summarized of the President of the United States to his'people. Well, I have a dominant note which I would like to put into my address to you this afternoon. I say also that we are at the parting of the ways, that this is a momentous crisis in the affairs of Canada and Britain. It is the most momentous crisis since the Boer war. What should we do? My reply is this: Stand firm by the policy which has made Canada, build up our own ocean ports, increase transportation, multiply and stimulate the avenues of communication, strengthen our interprovincial bonds, promote interprovincial trade, unite all Canada in cpmmerce, in interest, in sympathy and in aspiration, foster the sentiment of Britisr-Canadian nationality, preserve at all hazards our British connections, and steadily and strenuously strive for imperial preferential trade.
Now I come to deal very briefly with the statements of my hon. friend the Finance Minister. You must have noticed, Mr. Chairman, that the Finance Minister was ashamed of himself when he came to this House to deliver his statement.


George Eulas Foster: He ought to have been.


Haughton Lennox: He absolutely was, and so was my hon. friend who followed him in the same line. Otherwise how did it happen that" the Minister of Finance, who is always quite ready to take a reasonable amount of credit to himself, spent a dreary Mr. LENNOX.
20 minutes-during which we hardly heard a syllable from the other side, which is generally quite ready to applaud-in endeavouring to prove that we on this side were as much to blame for reciprocity as the other side. He went on laboriously to point out that mission after mission, and delegate after delegate, had gone to the United States, Conservative as well as Liberal, endeavouring to obtain reciprocity, and therefore he was not so much to blame for having gone in that direction also. Almost in the same words, my hon. friend from South Wellington went over the same ground, and showed to his own satisfaction, that the -Conservatives had been desirous of the same thing.
I have read the statement of the president, and I have listened to and read the statement of the Minister of Finance in this House. I do not like the tone of the minister's statement-too much slobbering and ' brethren ' in it for a business transaction. He starts out by telling us that the president acted so nicely, and goes over it again and again instead of treating this as a business transaction. ' Brethren, let us sit down and reason together'. It is 1 brethren,' ' brethren,' until you get a little bit nauseated at this kind of thing in a big diplomatic matteT. And, of course, the Minister of Customs (Mr. Paterson) would not be behind the Minister of Finance in that. ' Brethren ' comes to him more naturally even than it comes to the Minister of Finance. So, if possible, there was more ' brethren ' in his speech and less business. In contrast with that, we have the clear-cut diplomatic statement of the president to his people, and the contrast does not by any means heighten the dignity of Canada and her representatives. There is too much palaver in the statements of our representatives to suit me.
' Brethren,' forsooth! This is not a question of 'brethren.' The sons of Jacob were the brethren of Joseph, and if I remember rightly, that did not prevent them from putting Joseph in the pit, or leaving him to be destroyed by wild beasts, or, later, selling him into bondage to cover their crime. And so one gets a little tired of this palaver-that may be a rather dignified name for it, but let it go-about ' brethren ' in this negotiation. Who are these ' brethren,' anyhow? Are they the people who interpreted the treaty of 1782? Are they the people to whom the entire United Empire Loyalists appealed and who interpreted that treaty in a manner that was not very satisfactory to those loyalists, and not very consonant, I should think, with the principles of justice and equity? That was a long time ago? True. Are they the same * brethren ' who entered into the Treaty of Washington and provided that there should be free fish all round, our fish to go into their markets free and theirs to

come into our markets on similar terms? And we let theirs in free and tihey let our fish in free-but taxed the cans and packages until our fish were shut out? Are they the same ' brethren ' who, in the matter of navigation of canals and waterways, though ours were opened to them, by a subterfuge prevented our vessels from using theirs? I am not speaking this in condemnation; I am merely pointing out with whom we are dealing. These are the same people. And they are the same people with whom we dealt in that much-talked-of treaty of 1854. Do we want the kind of thing that arose in connection with that treaty repeated ? A lot of people wh do not know much about the circumstance talk glibly about the treaty . in force from 1854 to 1866. But those who have taken the trouble to read that up, and analyse the conditions, are not much in love with it. That treaty had not been lcng in force when the United States began to make complaint. It had not been long in force when we had bad times in Canada, so bad that our necessary public expenditure could not be met without additional taxation; and when w7e began to amend our tariff they began to kick. Will that occur again now? If we begin to amend our tariff, outside the articles covered by this tariff arrangement, shall we have just the same kind of commotion that we had then? On the equity of the transaction, on the broad, general view of the case, will they come and say: That is not fair, and_ you will have to take that duty off or give us additional concessions in some other direction? Will they say: The manufacturers think it very unfair that they are shut out from our' markets, and you must let them in, .too? Well, under this old treaty, they were not satisfied. You remember how, Mr. Chairman, they employed a gentleman named Israel Hatch, and he considered our situation from end to end. He found and reported that Canada was framing a policy of her own-that was wrong. He said we were aiming at being independent of the United States; that we were scheming-these were not his exact words-to employ our own ships and man them with our own people, and that was wrong. He said that we were taxing American imports in order to build our railways and canals, and these railways and canals were coming into competition with the United States, and that was all wrong. He said that we were endeavouring to build up our own cities, and the result of that was to prevent trade from drifting to American cities, and that was all wrong. And what was the result? They said: We cannot allow this state of things to continue ; your tariff may be made in Canada, but if made in Canada it must be made to suit us; what you will have to consent to 117
is either a zollverein or a customs tariff. And many of their public men spoke about that question, and I would like to take the time to read a line or two of what they said. The leader of the opposition, the other day, quoted the very eminent German, Prof. Yon Schultz-Gsevernitz, wfho said:
A zollverein between the United States and Canada would be both politically and commercially the death of British dominion in North America. Political union must follow commercial union.
But let us take what was said by eminent Americans at that time. Mr. Seward was very clear upon the subject, in defining what a zollverein meant. Speaking of it in connection with what he wanted as a trade relation with Canada, he said:
Under its influences kingdoms, states and principalities have been blended into one.
That is the kind of 'blend' they want now 'Blended into one.' Which is to be the ' one?' You know how it is settled between husband and wife; they are made one, and generally the wife is that ' one.' And the United States will be the ' one ' if there is but one. Now, a Mr. Darby, a prominent American of that time, said:
Is not America for the Americans? Are not Asia, Africa and Australia sufficient for Great Britain?
That is a reasonably clear proof of what they wanted. Mr. Wharton Barber declared:
That for Canada free trade with the United States would be a final settlement of her continental sympathies, and a farewell to imperial aspirations.
So, as a consequence of the treaty of 1854, the Americans arrogated to themselves the right to dictate what our fiscal policy should be. Their declarations were reasonably clear on that occasion, but they were not at all so clear as they have been on this occasion, and as they have been upon many occasions in the meantime. The Finance Minister says that the National Policy was justified; that is, he says it was attempted to be justified on the ground of probably forcing the Americans into reciprocity. The National Policy has forced the	Americans	into	an	offer	of reciprocity now.	So	when	hon.	gentlemen	on that	side	of	the House gointo wild rejoicings over what these two	estimable	gentlemen	have	accomplished for us, without consulting the people of Canada, they should not forget that but for the National Policy which they defamed for a third of a century, and which, during fourteen years in office, they have villified yet retained-because they dared not abandon it-but for that National Policy, which was bequeathed to them by
the greatest statesmen of them all. Sir John A. Macdonald, they would have no offer of reciprocity to-day, for they would have nothing to offer in exchange.
Now the Minister of Finance says that Sir John A. Macdonald went to the country in 1891 upon the question of reciprocity in order to get a mandate from the people. If Sir John A. Macdonald went to the country in 1891 in order to get a mandate, it is in strange contrast with the action of these gentlemen at the present time. Now, it was not to get a mandate from the people upon the question of reciprocity that Sir John A. Macdonald went to the country in 1891; it was to stamp out the most dangerous proposition that was ever, until now, presented to tire Canadian people, it was to stamp out the insidious treason of Erastus Wiman and his Canadian associates set in motion at that time; and if hon. gentlemen opposite want to know who those men were, I am prepared to give the names. Now the National Policy of Sir John A. Macdonald, summarized, was to develop interprovincial trade, to create a bond of interdependence and support, to protect our industries, and to build up Canada, close-Jinked in sentiment, in aspiration and in destiny, with the mother country.
I desire to trace a little further the reason for this offer from the United States. If we look into the causes we will probably be able to ascertain the motives at work. There were three important events occur-ing about 1893. There was the Chamberlain propaganda at the time, the idea of creating a closer bond of trade between the various parts of the British Empire. It had its beginning earlier, but taking definite form about 1893, it began to attract attention then. Then we had the launching of the National Transcontinental railway scheme. These two matters together had a very marked influence upon the opinion in the United States. Why? Because of the declarations made at that time by the right hon. gentleman who leads this House. It is true that before then there had been on our statute-books an offer of reciprocity. But at that time my Tight hon. friend came out distinctly and told the people of the United States, in effect, that he was in harmony with the movement in Britain, that whatever his leanings had been previously-and they had been a little wavering-whatever tendencies he had had to look to Washington previously, he had at last taken a definite stand, and was not going to bother any more about Washington, he was going to develop Canada upon the lines of British connection. At that time the American papers began to say that reciprocity with Canada would be a good thing. And why? Because they realiz-Mr. LENNOX.
ed that they were losing their opportunity; they realized that there was a likelihood that a closer bond of union between the empire and Canada would be effected, and that if imperial preferential trade was ever accomplished, then goodbye to the chance of the United States having closer union with the Dominion of Canada. Well, now, just mark the sequence of events. The Chamberlain doctrine, the Chamberlain activity, the National Transcontinental railway, which was to render us independent of the United States, and give us a Canadian railway, every foot of which was to be upon Canadian soil, and the immediate growth of the reciprocity idea in the United States.
For forty years, or nearly, they had shown no disposition to trade -with us. Then this laggard lover, Uncle Jonathan, comes in <and begins to "court Miss Canada. Gentlemen, on this side of the House, I appeal to you as guardians of Miss Canada, to stand up and -say: We will investigate very closely and see whether Uncle Jonathan's ' intentions are honourable.' The meaning of this, summarized, is that the United States are all alert now to head off Britain. They see that there is a chance that the imperial preferential idea will shortly be accomplished. The right hon. gentleman says that there is not much indication of that in Great Britain. Forty eight per cent of the British electorate are in favour of a reformed tariff. The watchword over in the United States is: Detach Canada from the Empire. The agreement, says Austin Chamberlain, removes Canada out of the imperial orbit. That is a significant statement. But the policy with which hon. gentlemen opposite are agreeing, is to head off imperial preference, and to get back our manufacturers. Two hundred and fifty millions have been invested in Canada already and there are two hundred and fifty millions more awaiting investment say the American press, at the present time. If so, get the Canadian raw. materials. That is an important point, but it is a secondary thought. It is the basis of industry. Get the timber, get the lumber, the grain, the minerals, the green fish, get the fruit markets for the perishable products of the United States, get the population, which necessarily follows industry, transfer the industry over to the United States, and the population follows the industry, get the finished product profit, get their fiscal policy made at Washington, get their business dislocated, the home markets destroyed, the transportation system paralysed, get Fielding and Paterson, get them to gulp it all down and after they have taken the dope and, when a reasonable time has elapsed after the obsequies, get Canada.
3*01

That is the meaning of it all. There is a great political combine in this matter. I have no doubt about that. Hands across the sea, say some people. Yes, and not only hands across the sea, but hands across the boundary line as well. This is a great political scheme, put up by my right hon. friend, concurred in by the government of Great Britain and promoted by President Tuft and the government of the United States. Is there any doubt about what it means? My hon. friend the Minister of Finance was very much touched about President Taft having done the government the honour of coming to Canada, and this government did my hon. friend the Minister of Finance the honour of sending him down to Albany to work on Sunday. He was very much honoured. It is like the story of the lady of high rank who asked a common sailor to watch here while she jumped overboard, and then rescue her. He said:
' If you will excuse me, madam, it would be too much honour for the likes of me.' Well, my hon. friend was very solicitous about the honours-too much honour, too little sense. President Taft is an astute, able statesman, a gentleman for whom I have great respect, but he is acting in his own interest. When he came to Canada, when he fostered these negotiations, he was looking to conditions in the United States, and he was trying to tide over a great political difficulty that confronted him. When Mr. Asquith smiled beneficently upon this scheme he too had some interest in the matter from a political standpoint. He had the opportunity, he thought, of effectually killing the preferential trade idea in Great Britain and the evidence of it is, that the government in Great Britain were only a little behind the government of Canada in their rejoicings when they found that the matter was about consummated. That the right hon. Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier), had a great big .political game to serve in this matter nobody in his senses denies or doubts. WThy, Sir, not to speak of wanting to distract attention from the long array of scandals of this government, there is that last great big blunder that the right hon. gentleman would like to draw attention away from-his naval policv. So. we have this great triangle, this great trinity, this political combination at work, and it is a little hard for the people of Canada to assert themselves and get their rights under such conditions, but we are going to try.
Now I have to refer, I think, to only one matter more, and that is, the attitude of my right hon. friend the leader of the government.. Already in this debate we have been reminded of the fact that on three different occasions the right lion, gentleman declared that he had ceased to look to Washington, that he had repented of the idea that we should shape our policy in harmony 117 o
with the policy of United States. Aside from the three explicit declarations, which he made in this House on the subject of the	tariff, he pronounced a definite war speech in 1903, with reference to the transcontinental railway scheme, and I shall, because it really reads exceedingly well in the light of events now, take the opportunity of quoting some of the hon. gentleman's observations on that occasion. He said:
Why this expenditure? Why should parliament be called upon to assent to such a policy as is here indicated? We ask parliament to assent to this policy because we believe-nay, we feel certain, and certain beyond a doubt-that in so doing we give voice and expression to a sentiment, a latent but deep sentiment, which is to-day in the mind, and still more in the heart, of every Canadian, that a railway to extend from the shores of the Atlantic ocean to the shores of the Pacific ocean, and to bo, every inch of it, on Canadian soil, is a national as well as a commercial necessity.
To those who urge upon us the policy of to-morraw, and to-morrow, and to-morrow; to those w'lio tell us, wait, wait, wait; to those "'ho advise us to pause, to consider, to reflect, to calculate and to inquire, our answer is: No, this is not a time for deliberation, this is a time for action. The flood of tide is upon us that leads on to fortune; if we let it pass it may never recur again. If we let it pass, the voyage of onr national life, bright as it is to-day, v'ill be bound in shallows. We cannot wait, because time does not wait; wre cannot wait because, in these days of wonderful development, time lost is doubly lost.
We consider that it is the duty of all those who sit within these walls by the will of the people, to provide immediate means w'liereby the products of those new' settlers may find an exit to the ocean at the least possible cost, and whereby, likewise, a market may be found in this new region for those who toil in the forests, in the fields, in the mines, in the shops of the older provinces. Such is Qur duty; it is immediate and imperative. It is not of to-morrow, but of this day, of this hour and of this minute. Heaven grant that it be not already too late; heaven grant that w'hilst. we tarry and dispute, the trade of Canada is not deviated to other channels and that an ever vigilant competitor-*-*
What other channels? What other competitor?
-and that an ever vigilant competitor does not take to himself the trade that properly belongs to those who acknowledge Canada as their native or their adopted land. Upon this question we feel that our position is absolutely safe and secure; we feel that it corresponds to the heating of every Canadian heart.
How is it now? Where is the heart now? Does it beat for that same national aspiration? It ought to. I hope it will. I will not predict anything with regard to this matter, but, Sir, let the result be what it will, as long as I have a voice in this House of Commons I shall raise it against


Mr. LANCASTER.: Whose commercial independence?


Haughton Lennox: The commercial independence of the people of Canada. What does the right hon. gentleman say about our brethren at that time? He referred to what Mr. Carnegie and other prominent men said, and then used these words :
But what will you say when I bring to your attention the expressions of the highest in the land, of those in authority, of those who are in a position to speak for the American government and the American people? What will you say when I bring you messages of Presidents of the United States and reports from the American Senate? In the month of . August, 1888, President Cleveland sent the following message to Congress asking power for executive to suspend the bonding privilege.


Haughton Lennox: This was the language, the peremptory language of the President of the United States. Now it is perhaps not out of place, nay it is exceedingly important, to make clear what was the cause which brought President Cleveland to hold such a threat over our heads. The cause was the fact that we would not agree-the Canadian government, the Canadian people, to the abrogation of the Fisheries Convention of 1818.	.
But, because we would not agree to give away our birthright, we were threatened by President Cleveland with the withdrawal of the bonding privilege.
Here was a fresh case of rank injustice. The right hon. gentleman said the Americans did this because we would not give away our birthright, and we were threatened by this dishonest and very unfair President of the United States, as the right hon. gentleman would have it at that time when it suited his argument, Then he said:
Nor is that all. A few years afterwards, in the session of Congress of 1892, a report was brought down to the Senate from the Committee on Interstate Commerce again dealing with the bonding privilege.
The American, railways wanted to have certain privileges upon our territory which we were not prepared to give them: and because we would not give them these advantages, because we were not ready to make the soil of Canada, for railway purposes, part of the territory of the United States, again we were threatened with the removal of the bonding privilege.
Then comes another climax by my right hon. friend showing that these'gentlemen, who have so frequently, but not very properly, been referred to as ' our brethren ' by the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Customs, should be dealt with on a business basis the same as we would deal with any other nation, and the Prime Minister continued:
Even that was not all. In the following year, President Harrison again approached * the subject, and again approached it in the ' same hostile spirit, and approached it, as the committee of the Senate had done, from the | point of view of American railways. He made the following recommendation to Congress in a message dated November, 1893:
:	I need not read the message; I need
only quote the right hon. gentleman's ^ opinion in reference to it:
t For my part-I have never made any secret of it

I have the greatest possible admiration for the American people. I have always adr mired their many strong qualities. But I 3 have found in the short experience during 3 which it has been my privilege and my for- tune to be placed at the head of affairs, by t the will of the Canadian people, that the f best and most effective way to maintain - friendship with our American neighbours is f to be absolutely independent of them.
' Well we have a pretty clear indication from . the events which are of record during the

time that the treaty of 1854 was in force, and about the time of its abrogation, of the attitude of the American people at that time. We have, I think, a still clearer indication of what this proposal really means bv the utterances of some public men and newspapers of the United States to-day. As to the general American attitude in reference to this question I will read an extract from a speech of Senator Sherman, and in doing so I want to make it perfectly clear that I have no attack to make upon the American people. They are a great people, we want them as our neighbours, but I want to treat this matter from the Canadian point of view and let them do what they like. What I call upon the government to do is what is in the interests of the Canadian people and of British connection at this juncture in our affairs. This speech of Senator Sherman's is headed ' By Friendly Overtures,' and reads :
The way to union with Canada is not by hostile legislation; not by acts of retaliation, but by friendly overtures. This union is one of the events that must inevitably come in the future; it will come by the logic of the situation, and no politician or combination of politicians can prevent it. The true policy of this government is to tender free' dom in trade and intercourse, and to make this tender in such a fraternal way that it shall be an overture to the Canadian people to become a part of this republic.


Mr. BORDEN (Halifax).: Mr. Chairman, I think that if you cannot keep better order than this the committee had better rise.
Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER, Order. The hon. gentleman has a right to ask for order, but I think his method of addressing the Chairman is not in accordance with parliamentary usage. He asks for order. I shall certainly endeavour to obtain it, but his method of addressing the Chair is not the usual method.


Robert Laird Borden: What was wrong with it?


Gilbert Howard McIntyre: The method used was in addressing me, and telling me that if I could not keep better order it would be better for the committee to rise. I think that was not a correct form of address to the Chairman.


Robert Laird Borden: I still insist that if you cannot have better order the committee ought to rise.


William Stevens Fielding: I think it would be just as well if order should be observed on both sides of the House. I notice hon. gentlemen opposite conversing with one another and usually the mere calling of order would at once bring order.


Haughton Lennox: It did not bring order. Less than five minutes ago I called the
attention of the Minister of Customs to the fact that he was turning around and talking to gentlemen beside him. I then endeavoured to continue the reading of the extract and the Minister of Customs resumed his conversation. If any people should set an example to this House and to the public it should be the ministers of the Crown.


Mr. PATERSON.: I would at once apologize if it is true that I interrupted my hon.. friend. I did not hear the non. gentleman mention my name or allude to me.


Haughton Lennox: I did not mention his name, I spoke of the minister.


William Paterson: I am very sorry if I interrupted, I did not intend to.


Haughton Lennox: I accept the hon. minister's statement in the frankest possible way. While I feel that there is a certain amount of injustice to myself I am convinced that my hon. friend would not willingly disconcert me.


William Paterson: I would not.


Robert Laird Borden: The reason I spoke somewhat abruptly was that five gentlemen were talking in their ordinary tones of voice while my hon. friend was endeavouring to continue his speech. That had gone on for some considerable time, and apparently had not been noticed.


William Stevens Fielding: On the other sid,e I find hon. gentlemen not only talking but standing up while they are talking.


Robert Laird Borden: I have not heard anything of that kind.


William Stevens Fielding: My hon. friend cannot see over there, I can.


Haughton Lennox: I can see both sides of the House, and whilst occasionally when I make a particularly telling remark against the government there was some comment on it from this side of the House I was not disturbed by anything that occurred on this side.


Gilbert Howard McIntyre: I think I should remark that absolute order is apparently not obtainable, that is the standard that theoretically the rules ask for, and every hon. gentleman knows that he is in the habit of occasional conversation. Too much conversation interferes with the proper hearing of the gentleman who has the floor, and if at any moment there is any indication that it is either preventing him from properly speaking or preventing others from properly hearing him I shall at once interfere, but it is in accordance with the rules of the House to allow a certain quiet method of conversation. If this incident will call the attention of the House to it, it will aid the Speaker or the

Chairman very much in attaining and retaining the order that is proper and necessary to allow any hon. gentleman to address the House.


Robert Laird Borden: I quite realize that it is absolutely impossible to altogether prevent conversation in the House, and I do not object to that ; but I was objecting to at least five gentlemen talking in their usual tones of voice while an hon. gentleman on this side was endeavouring to proceed with his speech. If the conversation had taken place in the method usually adopted by gentlemen in the House, I should not have said a word but it got absolutely 'beyond .endurance and beyond decorum at the time I spoke.


Mr. TALBOT.: Mr. Chairman-
Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER, I think I should not allow any further remarks on this matter as the hon. gentleman who has the floor wishes to conclude before six o'clock.


Onésiphore Ernest Talbot: If we are called to order for conversing together sometimes what is your opinion of a gentleman who addresses the House with his back turned to us?


Haughton Lennox: I would like to conclude before six o'clock. To continue the extract from Mr. Sherman's speech.
The settlement of the northwest territory, the Louisiana and Florida purchases, the annexation of Texas, and the acquisition from Mexico are examples of the adaptation of our form of government for expansion, to absorb and unite, to enrich and build up, to ingrafc in our body politic adjacent countries, and while strengthening the older states, confer prosperity and development on the new states admitted into this brotherhood of republican states. . . . With a firm conviction that this consummation most devoutly to be wished is within the womb of destiny, and believing that it is our duty to hasten its coming, I am not willing, for one, to vote for any measure not demanded by national honour that will tend to postpone the good time coming, when the American flag will be the signal and sign of the union of all the English-speaking peoples of the continent from the Rio Grande to the Arctic Ocean.
And running through a recent editorial in the New York * American,' I find the following:
On the opening day of the British parliament the Conservative leaders of both Lords and Commons forgot for the moment their critical and distressing domestic difficulties and uttered a loud cry of protest against trade reciprocity between Canada and the United States. Lord Lansdowne exclaimed in the House of Lords: The whole history of the British Empire will be changed if the great Dominion is encouraged, by agreement with the United States, to develop itself not on imperial lines but in accordance with geographical conditions.


Gilbert Howard McIntyre: Id this outcry of an alarmed British toryism we have the strongest of arguments- strong because of its testimony against the interests of the speaker-for the unhesitating ratification by Congress of a momentous trade compact with Canada. Let Congress pass the Canadian reciprocity Bill and all the plans of the English reactionaries for killing American trade will crumble to the ground.
In ratifying this trade agreement we should understand therefore that we are settling a world problem, and settling it right. British imperialism will wane in consequence, but American trade routes will run along the lines that were ordained by nature.
Then as to the results upon the trade of Canada and the lines along which trade will flow the writer says:
When all is said the natural interchange between the United States and Canada is of immense scope, in spite of all artificial barriers. It will be something prodigious-like the sweep of tides-when a new reciprocity agreement shall breach the tariff walls and
ive disappointed nature half a chance to have
er way.
This proposal to give nature a helping hand comes at a very significant time. Again Congressman Clark expresses the motive that lies at the root of this matter. I notice that it is said in the press to-day that he said it was all a joke.


George Eulas Foster: He did not say so; others say so for him.


Haughton Lennox: So, they say it was all a joke. Let me read exactly what he said, and the country can judge whether it was a joke or not:
Washington, D.C., February 15.-During the debate in the House yesterday on the Canadian reciprocity Bill, Congressman James Beauchamp Clark, the man who will be next speaker of the House of Representatives and whose party will be the majority in the next House, made this reference to the Bill.
Now comes what Congressman Clark said:
' X am for it, because I hope to see the day when the American flag will float over every square foot of the British North American possessions clear to the north pole. They are people of our blood. They speak our language. Their institutions are much like ours. They are trained in the different art of self government. My judgment is that if the treaty of 1854 had never been abrogated, the chances of a consolidation of these two countries would have been much greater than they are now.
I do not have any doubt whatever, that the day is not far distant when Great Britain will see all of her North American possessions become a part of this Republic. That is the way things are tending now.
Having said that much, I want to say another thing. I do not confine my support of reciprocity bills to this one. I am in favour of reciprocity treaties with the Central and South American republics, including Mexico.
The intelligent farmers of America know

that the agricultural products of Canada are inconsiderable when compared with the agricultural products of the United States. To use a common phrase, they do not constitute a drop in the bucket. They also know that wages are as high in Canada in many lines as in America, and higher in labour pertaining to the production of lumber, so they know too- much to be scared by the overworked cry of ' pauper labour.'
Mr. Norris-' I wanted to ask the gentleman (Mr. Clark) something along the line of universal peace. As I understand it, the gentleman favours this Bill, for at least one reason, that it will have tendency in the end to bring Canada into the Union? '
Mr. Clark, of Missouri-' Yes, sir; have no doubt about that.'
Mr. Norris-' Will that have a tendency to preserve peace with Great Britain? '
Mr. Clark, of Missouri-* Why, certainly it will. I do not have any doubt whatever that the day is not far distant when Great Britain wil joyfully see all of her North American possessions become a part of this Republic.
That is the way things are tending now.'
Mr. Martin, of South Dakota-' Will the gentleman favour the abrogation of our tariff law entirely so far as Canada is concerned and making free trade with Canada on all products?'
Mr. Clark, of Missouri-' By taking Canada in to become a part of the United States. Yes.'
That is pretty clear language.


George Eulas Foster: Hear, hear.


Haughton Lennox: And that is the language of one of the most prominent men in the United States, who will probably have more power in the immediate future than any other citizen in the great republic.
Just one word more. What I have said does not require any peroration. I have dealt with straight, clear and definite facts I had proposed quoting from Sir John Macdonald's address in 1891, but I do not think that is necessary, and I will conclude with a watchword: 'Hands across the sea; keep both hands on the Union Jack.'
At six o'clock, committee took recess. After Recess.
Committee resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. A. B. WARBURTON (Queens, P.E. I ).: Mr. Chairman, I listened with great interest to the speech of my hon. friend from South Simcoe (Mr. Lennox) in which he outlined and defined the policy of his party not only along the lines which were taken by his leader and others, but on other lines as well, elaborating even to a somewhat greater extent than they did. I do not propose to discuss directly the remarks of the hon. gentleman at any great length, because a good many of the subjects that he touched upon-and touched upon so well-I propose to take up in the
course of the remarks I had outlined for myself before he spoke. But I would like for a moment, to touch upon one or two of the points to which he referred. I do not say that in all cases I take exception to what he said, because he often says things with which I agree, but, often' says things to which I cannot personally assent. As to the subject of a tariff commission, which the hon. gentleman brought up, I go so far as to say that the question is one that might well be discussed. I cannot say, however, that I personally agree with the idea of such a tariff commission as the hon. gentleman evidently had in mind. If you like to appoint a number of experts with whom the government or any one else can consult on tariff questions, well and good. But that course, I take it, the government can follow for tjhemselvesi; the'y do not need any recommendations or any legislation to that end. No doubt, every minister takes good care, and especially, perhaps, the Finance Minister, to consult with experts on subjects with which he has to deal. But to appoint a tariff commission such as I understand to be proposed by the hon. member (Mr. Lennox), would be, I think, as has been said in this House, in effect, to alter the position of ministers as responsible advisers of thejlrown; it would be more or less an abrogation of the principles of responsible government. I can quite understand that the Manufacturers.' Association, that body of able, influential and talented business men, would like to have a tariff commission, particularly as it would be almost certain that that commission would be largely, if not entirely, composed of those who would, perhaps, be recommended by that association. Whether the great mass of the consumers, the farmers, would have an equal voice in such a commission I think open to question. When the people of this country send something over two hundred members to this House, and when, at the head of this House is a government responsible to tne House, and to the people for what they do, I do not think it would be well to relieve the government or this House of the responsibility which they were sent here to assume.
Now, we are told ' let well enough alone.' That is a very good saying m its way, but, as has been pointed out before, it does not go quite far enough. Had we ' let well enough alone ' in the past, there would have been no progress. This country must move on. In this I am only repeating what has been said before, but this idea of leaving well enough alone has been so pressed upon this House, and, by the press of the country, upon the people, that I think I am justified in returning to it. The Anglo-Saxon race is incapable of standing still. The French Canadian race and the various other nationalities which go to make up the Canadian people, and which will eventually

be fused into one race in this country, are incapable of standing still. If they tried to stand still, they would soon deteriorate, and then Canada would become a country that would be fit to be annexed to some other, because it would be unfit to take care of itself. The hon. member for South Sim-coe (Mr. Lennox) announced somewhat oracularly that he hoped the common sense of parliament would not allow this Bill to go through. I shall have to plead guilty to great lack of common sense, if the hon. gentleman is right in assuming that common sense would be against this Bill; because my feeling has been and is to support this Bill to the utmost of my ability. And, in so doing, I know that I shall have the almost unanimous support of my constituency; and if, to-morrow, I had to run an election I would want no other question than this upon which to go before the electors. I trust the hon. member for South Simeoe (Mr. Lennox) , in that oracular deliverance of his, did not arrogate to himself the right to say that there is no common sense to be found outside those holding the views that commend themselves to his judgment. I hold that there is common sense on both sides of the House; that neither side has the monopoly of common sense, though it is a much rarer thing than its name would imply.
One exception taken to the agreement was that, the United States and Britain, having been placed on a parity so far as concerns the admission of their manufacture into this country, Great Britain would be really placed in a worse position because of the long haul she has. There might be some small ground for that argument, but really the matter is so small that, when you remember that Great Britain has practically the carrying trade of the world and carries all the products in her own bottoms, and that this is mainly water carriage, which is the cheapest carriage there is, it is questionable whether the cost of bringing goods from Great Britain to Canada would be much, if at all, greater than the cost of bringing them across, for instance, from New York to Toronto. I know that, as a matter of practice, it costs more to bring English goods from Halifax to Charlottetown, than it costs to bring them from Liverpool to Halifax. That is one of the perennial subjects of complaint with us-that we pay so much for rail carriage when water carriage is so cheap.
In dealing with the various articles which have been made free, the hon. member for South Simeoe (Mr. Lennox) referred to the article of hay. To a great extent, I agree with the remarks which the hon. gentleman made in regard to the way farmers should treat their hay. But as to the way farmers put up their hay or as to the way they dispose of it, that is a maiter the government cannot very well control. It is only Mr. WARBURTON.
on the commercial side that the government and parliament can deal with it. I agree that the best course for the farmers to take with their hay, under ordinary conditions, would be to feed it. But it sometimes happens that there is a superabundance of hay. That is what happened in Prince Edward Island last year. While- we had really a failure in what is usually our best staple crop, potatoes, the hay crop was fifty per cent higher than it had ever been before-an enormous crop. We cannot feed it, because we have so much more hay than the stock we have can use. There is no use sending it to Quebec or any of the other provinces, because they have plenty of hay. We have been shipping a little to England, but that is a long and difficult matter. If the hay is allowed to go into the United States markets in the spring, I think we ought to be able to do a good business with our surplus hay. And that is the best thing to do with it, as it cannot stay there forever, and we have not sufficient live stock to use it. But, even if the farmers do not adopt the scientific method of farming and feed their hay, working it up into the finished product of beef, why should we say to them:	You
have to do as we tell you to do; you must feed when we tell you to, and you must not ship until we tell you to? This is a free country, and we must leave them some judgment as to how they shall treat these matters on their own farms.
But, that is not the matter that affects this agreement most. The point is raised that the agreement will be apt to divert trade from the lines running east and west to the lines running north and south. I have not many fears on that score. I listened to the wail when the hon. gentleman (Mr. Lennox) tried to convince us that there was now no need for the Transcontinental railway, no need for the Hudson Bay railway, no neea for the Georgian Bay canal or the deepening of the Welland canal. Individually, it would not affect me very much whether these public works were built or not, but as a Canadian it affects me very closely, and I desire to look at the question from the general standpoint of Canada. For that reason, though these things are no direct advantage to us, I believe they should be undertaken, and I do not think the agreement will militate against the completion of these enterprises. When this agreement comes into operation, the chances of these works being soon built will be greatly improved. With the great fertility of our soil, with Canada's enormous production in minerals, in lumber, and in the fruits of the field, I have no_ doubt whatever, but that our population is sure to increase, and, in a few years, we shall be able to provide traffic for all these roads whether they run north and south or east and west.

Not only that, 'but I believe the time is coming shortly when we will have to increase the number of our railroads, not only north and south, but also east and west. It may be that I am unduly optimistic, nevertheless I have a firm and abiding faith in the future of Canada, in our producing powers, and in the energy and ability of our peo;ple. I believe as firmly as I believe I am speaking to you, Mr. Chairman, that the superabundance of the produce of Canada of all kinds will afford ampler employment for all these roads and canals, and you will even have to multiply them. The opposition of our Conservative friends is in line with the course that they have been pursuing for many years. I do not know whether it has become second nature to them to look upon every move that is undertaken as an indication of coming blue ruin, but certainly whenever a proposition is made to improve the condition of our people, if it means any advantage worth talking about, their course leads us to believe that they have no hope whatever for Canada, that they are pessimistic, even ultra-pessimistic, and that if we were to believe all they say we had better pack up and get out of Canada for some other country. I do not believe that this agreement is going to affect our credit in Great Britain adversely. When we see that since this agreement has been made public the stock of our greatest railway company, and the one most likely to be affected, the Canadian Pacific railway, has gone up several points within the last 48 hours, we must recognize that the shrewd men who manage that road have no fears of the effect of this agreement upon the money market, or upon the condition of affairs in this country. They have no fear that their great road is going to become a streak of rust for want of traffic. I saw, the other day, a statement from Sir Donald Mann, who ought to know something about railroads, that this agreement was not going to affect adversely his road. Now, I would take the opinion of Sir Donald Mann, aided by what little common sense I may happen to possess, to be that this agreement, instead of being likely to harm his road, is much more likely to do it good. Then there is the loyalty cry. Whenever a matter affecting the tariff or the position of Canada is brought up, we always expect to hear the loyalty cry raised, and I propose to discuss it at some length later on. Just here, however, I will say one or two words. My hon. friend points out to us that we should strive for imperial preference and preferential trade. Well, that is a nice thing, a pleasing thing to listen to; but within the last three or four years imperial preferential trade has been beaten out of its boots in Great Britain itself. Not long ago, in 1906, when the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) went to Great Britain to stump the country in favour of preferential trade within the empire, preferential trade was defeated in the new House of Commons by a majority of something over 300, and the member for North . Toronto did not deem it advisable to stay there long, because he was not making much impression. Again, a little over a year ago, in January or February last, the matter was again brought before the people of Great Britain, and again it was defeated in the new parliament by a majority of something like 120. Only the other, day it came up again, along with other matters, when the leaders of the Tariff Reform party looked upon it as such an absolutely hopeless proposition that in his great speech in the Albert .hall Mr. Balfour was obliged to throw it overboard, and to say that now all they were asking for was a referendum, in order to get their own followers into line. This shows that the big men of the party in Great Britain have lost confidence in the. cry of preferential trade. Of course, if the people of Great Britain should offer us a preference in their markets we would be only too glad to take it, but that is a matter for them to decide, not for us, and already they have spoken very clearly and have said that they would have none of it.
We are just now hearing a good deal about the foolish remark made by Mr. Champ Clark the other day in the United States Congress. Well, we must always expect talk of that kind on the other side of the line; we have lots of it here, and we cannot expect that our people should indulge in talk about annexation, and this, that, and the other thing, impugning the loyalty of their opponents, and trying to make out that our lot is ultimately to be cast in with the great republic-I say we cannot expect to have a monopoly of that sort of foolish talk; it must spread to the other side of the line, they are men like ourselves, pretty much the same blood as ourselves, and they will talk. But I will tell you how it appears to me in reading newspaper extracts from time to time. It appears to me that a great part, I won't say all, of this filbustering talk in the United States has been manufactured for the purpose of defeating the Bill there, pretty much as I believe a great deal of the talk of a like character has been manufactured on this side of the line-I won't say all of it in the House of Commons-for the same purpose. If you find our own press throughout the country, or a large part of it- because there are noble exceptions on the Conservative side-if you find large and influential portions of our press taking the ground that this is going to lead to annexation, you can scarcely expect that it. will not have some effect on our American friends, and that they will not think that perhaps there is something in it. But they

do not recognize as clearly as we do that it is simply a piece of political manoeuver-ing, and that it is of small importance, as we know it to be. We also see a statement in the papers the last day or two that the right hon. the Prime minister went into this undertaking in concert with the government of Great Britain and President Taft; in other words, that the only meaning to he derived from this agreement is that the government of Canada, with the Prime Minister at its head, the Premier of Great Britain, and the President of the United States, have ioined in a foul conspiracy in order to detach Canada from the British Crown, and to add it to the territories of Uncle Sam. I think, Mr. Chairman, that the mere statement of an agree-men such as that carries with it its own refutation. The idea of the Prime Minister of the British Empire intriguing with the head of a foreign state, and with the head of the greatest of the over-sea nations of the empire, to bring about a dismemberment of that empire, carries its own refutation with it, and I do not think it requires to be referred to at any greater length. I see in this morning's paper a telegram by the Canadian Press cable, an extract from a speech of Mr. Asquith, which I will read:	-
London, Feb. 15.-The A me r i c a n-C an a d i a n reciprocity agreement came to the fore in the House of Commons again to-day. The government was questioned regarding the statement attributed to Henri Bourassa, Nationalist leader in the legislature of Quebec, to the effect that the home government had encouraged the Canadian government to conclude a reciprocity trade understanding with the United States.
Premier Asquith replied: ' The statement is entirely without foundation in fact.' The premier also denied that Ambassador Bryce has been engaged actively in the process to bring about the agreement.
Now, Sir, I would again point out, as it cannot be too often pointed out, that off and on for forty or fifty years past, some form of reciprocity has been advocated by both parties in Canada.
They have differed from time to time as to the method by which that policy should be carried out but it was recognized until recent years by this country and this parliament as the policy of one party as well as the other. In 1891 'Sir John Macdonald made his last appeal to the electors of Canada, and he appealed to them on this very question. Although the language used by him on that occasion has been quoted more than once, as it is necessary in order to connect what I wish to say, I propose to read it again. He said in his manifesto to the people of Canada :
We said to the Americans we are perfectly willing to trade with you on equal terms. We are desirous of having a fair reciprocity Mr. WARBURTON.
treaty; but we will not consent to open our markets to you while yours remains closed to us.
That was a very laudable position to take. That was the position I would expect Sir John Macdonald to take. He was an astute statesman. I was not a follower or a supporter of his, tout I always recognized his great ability.


Mr. BLAIN.: Js that on natural products only ?


Alexander Bannerman Warburton: mutually beneficial it can be continued, and if it fails in this respect then it can be put an end to. Some hon. gentlemen on the Conservative side hold up the British preference in this debate and express great fears that it may be militated against by this agreement. True, a few articles are placed on the free list of which we import a comparatively small quantity from Great Britain, but it is equally true that the great bulk of the articles we import from Great Britain will still remain under the preference. The people of Great Britain are not alarmed, because they recognize as we do that it is in our power to increase the British preference at any time we wish. On this point I might quote from an authority for whom every member of this House will have the greatest respect; I refer to the Duke of Argyll. According to a despatch published in the ' Citizen' on the 4th of February, His Grace said:
The Duke of Argyll, who is probably better versed in Canadian conditions than all the rest of the politicians now voicing their opinions in the British press, does not, however, overlook the main point and the point Mr. Fielding emphasized when introducing the agreement to parliament, namely, that the arrangement guards preference to Britain which may be increased by Canada without violation of the reciprocity arrangement.
If the Duke of Argyll, whose loyalty will certainly not be questioned, has no fear, I do not think that we need worry our heads much about it. The hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) was very solicitous about the preference, and he wished to take it under his fostering care. He quoted, as is his habit, a little nursery rhyme which he said was illustrative of the position the Canadian commissioners found themselves in in Washington; he said they had had the wool drawn over their eyes, that they were deluded by President Taft and that they practically gave away everything to his blandishments. This is the rhyme the member for Toronto (Mr. Foster) quoted:
Come into my parlour said the spider to the
spy.
I wonder why the hon. gentleman (Mr. Foster) has such a hankering for nursery rhymes, but perhaps it is because he was present at the birth of this British preference and was one of those who tried to strangle it before it got into its swaddling clothes. But, if he wished to quote poetry about the British preference, the following parody on his nursery rhyme, which has been sent to me, would be more appropriate in his mouth:
Come into my parlour, said the strangler to the child,


Alexander Bannerman Warburton: It is the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy.
I will not go to your parlour, to the strangler, said the child,
I bear in mind that parlour in my baby days of yore,
When you vampired o'er my cradle, and sought my infant gore.


Mr. HENDERSON.: Very bad poetry.


Alexander Bannerman Warburton: I submit it with all its infirmities and imperfections, and, while it may be bad poetry, it gives a very clear idea of what would happen if the British preference fell into the hands of the hon. gentleman (Mr. Foster). Then, for fear the cry of the British preference would not be enough, hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House have-on this, as on many other occasions, raised the cry of loyalty. During the course of my career as a public man in Canada, I can recall no occasion of this kind when an important public measure was advanced by the Liberal government, that the cry of loyalty was not raised by our opponents. Indeed, so often has it been raised that like the cry of ' wolf, wolf,' the people of Canada pay very little attention to it. At best it is an absurd cry. The loyalty of Canadians, whether they be Liberals or Tories, is too robust to be destroyed by any question of our trade relations with the United States. I do not think that any man can honestly and sincerely say that he believes in his heart of hearts that a single Canadian citizen will have his loyalty impinged in the slightest degree because we have freer trade relations with the United States or with any other country.
If it were not that I personally know so many of the hon. gentlemen on the opposition side of the House, and so many of their supporters throughout the country I would almost feel that they had lost confidence and belief in the robustness and virility of their own race, I would feel that they had almost lost confidence in their own loyality; but knowing them as I do, knowing them to be as loyal as we are, no more and no less, I feel that they are doing themselves a great injustice when they put before this country for political effect this matter of a possible want of loyalty. It is unworthy of them, unworthy of men of their class. If we were a lot of hoodlums or if we were to be bought and sold perhaps they might be justified in taking that ground, but if we were that class of people it would not matter much what country we belonged to. But we do not belong to that class of people, the people of this country are of an entirely different class. Nor do the people of this country think, as our hon. friends seem to think, that everything is going to the bad. Still, if one wrere to judge by their uttered words,

he would almost be inclined to think so. Sometimes when I hear these hon. gentlemen talking of loyalty and annexation, that we are going to be annihilated as a nation, and I do not know what else, I look around; I see that if you take their words literally these men have lost faith in their country and I am inclined to say : Oh ye of little faith. I believe, however, that they have a better faith than that, that their belief in the country is strong and robust and that when we get this reciprocity agreement fairly under way we will find among them among the strongest of its true and loyal supporters.
I used to belong to a vestry where we had one fine old gentleman who opposed everything proposed, no matter what it was. He was a very fine old man, and a generous supporter of the church, and when we got to know him we simply let him talk a little and then went ahead with what was proposed in spite of his opposition. When he had opposed whatever was suggested, he felt he had done his full duty, and always supported what we had done by his money and his efforts, and if you wished to repeal next week, what he had opposed last week, he would oppose the repeal. Just so with our opposition friends and the British preference. If you attempted to repeal the British preference now' there would be as strenuous an opposition from the hon. gentlemen as there was to its enactment. One of the evils of the protective system, and I have no belief in protection myself and never had, is that it has the effect of destroying a man's self-reliance, he will rely more on the assistance of a high protective tariff than on his own exertions. I would like to test the loyalty of the hon. gentlemen in another W'ay, and I hope and trust the government will see their way to make the test, although I do not know that they have any intention of doing so. I would like to see the British preference increased to 50 per cent, and I for one will assure them of my strong support; I will work for it, and do the best I can for it, I will hail it as a further and greater exhibition of our loyalty, and I am sure from what we have heard since the discussion here that hon. gentlemen opposite will support the government with both hands in anything of that kind.


William Paterson: You think so?


Alexander Bannerman Warburton: And I would be very much interested, I w'ould not leave my seat for one moment when that matter came up, as I would love to listen to the cries of loyalty that would then be uttered by them.
Turning to the question of annexation, I would say and I have no doubt I speak for many others here that it is humiliating for a loyal subject of the empire, such as I am, to be placed in a position where it is
necessary to defend any section of this country or to have to denounce even the suspicion that this great country of ours has the slightest inclination or intention or could be induced to go into annexation. I believe there is a way, by a long course of treatment, in which you might force this country to go in for independence, but never for annexation. I do not want to see either independence or annexation, I think we are remarkably well off where we are. But we had talk about reciprocity many years ago. Conditions and times may change, but the effect of similar principles is always the same although conditions may divert them somewhat. Before 1854 it was notorious that there was an annexationist sentiment in this country. I do not think it got down to the maritime provinces, but there certainly was such a sentiment in the present provinces of Quebec and Ontario. That sentiment was voiced by a number of very able men, and I think they were not confined to one side of politics-although some one said yesterday that they were all Conservatives-young men and very able men, of whom a remarkable number on both sides of politics later came very much into the limelight and rendered good service to their Queen and to their country. After a few years of weakness when they entertained annexationist sentiments-it was the hot blood of youth, I fancy more than anything else, they perhaps were benefited by having gone through the annexation fever just as patients are sometimes better after suffering from certain fevers- they held high place in the councils of this country, and their names to-day are deservedly held in honour as those of loyal, manly subjects of the British Empire, none more loyal than they. I read in this pamphlet opposing reciprocity that was sent to me a very good summary of the history of that annexation sentiment. If we are to believe what we are told of that period, that annexation sentiment was stopped by reciprocity. I quote:
Though reciprocity Bills had been defeated in Congress in 1848 and 1849, it was seen by the southern representatives.
And here is how we came to get it. .
That the idea was not only favoured by Great Britain and Canada, but was gaining ground in all the northern states, and, when the agitation for annexation began to develop, leaders of opinion in the South took quiet note of it, and foresaw that the alternative to a reciprocity treaty might be a complete union of the Canadian provinces with 'the States, in which case the separatist movement in the southern States would be swamped by a new union element in the North. Then the southern senators yielded and withdrew their opposition to the treaty, and thus in the decree of Providence, the motive which determined the southern States to secede, and which brought on ithe terrible civil war,

gave to Canada her desires without the sacrifice of her British connection, and, the economic waste of the same war bringing up at its close new revenue problems, cut Canada off from her dependence on the trade of the States, and thus confirmed her against her wishes, in the path of a separate existence as a nation.
Again the same writer, at page 13, says:
In the northern States political opposition to reciprocity yielded partly to the pressure of commercial needs on both sides, and partly to the belief that the new commercial relationship would lead to political union. The south, believing with most Canadians that reciprocity alone would satisfy the provinces, favoured the treaty to keep them out of the union, fearing their influence on the secession movement. The intuition of the south was correct, for, as soon as the treaty was negotiated, the annexation sentiment, which was never very deep, died out.
I would like also, although it has often been quoted before, to read you an extract from Joe Howe's speech at Detroit. It cannot be quoted too often in Canada:
In my own family and person I have suffered not a little by this unhappy rebellion. I have five hoys, and one of them took it into his head to enter your army. He has now been nearly two years in the 23rd Ohio Regiment, and has fought in all^ the battles of that regiment during this period. He was in both the great battles under Sheridan, in which General Early's forces were scattered and the Shenandoah valley cleared. All the personal benefit that I have derived from the reciprocity treaty or hope to derive from its renewal, will never compensate me or that boy's mother for the anxiety we have had with regard to him: but when he produced his certificate of his commanding officer, showing that he had conducted himself like a gentleman and had been faithful and brave, it was some consolation for all our anguish to know that he had performed his duty. (Enthusiastic applause. As the applause subsided a gentleman proposed 'Three cheers for the boy,' which were given with great heartiness.) I have heard it said since I came to the convention that if the reciprocity treaty is annulled the British provinces will be so cramped that they will be compelled to seek annexation to the United States. I know the feeling in the lower provinces, and I believe I am well enough acquainted with the Canadians to speak for them also when I make the assertion that no considerations of finance, no question of balance for or against them on the interchange of commodities can have any influence upon the loyalty of the inhabitants of the British provinces, or tend in the slightest degree to alienate the affections of the people from their country, their institution, their government and their Queen. There is not a man who dare, on the abrogation of the treaty, if such be its fate, to take the hustings and appeal to any constituency on annexation principles throughout the entire Dominion. The man who avowed such a sentiment would be scouted from society by his best friends. What other treatment would a man deserve wlio_ had turued traitor to liis government and violated for pecuniary ad-Mr. WARBURTON.
vantages all obligations to the country that gave him birth? The very boy to whom I have alluded as having fought manfully for the stars and stripes would rather blow his own father's brains out that haul dowh the honoured flag under which he was born. If any member of the convention harbours^ the idea that in refusing reciprocity to British America they would undermine the loyal feelings of the people of those colonies, he is
labouring under a delusion___I sincerely hope
that all thought of forcing annexation upon the people of Canada will be abandoned.
Mr. Howe's speech was throughout received in good spirit, and it is worth noting that at this convention a resolution was unanimously passed in favour of a reciprocity treaty between the two countries, and of extending its scope so as to include British Columbia, the Selkirk Settlement and Vancouver Island.
For my part I say 'Amen' to these words of that perh.apa one of our greatest Canadians. In that connection I would like also to read a short extract from a report in the ' Citizen,' a Conservative paper, which does not support the government in many things, but does, I am glad to say, in this matter:
The New York Sun declares that annexation is 'a dead issue,' and continues:-
The reciprocal trade relations of 1855-66 did not weaken the tie with the mother country. They set Canada up in business and gave her * confidence in her own resources. With their development that confidence has steadily grown.
And in reference to the situation as it exists to-day it is worthy of note that a condition parallel in almost every particular obtained over balf a century ago in our trade relations with the United States and Britain. But remarkable as it may appear in view of the interpretation placed upon such negotiations to-day, the modification of tariff duties was at that time considered the only possible salvation of Canada and the only method whereby annexation to the States could be prevented. In 1819 Lord Elgin, then Governor General, wrote that if Britain 'did not make the sacrifices which are absolutely necessary to put the colonists here in as good a position commercially as the citizens of the United	States in	order to do which	freenavigation and reciprocal trade with the States	are indispensable, the	end	mayhe nearer than we wot of.' And Lord Elgin followed this up some time afterwards with another communication in which he was even more outspoken. 'If/ he declared, 'things remain	on their	present footing	there isnothing	before us	but annexation.	No	measure but the establishment of reciprocal trade between Canada and the United States or the imposition of a duty on the produce of the States when imported into England will remove it.'
The reciprocity treaty of 1851, which resulted from Lord Elgin's representations, was followed by an almost complete cessation of annexation talk both in Canada and across the line. The fact became apparent then that the annexation spirit had had its origin in Canada in dissatisfaction with the commercial indifference of the mother country to her only North American colony, and that even

the slightest consideration in this respect was sufficient to dispel all such sentiment. Yet to-day we are told by political gospellers that the effort to promote friendlier trade relations with the United States is a menace to the imperial tie.
Now what took place before, may take place again. If there were any annexation sentiment in this country-and I have never seen the slightest sign of any-I believe the best cure for it would be freer trade relations. We are told by a very great authority Adam Smith:
That to prohibit a great people from making all they can of every part of their own produce, or from employing their own stock and industry in the way that they judge most advantageous for themselves, is a manifest violation of the most sacred rights of manhood.
This reciprocity agreement, which we are now discussing, is an effort made to allow the great mass of the people to make the best use of their own produce. It is to enable them to dispose of the produce of their fields and orchards, &c., to the best advantage absolutely in conformity with the principle laid down 100 years ago by Adam Smith and warmly approved of very recently by the most profound of modern historians Lord Acton. But, as I said a moment ago, there might be one possible way in which by a long continuance of a certain treatment our people might gradually be led to look for independence, although I am convinced they will never want annexation. Let me call attention to what was the real cause of the revolt of the North American colonies against Great Britain. We are so accustomed to hear about the Boston Tea Party that we perhaps do not often go as far back as the real origin of this trouble which caused a dissatisfaction in the New England colonies that grew until it became an overwhelming force and resulted in a severance of those colonies from the British Crown.
The real foundation of discontent which led to the American revolution was the effort of Great Britain, beginning in 1750, to regulate and control the occupation and business of the colonists. The final cause before the attempt to tax without representation was the effort to enforce the navigation law.
In other words, the effort to cramp and restrict the trade of these colonies was the underlying, the active, the effective cause of their separation from the motherland. Now, I do not think that even that would bring about annexation with the United States. I think we are too big a country; we have room enough for a nation. While we believe and hope and pray that we may ever remain a nation, one of the great congeries of nations which make up the British Empire, still, if, by any extraordinary concurrence of events, we should ever separate |
from Great Britain, it would be as an independent nation. We have a vast country; it is a northern country, and northern countries send out the best breed of men. And, if there is any other destiny open to Canada to which she is likely to attain, it would be independence and not annexation. And God forbid that it should be either.
But let us ask ourselves the question: Why should we join the United States? We here sit on opposite sides of this chamber -we do not know how long the parties will occupy their respective places; it may be fifteen or twenty years, perhaps only half-a-dozen years-but, though the sides oppose each other on the questions that come before us, I think we all agree that we have a much better form of government than the United States have. I do not think there is any dispute about that. Ours is a really responsible form of government. It can scarcely be said, if you examine it at all critically, that the United States government is really a responsible government. When you find that the members of the cabinet have not places on the floor either of the House of Representatives or of the Senate, that they are not directly responsible to the people, that when Congress changes its complexion the government still remains in office, it does not appear to me that that is, fairly speaking, responsible government at all. Ours is responsible government, and, on the whole, a better form. I believe, also, that we have a better country. In s-aying that I recognize the fact that we have a colder country, but the colder climate is the more bracing. We cannot raise the same great variety of products as can be raised in the United States, but those which we do raise are of the best, including men. I think we agree that we can raise in this country all that we really need. Even if we could have that country under the British flag, and if I were given my choice, I would not be willing to change countries. I believe, owing very largely to our northern latitude, the individuals in this country, taking them on the average, taking them man for man-and I am not underrating the greatness of many of the men on the other side of the line-are better than in the United States. Why, then, should we want to change? I could understand our American cousins, sometimes, when they are sick and tired of their form of government, wanting to join us, but I cannot imagine our wanting to join them.
Now, I have quoted passages from several writers and speakers. I would like to quote the opinion upon the general scope of the treaty of a man now living in Montreal who is very highly thought of as a thinker and writer. I refer to Dr. Andrew Macphail. I have here an interview with



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1871	 387,800
1881	
440,572-gain	of	over 50,000.1891	
450.39G-gain	of	10,000.1901	
459,574-gain	of	9.000.

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1871	 285,594
1881	
321,233-gain	of	35,000.1891	
321,263-gain	of	30.1901	
331,920-gain	of	10,000.
So you see that Prince Edward Island, one of the most fertile parts of the Dominion. with fisheries surrounding it, suffered severely, our little manufactures were crushed out, and people left the country in considerable numbers. Nova Scotia, with

almost unlimited natural wealth, between the two last censuses only gained 9,000; and New Brunswick was in a .similar position.
Now I believe that this agreement, when it comes into effect, will do away to a large extent with the exodus from our provinces. I believe it will give our farmers better prices for their produce, and our fishermen better prices for their fish than they now get, and an improvement in those respects will tend to keep our young men ,at home on the farms. Much has been said in this House, and in the country as to the meaning of the balance of trade. I never had much confidence in the balance of trade theory, when I saw Great Britain, a free trade country, getting on so well, and Russia, a protectionist country, also showing a trade balance in its favour. During the last fiscal year we bought from the United States to the amount of $223,000,000, and they bought from us $113,000,000. Now that, as has already been pointed out, was largely due to the enormous quantity of raw material brought into this country for our manufacturers, and putting a number of articles on the free list. I think that the best way to encourage manufacturers is to put their raw material on the free list. But one reason especially why we have not sold a corresponding amount of goods to the United States, is owing to the high tariff that country has imposed upon our goods. We are accused of selling to our best customer, England, and of taking her money and spending it in the United States. There may be some truth in that, but it is not our fault, it is the fault of the high tariff in the United States.
I have said that we ought to look upon these matters rather from a broad and national point of view, than from a sectional or provincial point of view. I believe that every member of this House ought, as far as possible, to disassociate himself from all narrow views, and try to ascertain what will be for the greatest good of the greatest number in Canada, and I believe that that greatest good will be secured by the removal of these restrictions on trade with the United States. I have been informed by those who know, that while many farmers in the western provinces are becoming wealthy from the splendid crops they raise, there are many others, of whom we don't hear so much, who are heavily involved in debt, and have been obliged to mortgage their farms in order to find money to pay for the machinery they use. In this way the profit that they make upon their crops goes largely to pay the interest on loans. It is well known that the loan companies in Canada, and probably the same remark will apply to the United States, have large amounts invested in the west that have been taken by farmers. Now it takes the 118
farmer some ten or fifteen years to place himself in a good position, and as so much of his money has to go in payment of interest, he has an uphill Toad to pursue. He will get through all right if he is a man of vim and vigour, but he has got a terrible fight to put up in the meantime. Now I cannot see why, if these men, by selling their grain south of the line, can get a better price for it, they should not have the privilege of doing so. I for one, have a great deal of sympathy with the western farmer, who is struggling to make a start in life, and I say if he can get a few cents more for a bushel of wheat, it means a big relief for him, and will help him to get out of debt sooner. I think it is true that this agreement will bring about a relief to the consuming popiilation of Canada. It means a reduction of the tariff, perhaps not to a great extent. But to :my mind, a substantial reduction has already been made by the British preference, as well as by the treaties we have made with other nations, and the numerous articles put upon the free list. Still, with all these reductions, I am free to confess as an old Liberal, that I would like to see a still greater reduction in our tariff against foreign countries. To my mind, it does not render this agreement less valuable, because incidentally it takes in some other nations with which we have favoured nation treaties, I think it makes it so much the more valuable.
Now let us see what we give and what we get by this agreement. We place a considerable number of articles on the free list, and we reduce the duty upon a number of others, and the United States does the same for us. How do we come out from the point of view of revenue ? I will read an extract from the ' Citizen ' of the 9th inst, in which this matter is well put:
The ' Citizen ' says:
Tlie total production on Canadian products going into the United States is $4,849,933 under the terms of the new agreement. Of this sum the gain to Canada under Schedule A which wipes out all duties, is $4,236,988; under Schedule B, which admits articles to the United States at the same rate at which they enter Canada, the gain to this country's exporters is $234,984, while under Schedule C which calls for special rates, our gain is $377
In other words, the reciprocity agreement means in dollars and cents that Canada is getting the long end of a bargain, which will prove to the advantage of both countries concerned, to the extent of the difference between $4,849,930 and $2,363,763. Disregarding the advantages that must ensue for the consumer, the producer and the exporter the agreement is one that should appeal even to those who consider the financial aspect of such matters first and the effect upon the general prosperity of the country only when such an argument serves to support the original premise.
Nothing in the agreement would seem to
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-justify the statements made in opposition to it that ' it will weaken the imperial tie ' or ' result in Canada's annexation by the United States.' In the last analysis these statements are reflections on the loyalty of the people of this country.
So that, in the matter of revenue, upon the articles placed on the free list, or upon *which the duty is reduced, we have made, it seems to me, a remarkably good bargain. I believe it is one that is good for both sides of the line. What are the articles which affect us particularly? The arrangement takes in all classes of cereals. We do not, in the maritime provinces, grow much wheat for export, but we grow other articles. We grow a sufficient quantity of wheat for our own use, or largely so, but we do not. pretend to be an exporting people in so far as wheat is concerned. Then we grow potatoes. Last year with us the potato crop was almost a failure. It is a very rare thing for it to be a failure in Prince Edward Island. It is usually our staple crop, but last year it was only half a crop, and I am not sure that it was even half a crop. There were produced last year in the maritime provinces:
-	Potatoes.	Turnips and other roots	Hay and clover.Bush.	Bush.	Tons.Prince Edward Is..	4,915,000	4,155,000	495,000Nova Scotia	6,432,000	7,012,000	1,284,000
New Brunswick.   ..@: 7,486,000	1,417,000	1,261.000
The hay and clover in all these provinces was a remarkable crop. Turnips and roots were good, but potatoes were practically a failure. These potatoes were formerly shipped very largely to Boston by water, but the duty of 25 cents a bushel practically shut us out from the American market. We largely now supply Sydney, St. Pierre and Miquelon, Newfoundland, and some other places, but our natural market is Boston. While our shipments to the United States were at one time enormous, they have dwindled to very little. If that duty of 25 cents a bushel is taken off, is it conceivable that the shipment to our natural ports by water will not again be resumed and be as great a success as it formerly was, if not greater? If we can get that market for our potatoes and turnips it will add enormously to the wealth of our farms, and out farmers, as it is, are a pretty well off class.
Then again, we have fish. We scarcely realize the value of the fisheries of Canada. My hon. friend from Selkirk (Mr. Bradbury), occasionally brings up the question of the fisheries in the lakes of the west, and I myself, once in a while, say something about them, but I do not think that we realize the enormous value that our fisheries are to the country. Last year the total catch of fish was worth $29,629,169.68, divided amongst the provinces as follows:
Provinces.	Value of Fish.	Increase.	Decrease.$ cts. 10,314,755 50 8,081,111 56 4,676,315 25 2,177.813 00 1,808,436 65 1,197,556 59 1,003,385 00 173.580 00 82,562 20 113,653 93	8 cts. 3,849,717 50 71,272 63	$ cts. 77,982 00 73,380 35 181,067 56
77,733 37	
			
			
		102,989 00 20,785 00 33,316 20 54,698 93	
			
			
Yukon Territory				
Total		29,629,169 68	4,510,512 63	332,429 91
		4,178,082 72	
			
'Estimated.
We have had to contend with great difficulties owing to the fact that our fish- and this applies to all the maritime provinces-have been practically barred from the United States market by their duties. We have shipped largely to the West Indies, to South America, to Spain and to some of the ether European countries, which use large quantities of fish, but the near-by market Mr. WARBURTON.
we are, to a large extent, barred out from. If we get free entry of fish and fish oils into that near-by market it is inconceivable that a trade will not spring up as it formerly did, because we are right on the ground, transportation by water is cheap and there is an enormous demand for the fish that we put up-mackerel, for instance, and that sort of fish. Then, we raise a considerable

amount of poultry, which now we send very largely to Sydney, Newfoundland, and other places down there. We also produce dairy products. Up to now, we have sent these dairy products elsewhere than to the United States, although the United States would be our great market. We have been practically barred out from there. It happened by accident, in making up the schedules of the last tariff Bill of the United States, that they put cream in at five cents a gallon, although I believe the intention was to put it in at five cents a pound. Blit, however, it does go in at five cents a gallon, and already a large business in the exportation of cream has sprung up between Prince Edward Island and the United States. It began with only a few gallons, because people did not realize what it meant, but it has grown very largely and it will be a very important trade in another year. I hear that in Ontario the same thing has happened. Then again, we have large resources in live stock. We ship, as it is, large numbers of lambs to the United States. They come down and buy lambs in great quantities from us, because (Prince Edward Island lamb is noted for its peculiar excellence. But every lamb has to pay 75 cents, and every sheep, I believe, $1.50. Then we come to the question of fruit, which has been so much discussed by the hon. member for Yale-Cariboo (Mr. Burrell), and others. We have no dread whatever of the duty being taken off fruit. We are quite prepared to meet the Americans in their own market or anywhere else, we believe that the quality of our fruit will carry it anywhere. Our fruit comes in later in the season than the American fruit. Our strawberries are sent to the Boston market, after other supplies have failed, and we get a good market there. Our apples and pears are better than theirs, the flavour is better, and we are quite prepared to put our apples and our plums and such other fruit as we raise, in competition with theirs in any part of the world.


Mr. BURRELL.: ' What is the acreage under fruit in Prince Edward Island ?


Alexander Bannerman Warburton: pie. If land be worth $1,000 an acre an the fruit growers can live in fine houst *and luxurious surroundings, they oertau ly must make large profits which com not be cut into very much by the remove of the duty. Although I do not know muc. about British Columbia, I am told that frui land there is worth $50 an acre in a wih state, that when it is cleared it costs $25' an acre, and when planted 'and growing fruit $500 an acre. When people pay sue! prices for property it is reasonable to expect that experience has taught them that it is a profitable investment, and I don't think they need fear the reciprocal agreement. While possibly British Columbia may not be benefited as much by this agreement as we in the maritime provinces are, yet the pacific province is not left out in the cold. There is free coke, and coke is a valuable product in British Columbia, and there is free fish, which, when the National Transcontinental railway is built and the port of Prince Rupert equipped, must be a very valuable asset to that province. At present, it is two or three days sail from the most productive fishing grounds in the world, to the point of shipment, but when the Transcontinental line is completed it will only be ia few hours sail to Prince Rupert, -and as Canadians have a monopoly of this fishery the removal of the duty on fish must be of enormous advantage. Mr. Speaker, it is only the importance -of the subject now before the House, that justifies my having spoken at such length. I presume that our friends in the opposition will vote against this measure, as they have a Tight to, if they wish, but, when I heard the Minister of Finance on the 26th of last month introducing the measure, and when I saw the very general applause which greeted him, I thought to myself that on this occasion if never before, we would have unanimity in this parliament.	_
After the resolutions introduced at various sessions, seeking to do away with the duty on different lines of manufactured goods, after the member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen) undertook the impossible task of reconciling the cutting off of an important part of the duty on certain lines with a policy of high protection, I cannot see how he can vote against this. I cannot see how the hon. member for Souris (Mr. Scbaffner) or the hon. member for Macdonald (Mr. Staples) having the interests of their constituents at heart, in that wheat growing country, can very well vote against this measure which will be of such manifest benefit to their constituents, and I will not believe that they can do so until I hear the nances called out. I might go further and point out that many of these western gentlemen have shown signs by the resolutions they have Mr. WARBURTON.
ntroduced into this House in the last few ears that the free trade sentiment that is ow growing in the west is getting hold f them, and the fact that they have intro-uced resolutions at various sessions in the ist, and this parliament tending to a eduction of duties shows that they are >eing impregnated with the revenue tariff r free trade (bacillus. They are in contact vith their people ; they know what their >eople desire. They saw the enormous, lelegation that came here in December Tom the west and know how the members >f that delegation spoke, with no- uncertain, [DOT]iound. I thought that delegation put the ase very well although in some respects they perhaps asked rather more than they could reasonably expect to get, but still they made a good case (and showed the trend of opinion in the west. That opinion has to be considered and dealt with by any one who runs up against this reciprocity agreement. It would toe interesting to me to know how my genial friend the junior member for Halifax (Mr. Crosby) can vote in this House against the removal of the, duty on Nova (Scotia fish going into the Boston market, and then go to Halifax and tell them why he did so.
In conclusion I desire to quote from the ' Glolbe ' several extracts from Conservative papers, showing that this matter has been fought in different ways in different parts of the Dominion, it is not opposed in the same way in all places, they have one story in one place, and another in another. The ' Globe ' says :


CANNOT BOTH BE RIGHT.
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The following editorial extracts from the Toronto ' News ' and the Victoria ' Colonist,' the chief Conservative organ of British Columbia, indicates the sort of thing that is going on in every province of the Dominion in regard to the'reciprocity agreement. The
<	News,' three thousand miles away, predicts disaster for the British Columbia lumbermen as a result of freer trade. A representative British Columbia lumberman induces the
<	Colonist ' to say editorially that it does not know what will happen, and hopes for the best:-
The News (Con.)- The Colonist (Con.) "The British Colum- -"Mr. Cameron of bia lumberman has the Cameron Lumber developed a large Company writes us a trade with Alberta letter on the- effect of and Saskatchewan, the reciprocity agree-and has been, able to ment upon the lumber compete on satisfac- trade of British Col-tory terms with the umbia. The examina-products of the Am- tion which he has erican mills, but with made of the schedule the reduction of the prepared for Presi-tarifi as foreshadowed dent Taft leads him in the agreement to the conculsion that made at Washington British Columbia mer-the mills of the Unit- chants will be under ed States will monopo- no greater disadvant-lize the lumber trade, ages in the Canadian and the British Col- market, whereas they

umbian will be forced may gain very eon-to send his rough siderably by reason of hewn timber to the the opening to them United States to be of the markets of the prepared for the mar- United States. This is ket of the middle certainly very interWest, instead of doing esting, and if the it in his own mills in agreement is going to British Columbia, be brought into effect. The greatest need of will be a source of the Pacific province local satisfaction. . . at the present time is . . While opposed on a larger white popula- principle to the nego-tion. The new trade tiation of any recipro-arrangement cannot city agreement with have any but a retro- the United States, we grade effect on immi- very sincerely hope gration."	that, if the agreement
is consummated, the most sanguine expectations of its friends as to its beneficial effect upon Canadian business will be more than realized."
Which view is the more likely to be correct-that of the man on the spot or that of the critic three thousand miles away?
I think I can assure my hon. friend who is now leading the House, (Mr. TPat-erson) that he will receive a strong and enthusiastic support from the very bottom of their hearts as well as from their lips of the gentlemen who sit about me. I believe that this is the best measure that has been brought before this House or any other House in Canada in the last 50 years in relation to its benefit to the province from which I coime. If there is any difference in the benefit it affords to different places it is perhaps possible that we may benefit most because there is not one thing in which we are injured while we are benefited by every thing. I do not believe that many of those in other parts of the Dominion, who are complaining are hurt, they are crying before they are hurt. But with us it is a benefit in every respect, and I hail it with delight, and I congratulate the two ministers who negotiated it on the important work they have done.
Mr. J. E. ARMSTRONG (East Lambton).: Mr. Chairman, the question now before the committee is one of the most important that has been before parliament since confederation. The hon. member from the Garden of the Gulf has taken the position that he is very strongly in favour of reciprocity, and also of free trade with any nation on the face of the globe. But I venture to say that his good people, and the hon. gentleman himself, after he investigates this question more thoroughly will come to the conclusion, unless he and his people are taking a provincial view of the matter, considering only what is best from an island standpoint that we are facing a crisis in the affairs of this country. These people are big enough, and patriotic enough
and have sufficient national pride, I am sure, to say that even if they are going to get a few cents more for a bag of potatoes or some other commodity, and are thereby going to injure some of the other large industries in the different parts of this country, they would be willing to forego that slight advantage and work for the best interests of all.
My hon.-friend does not believe in a tariff commission. He says that 220 men are sent to this House to look after the tariff and should be able to do it. Well, what about the measure now before the House? Does he not know that it was submitted to us by two ministers of the Crown on behalf of the government, and that they are practically forcing their followers to line up and vote for it. Talk about 220 men having the right to decide this matter, I am not exaggerating when I say that every man on the government side is compelled to support this measure under penalty of seeing the government go down to defeat. This agreement is the work of two men, who are two of the strongest free traders and commercial unionists the country has ever known. Go back to the history of the Finance Minister (Mr. Fielding) and you will find him going up and down the highways and the byways of his province in the early days urging the people to secede from confederation and join their fortunes with the country to the south. And as to the Minister of Customs (Mr. Paterson) we have heard him on the public platform throughout the cities of Ontario with that splendid voice of his crying aloud for free trade as it is in England. These are the two men who went to Washington and entered into a pact with the American people in order to bring about free trade between the two countries.
My hon. friend from Prince Edward Island (Mr. Warburton) says: Keep the hay on the farm. Yes, I would like to voice that sentiment. I would like to say to him that if he will get up in this House and condemn the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Fisher) for either his lack of knowledge or lack of interest in the agricultural industries of this Dominion during the last 15 years, owing to which our agricultural interests have been seriously interfered with, he will he doing something worthy of his election to parliament. If we had had a good, live, active Minister of Agriculture during the last 10 or 15 years, our farmers would not want to trade with the country to the south, but would be independent of any such necessity.
My hon. friend referred to the statement of Sir Donald Mann, which has also been referred to by other speakers on that side as supporting this agreement. The other day the hon. member for Wellington (Mr. COMMONS
Guthrie) read the whole of that statement. I propose to quote the last paragraph of it, which reads as follows :
Personally I would prefer to have a preference between the United Kingdom and the Dominion and between the Dominion and other colonies. This preference should be increased from time to time, until, say in 25 years, the cost of production would reach a common point throughout the empire. Then we would be able to have free trade within the empire, and protection against the nonBritish nations.
Does that statement indicate that Sir Donald Mann is strongly supporting the government on this question? I should say it indicates the very opposite, and that if he had his way he would take an entirely different course.
My hon. friend talks about a mutual preference, which, he says, would be a splendid thing for this country if it could be brought about. Let me go back to the days of 1896, just before this government came into office, and read what the right hon. the Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) said in London, Ontario, and again in Massey hall, Toronto, and a little latex I propose to read what the right hon. gentleman said at the Colonial Conference in old London. In London, Ontario, he said:
Now, the statesmen of Great Britain have thought that the governments of the colonies have come to a time when a new step can be taken in their development. What is that? That there should be a commercial agreement between England and the colonies. That practical statesman, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, has come to the conclusion that the time has come when it is possible to have within the bounds of the empire a new step taken which will give to the colonies in England a preference for their products over the products of other nations.
He said further:
What would the possibilities of such a f-tep be if it were taken? We sell our goods in England; we send our wheat, our butter, our cheese, all our natural products, but there we have to compete with similar products from the United States, from Russia, and from other nations. Just see what an advantage it would be to Canada if the wheat, cheese and butter which we would send to England should be met in England with a preference over other products of other nations. The possibilities are immense. England does not expect that we should take her own system of free trade, such as she has it; but I lay it before you that the thing the English people would expect in return is that instead of the principle of protection, we should adopt a form of revenue tariff. Those are the conditions on which we could have that boom.
In closing he said:
My hope is-nay, my conviction is, that on the 23rd of June the Liberal party will be at the head of the polls. Then it will be the Mr. ARMSTRONG.
Liberal party, with its policy of revenue tariff, that will send commissioners to London to arrange for a basis of preferential trade.
Now, I would like to ask my good friend from the island (Mr. Warburton) what did the Prime Minister do? Did he send the commissioners over to old London? No one knows better than the Minister of Customs (Mr. Paterson) what the Prime Minister said on this matter when he landed in Liverpool. In the first speech he made in that city on that question, the right hon. gentleman spoke as follows:
I claim for the present government of Canada that they have passed a resolution by which the products of Great Britain are admitted on the rate of their tariff at 12J per cent, next year at 25 per cent reduction. This we have done, not asking any compensation. There is a class of our fellow-citizens who ask that all such concessions should be made for a quid pro quo. The Canadian government has ignored all such sentiments. We have done it because we owe a debt of gratitude to Great Britain. We have done it because it is no intention of ours to disturb in any way the system of free trade, which has done so much for England. What we give by our tariff, we give you in gratitude for the splendid freedom under which we are prospering. It is a free gift. We ask no compensation. Protection has been the curse of Canada, and we would not wish you and we would not see you come under its baneful influence, for what weakens you must weaken us.
This speech no doubt won for the hon. gentleman the Cobden medal.
Follow up the ministers of the Crown from that day to this, follow up the men on the other side of the House, and what do you find ? You find the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Fisher), fox instance, rising in his place and practically condemning the proposal of the men on this side, who were working for a mutual preference. Man after man on the other side has condemned in the strongest kind of ianguage the position that a mutual preference would be of benefit to the Dominion of Canada. We should have a mutual preference, and I firmly believe we will have it before many years go by. And, if it were not for this stumbling block of reciprocity, which these men put in the way, mutual preference would come all the sooner. Let me tell my hon. friend from Prince Edward Island (Mr. Warburton), that 48 per cent of the men who voted in the last general election in Great Britain, voted in favour of a mutual preference. It is idle to say that this idea is dead in the old country. It would increase the value of every farm in the Dominion, it would bring immigration to her shores that would fill our lands with a population worthy of our nation.
My hon. friend from Prince Edward Island talks about being a free trader, and

is anxious to take a step nearer to free trade. But I notice that the men who are such pronounced free traders, are not satisfied with the step; no sooner is one step taken than they want a further step. And what would free trade mean to the Dominion of Canada. One hundred and fifty millions of dollars per annum is collected for the purposes of this Dominion from our people. Assuming our population at 7,000,000, this means $20 per head or $100 per family. I only wish that, for a single year, the people of Canada had to put their hands into their pockets and pay out that $100 per family. They would watch where the money was going; and, instead of the government being allowed to squander, as they have been squandering, for the last fourteen years, the people would see to it that honest and clean administration was the rule in this country. My hon. friend wants free trade with the United States. That means that he is going to the most highly protected country in the world, and he is going there, because he can buy there cheap goods. He tells us about his potatoes. Why, what is he.going to gain by having access to the United States markets ? If he had read the Canadian reciprocity book, which has come to us from the Washington government, and printed by them, he would have found among the * articles included under the reciprocal trade agreement imported into the Dominion of Canada from the United States in the fiscal year ended, March 31,	1910/
the item of 215,288 bushels of potatoes valued at $179,000 and paying a duty of $43,000. (And the government, is doing away with that $43,000.) The hon. gentleman would have found that of sweet potatoes and yams we imported from the United States, 37,000 bushels, valued at $33,000. And before I get through, I will be able to show to my hon. friend that as to the farm products, which he is boasting of as being in so much demand among the people of the United States and of such increased value to the people of Canada by reason of this arrangement, the United States is net only a large exporter of these goods, but is not paying any extra price worth speaking of for any of them.
The hon. member referred to the British preference and told what a splendid thing it was for this country, but he did not take the figures into consideration. We imported from the United States within the past six years, $581,000,000 worth of goods, of which $502,000,000 were free goods. We imported from Great Britain during the same period $542,000,000 worth of goods, of which $113,000,000 were free goods. The rate on dutiable goods from Great Britain was 24 -78 as compared with 24 -26 per cent on dutiable goods from the United States; -and the rate or the total imports from Great Britain was
18 -64 per cent, while the rate on the total United States imports was only 13-4 per cent. Yet we hear these gentlemen boasting throughout the length -and breadth of Canada of the splendid advantages which, under this preference, they have granted to Great Britain. Our exports to the United States in the last six years amounted to $506,000,000, of which a large proportion was raw material, while -our exports to Great Britain amounted -to $726,000,000. During the past six years, Great Britain bought $300,000,000 worth more from us than we bought from her. During the same period, we bought from the United States, nearly $600,000,000 more than they bought from us. The British importer is paying higher duties to the revenue ' of the country than the man importing from the United States. Yet these gentlemen would lead us to believe that we are dealing with Great Britain to such a wonderful extent, and are, according to her many advantages.
My hon. friend (Mr. Warburton), spoke of annexation, and deplored the fact that the people of Canada were even discussing the subject. But when you take into consideration the prominent position that this great question holds- in the United States to-day, you cannot but feel that we should, at least take it into our serious consideration in this parliament. Hon. Ohamp Clark, the leader of a triumphant party, which swept the country in the United States elections last November, led his followers in the House of Representatives, in support of this reciprocity arrangement. Only three of his followers bolted this vote. He is the most prominent man in the Democratic party to-day. And we find that hon. gentleman making use of the words: ' We are preparing to annex Canada '- making use of them three times in his speech in the House of Representatives, on the -subject of this agreement. He said further, ' One flag, the Stars and Stripes, from Central America to the North Pole.' Amd we find prominent men in the United States backing him up in -this. I can give quotations from the statements of many prominent men in that country. I do not give many, because I do not wish to take up time. Senator Jones, of Washington, stated:
Canadian annexation is not an impossibility. It is remote, much as I would like to see Vancouver and British Columbia an integral part of the American Union.
Senator Smith of Michigan:
Champ Clark spoke in prophetic vein, and I am not surprised at his deductions. Mr. Clark's views, as expressed by him on the floor of the House on Tuesday, almost carry as much weight as if the Prime Minister of England had spoken. No doubt the jingoes in England will do all in their power to use the Clark incident to defeat the Canadian re-

ciprocity pact, if for no other purpose than the fact that reciprocity between Canada and the United States probably will shatter the well laid plans of England's statesmen to create a central parliament in London-a parliament that would make its purpose to secure advantage over trade relations between all countries flying the Union Jack and the world. Mr. Clark's utterances are bound to cause uneasiness in Europe, and are a blow at the English scheme of centralization, the feasibility of which is apparent to any one who studies the wonderful resources of the British Empire.
Can you imagine, Mr. Chairman, a stronger statement than that coming from one of the prominent senators of the United States? Then Senator Cummings, of Iowa, says:
I am for the annexation of Canada. I have always been, and if it were generally understood that Canadian annexation was the purpose of the pending pact, it doubtless would help the measure in becoming a law here. Mr. Clark's speech may have some effect on the outcome of the measure in England and' Canada, but surely not in this country.
Senator McCumber, of North Dakota:
Canadian annexation is the logical conclusion of reciprocity with Canada. Once the Canadian farmer has tasted the advantages of our market he won't want to withdraw. It would be a signal for a universal demand for annexation.
These quotations are from the utterances of leading statesmen at Washington. They undoubtedly voice the general idea in the United States with regard to this reciprocal agreement. Let me read a paragraph from a paper that serves a large district in western Ontario, the Detroit ' Free Press.' On February 2 it made this statement :
Its (the reciprocal agreement) principal merit is political and social. ... It will, it is hoped, and confidently hoped, be the beginning of the end of the stupid separation of two halves of a continent which is inhabited by substantially one people.
Then, what do we find President Taft of the United States saying at Champaign, Illinois:
What we ought to look toward is the general effect on the social and business relations of the two countries. We have no forts along onr borders; we have no battleships: we are able to live at amity with them. Why not then take down the only thing that separates us in our business relations?
Then at Springfield he said:
The plank in the platform of the last Re-publican convention, carried to its logical conclusion, would lead to substantial free trade with Canada.
He further said:
It will give the United States much greater control of the wheat market than it ever had before. It will enable its milling plants to Mr. ARMSTRONG.
turn Canadian wheat into flour and send abroad the finished product, and it will stimulate the sale of manufactures and other things that we have to sell in Canada.
Now let us inquire why the old treaty was abandoned:
The New York ' Sun ' reviews the causes which led to the cancelling by the United States of the reciprocity treaty of 1851, and says:
The treaty lasted about eleven years, dying of various causes on January 18, 1865. Among them was the charge that Canada in bad faith had raised her duties on manufactured goods (she has been acquitted by impartial commentators), a belief that Canada had the best of the bargain, the dissatisfaction of the American farmer and lumberman, and toward the end a general feeling of hostility toward England on account of her attitude toward the north during the civil war.
Can you imagine any arguments more trifling than those used for denouncing the reciprocity treaty in years gone by? And is it not possible that within the next few months, or the next few years, these same men may bring up like arguments when the Minister of Customs goes to change his tariff? He will find that the United States will hold the big stick over him as they did over the Finance Minister last year, when he had to withdraw from the position he had taken in reference to the. French treaty, when he led us to believe that the United States had no resource against the French treaty? He was told' on the floor of parliament that he wouldi have to yield to the United States, and he did yield by giving a number of concessions. Now you can depend upon it, that when you come to change your regular tariff from time to time, you will have to go over to Washington and consult with those men, and they will tell you plainly that they will withdraw from this reciprocity agreement unless you allow them certain privileges for their manufactured goods.
In a few weeks' time I believe the destiny of Canada will be fixed; we will either decide to be masters of our own future, or we will enter a path which can only lead to annexation. In 1866 Canada set her face towards welding together the British Empire. During all the years since, the United States has never held out her hand to help us, but on the contrary you find her building up against us a tariff wall forty-two rails high, while our wall is only twenty-six. To-day we are asked to take the first step towards turning aside from our beaten path. For fifty years we have gone on increasing in prosperity. Canada should have an ideal, and that ideal should be to become a great nation, while at the same time remaining a daughter in _ her mother's house. Everything a nation needs is produced in the

British Empire. Australia has the meat and the wool, Canada has the grain, thu raw material and the. lumber, Great Britain herself is the great manufacturing centre, and the clearing house of the world. Canada and Egypt can grow more and better cotton than the United States. Surely this is a world combination that cannot be beaten. To-day this government asks us to take the first step towards the disintegration of the empire. Does the government realize that the United States has precious few raw materials left compared with her needs? Let them go to the libraries in the United States and investigate the facts, and they will find that if the United States were compelled to use only her own pulpwood, in fifteen short years her supply of pulpwood would be consumed. Many of her coal mines and minerals have already struck rock bottom. Why is President Taft so anxious to carry out this agreement? Why is he going up and down that great country and gaining political prestige at every step? He realizes the need of prompt action on this agreement. He tells the people tjiat it will conserve their resources, it will open up new markets for their manufactures. He says Canada is at the- parting of the ways. Until the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Customs went to Washington, President Taft was politically a defeated man in the eyes of the people of the republic. To-day he can be elected easily on the ground that he was able to get this treaty from the hon. gentlemen; there is no question about it.
Why are the prominent men in the United States supporting this measure? Because they believe and know that they have the best of the bargain, and that it will lead to annexation. In so far as this reciprocity deal is concerned our representatives have been buncoed, and they have come back to this country with a gold brick. The premier's hands are tied with regard to this matter and the Minister of Customs has helped to tie his hands. The hon. gentleman knows full well that the hands of the Premier of Canada are tied and that he cannot change one jot or tittle of this important measure. We have the premier of this young Canada sitting in parliament with an important measure before him, his hands tied, and simply saying: In' so far as I am concerned I will not be able to change any part of it, and my followers will have to vote with me. Hands tied by whom, may I ask?-tied by the American diplomats, by the Yankee diplomats, by the men who got the Finance Minister and the Minister of Customs to go over there. After treating them no doubt in the most royal manner possible our representatives were invited in and finally, when the measure was placed before them, they thought it was of great advantage to Canada, no
doubt, owing to their free trade ideas, and they brought it back in the shape which it is presented to the House. No use for delegates to come to Ottawa! The Liberal press says to the manufacturer: Don't you grumble about the government's position on this question or they will hit you with the British preference. That position has been taken over and over again by the Liberal press. It is the same with the transportation companies-if you squeal your stock will be hit, and the important transportation companies of this country are in a most serious position, because should they condemn this measure, as they want to condemn it, and as they believe it ought to be condemned, that report will go abroad and it will be practically impossible for them to sell the stock of their railway or transportation companies. Canadians on this question like all others, ask for a square deal, but I cannot believe that this is a square deal. This government are the servants of the people, and not their masters. Instead of their bringing this measure down and forcing it through this House in the manner in which they are trying to force it through they should have given the people time to think over the matter and consider it properly. They must feel at least that they are taking an unfair advantage of the people in this regard.
We have had a great many treaty deals. We have had bungling mismanagement of our trade relations with many countries. When this government came into power in 1896 they granted a preference of 124 per cent to the mother land. When they granted that preference Sir Charles Tupper stood up on the floor of parliament and said distinctly and emphatically that they would have to grant the same concession to many other countries and Germany was one of those countries. But the Finance Minister said: No, we are not going to do anything of the kind. The outcome of it was that in 1898 he increased the preference to 25 per cent, and finally to 334 per cent. Germany said: You are hitting below the belt, you are taking an unfair advantage of us in reference to our position as a favoured nation in our treaty relations with the mother country-and rightly so. The outcome of it was that Germany put this country under the maximum tariff. This government turned around and put German goods under the maximum tariff. Germany said that this was another slap in the .face, and placed a surtax on our goods. Our government placed a surtax against German goods coming into Canada. The result was a tariff war and that tariff war was carried on year after year for twelve long years until the trade that we had with Germany which should have amounted to $50,000,000 a year had dwindled down to a paltry million or two. Who was the cause of

this trouble? This government. We find these hon. gentlemen coming down last year and removing that surtax, but not placing us back in the position that we were in in 1896. Our position with the German Empire is not anything like as favourable as it was in 1896. The Minister of Customs knows full well that in regard to many of the items they are not on the minimum tariff as they were in 1896. What about the German market? Germany with 62 million of people, Germany that imports two billions worth of goods, Germany that imports a billion worth of food products and 300 millions worth of just such products as we are producing on the farm offers us one of the best markets in the world. The market of the United States is an exporting market, and I will prove to you before I sit down that instead of the United States being a great consuming market like the German Empire it is a market that is exporting large quantities of the very products that we are asked to send into the United States. On the other hand here is the German market which is the best market in the world, but one, and we are not in anything like the favourable position that we were in with regard to that market in 1896, a condition of things which was brought about by the present government. What about the Japanese Treaty? I have not time to go into this question, but the hon. gentleman knows what the outcome is of the Japanese Treaty. Then, take the French Treaty, and I ask what good has it done to us? Look up the trade and navigation returns, and find the different kinds of things we are sending into France and see what little advantage this country has derived from the French Treaty. It was brought about in a manner that must have been humiliating to the Minister of Customs and the Minister of Finance. We remember the boastful way in which it was given to the people of Canada in the first place, and then we remember those hon. gentlemen coming down to the House, and having to take back, for instance, the entry of cattle into the French market. As a result of the position in which these gentlemen were placed they were only able to get into that country a very small amount of goods from the Dominion of Canada in return for the splendid concessions they gave to France. What was the outcome of it? Last year the United States held the big stick over them with reference to the French Treaty and obtained large concessions the ultimate outcome of which was our friends going over to Washington and entering into the present commercial arrangements. We have now a Yankee agreement, but the Yankee agreement opens the door to many other countries as well, and when these gentlemen on the government side of the House argue in favour of this agreement as regards dairy products, like Mr. ARMSTRONG.
my good friend from the island, (Mr. War-burton), they want to take into consideration that last year in the month of January 5,000 boxes of butter came from Argentina into the Montreal market, and the price of butter dropped from 25 to 19 cents a pound in a few days. What about the fact that within the last ten days, in this very year, 2,000 boxes of New Zealand butter came into British Columbia? What position is our country going to be in when the door is open to all these lands to ship their dairy products in? If you investigate this question you will find that in opening our doors to these countries, as you are compelled to open them now, you are going to make of Canada a dumping ground for butter, cheese and dairy products from other countries.
Not only that, 'but Australian mutton will supply the western market to. a very great extent. Under the most favoured nation treaty Canada will have to extend the same tariff advantages she gives to the United States to the following countries : Argentine, Austro-Hungary, Bolivia, Columbia, Denmark, Japan, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Venezuela, and in addition, by special arrangement with Canada, France and Germany must also share in the concessions. We are opening the markets of Canada to make them a dumping ground for the products of these countries. My good friend from Prince Edward Island (Mr. Warlburton) spoke of the wonderful advantages the people of Canada would have in farm and dairy products toy this arrangement. Does he know that we imported into Canada from the United States last year $52,597 worth of poultry, and that we exported only $3,576 worth to the United States; does he know that our imports of potatoes from the United States were valued at $213,554, and our exports to the United States $36,770. Does the hon. gentleman know that $177,577 worth, or 750,000 dozens of eggs came last year from the United States to Canada, and that we were only able to send back there 39,910 dozens valued at $12,596? Let the hon. gentleman remember these figures and perhaps he will not have such a high idea of the advantages we will receive in the matter of dairy and farm products. We would expect a large quantity of wood pulp go to the United States, tout we must remember it is manufactured to some extent here, and last year 30,627 pounds came into Canada from the United States while 4,224,000 went from Canada to the United States. Of newsprint 234,000 pounds came to Canada wnile 1,600,000 pounds went to the United States, and the people of the United States buy it simply because they can't help themselves. Then, I can tell my hon. friend (Mr. Warburton) that the horse men of western Ontario are deathly opposed to this reciprocal arrange-

ment, because they know it will take away from them, the northwest market which is very profitable, and it will allow a class of horses to be imported into this country which should never foe allowed to come here. I know my hon. friend (Mr. War-burton) is (big enough and broad enough, when he knows the facts to admit that he is wrong, and to vote against this reciprocal arrangement, and 1 think he will be ready for that admission when I tell him that 6,604 horses came from the United States last year, and that Canada sent only 2,615 in return. Then again, gentlemen who support the government have told us of the wonderful advantage the cheese men are to have from this reciprocal arrangement. Let them remember that a couple of years ago the Dominion produced over 300,000,000 pounds of cheese, and that our exports of cheese to the mother land were valued at $25,000,000, we supplying 60 per cent of the British market. Let them remember the danger there is to our trade in that market from this reciprocal arrangement, and then perhaps they will not have such a high opinion of it. The Minister of Customs knows that the United States is a large exporter of dairy products-


William Paterson: Does the hon. gentleman remember that the dairy associations of eastern and western Ontario unanimously desired that this treaty should go into effect?


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: When?


William Paterson: They should know their own business.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: When did they express that desire?


William Paterson: I read the report of their meeting when I was in Washington.


Richard Blain: So do the fruit men know what is -wanted.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: They did not know then the position their industry will be placed in. This agreement was not before them.


William Paterson: They wanted what they have got.	.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: I am satisfied the Minister of Customs is making a statement which is wide of the mark. I have no doubt that when these men investigate this question and see the loose cheese and the cheap salt butter coming into Canada and filling the market they will realize that their industry has been injured. You can depend upon it that the bacon hog industry in Canada will be ruined by the (bacon products of Illinois and the hog-raising states, and depend upon it Mr. Canadian Farmer that if you allow cheap United States cheese to come into Canada and be shipped out to England as Canadian this reciprocity arrangement will be an expensive luxury for you. I believe it will be found that the salt butter, flabby pork, and cheap cheese of the United States will be entered into Canada by thousands of tons and shipped to the British market as a Canadian product, thus depreciating the reputation of our Canadian goods.


William Paterson: Do not scold them too much ; they did not have the benefit of your advice before they pronounced themselves.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: No, nor the ministers brainless agreement to look at. While the farmers of Canada are looking for a market in the States, the States will be stealing the splendid position which Canadian produce holds in the British market. We find last year that 215,681 pounds of cheese came into Canada from the United States.


Mr. DANIEL.: Did biscuits come with that cheese?


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: No, the Minister of Customs as a biscuit manufacturer would look after that. As one hon. gentleman said the other day, he sat tight on the biscuit box as his colleague sat tight on the coal scuttle. Canada was able to get only 163,000 pounds of cheese, or $27,000 worth into the United States. Of timber of all kinds $4,156,000 came into Canada while timber of all kinds went into the United States to the extent of $22,000,000. But remember that these men paid the duty. You can depend upon it that when that duty is wiped out as far as the farm products are concerned, the cheaper products will come in here in greater quantities. While the world's market fixes the price, the purchaser in other countries has to pay the duty and you must remember this fact that Liverpool and London are the world's markets. We have created new markets, we have established them at a very great expense, and now we are asked to revolutionize all our trade arrangements. Let us develop these markets and 'perfect our transportation and cold storage systems to get our goods to the markets of the world in proper and safe condition, and depend upon it the price we will receive will be in advance of what we get on the other side of the line. The British market is easier of access to-day than the United States market was fifty years ago. If our tariff needs arranging we can surely do it ourselves without the Yankee. Think of the humiliated position in which Canada is placed to-day, Canada with an area greater than the United States including Alaska, almost as large as Europe, eighteen times as large as France, eighteen times as large as Germany, thirty times the size of the United Kingdom, thirty-three times the size of Italy; Canada whose farm crop in 1910 amounted to $507,000,000, her

mineral production to $90,000,000, her timber cut to $62,000,000, her fisheries to $30,000,000, her manufacturing output to over $900,000,000, and who borrowed last year over $200,000,000 from the mother country. Is this not a heritage to be proud of? Is the credit of Canada not worthy of consideration in this question? To my mind that is one of the most serious facts in regard to the whole question. You can depend upon it that the British investor is looking to-day to the position that Canada is taking in regard to this important question. Who has built up the great railroads of this country? The British people have invested in Canada to-day over $1,800,000,000 and yet


William Paterson: What for?


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: Let the hon. gentleman go into the bond market, let him take our railways, our transportation facilities, let him go on west into Winnipeg and see the magnificent blocks of buildings and the street railways in that city. Who are getting the bonds, who are buying the bonds from the Finance Minister of this country to build the Grand Trunk Pacific and increase the debt of this country?


William Paterson: Who is getting the interest?


Mr ARMSTRONG.: Who is paying the interest, that is all right. But you must have a higher rate of interest if you are going on with your reciprocity deal because you will interfere with these transportation companies, with these great cities in the west; and instead of them building up and becoming the great manufacturing centres, you will have the people of the west fixing their eyes on the city of Chicago or New York and doing their trading in that direction, because you can depend on it if our wheat and cattle and other farm products go to Chicago these cars are not coming back empty. These cars will come back filled with manufactured products to supply the people of our great west and these supplies will not come over the Canadian railroads. The Minister of Customs knows that he can go on to Regina and will find that the bonds of the street railway there are held in the old land. In Calgary practically the whole city is owned by Britons and run largely by them. Whose money is it that is building up Vancouver? Is it United States money that is building up these great enterprises in our western cities? No, it is the money of the mother land. Come to Toronto, Montreal, Quebec or Halifax, and you will find British capital invested everywhere.
Prominent men of the United States have already distinctly and emphatically said that this step is in the direction of annexation and no other. They are entering into it with that consideration in view Mr. ARMSTRONG.
apparently and I have heard some men go so far to say that the Minister of Customs and even the Minister of Finance had some vague messages of this kind put up to them while they were in the United States. But let me tell the Minister of Customs that as far as British capital is concerned, there is great agitation about this important question. British capitalists have invested in our railways and financial institutions and undertakings to an enormous extent.
We also find that in the last few years 225 American firms have invested $320,000,000 in Canada. Does the Minister of Customs expect that these gentlemen are going to continue to invest in the Dominion of Canada if you are taking steps towards free trade? Where is the manufacturer who would leave a market of 90,000,000 people for a market of 7,000,000 and expect to improve his position unless the seven millions market was protected for him? The Minister of Customs knows that and by this Bill he has given a serious setback to the bringing in of American capital for investment in the Dominion of Canada. If the manufacturer established on this side he would live in fear of the 90,000,000 market being taken away from him. So the only hope of permanence for this arrangement lies in political union. Do the people of Canada want it? They do not. The United States has a tariff of 42 per cent against us, while we have one of 26 per cent against them. Let them lower their tariff so that it conforms with our own before they start to talk of trade arrangements. When the United States abrogated the reciprocity treaty Sir John Macdonald enunciated his policy, that policy which to-day gives us the home market for 80 per cent on our products. That national policy is still the trade policy of Canada, it has been the policy for the last fifteen years and the Minister of Customs knows full well that were it not for that policy the splendid prosperity and advancement that we have had in this Dominion would not have been brought about by anything that the present government have undertaken. The free trade Liberal in Canada, it is true, has been told that the tariff has been revised downwards, but the men who make such statements know better and the Minister knows better. $33,000,000 of the goods of our country go free into the United States and $104,000,000 of goods from the United States come free in to the Dominion, and yet the United States are said to be giving us a square deal The Americans were convinced that they would have to make a change in their tariff and to make it downward. A dying congress gave them the opportunity. They offered to open up negotiations with this government and this government, which had been in power fifteen years and was pretty near the jumping off place, joined with the

United States government, which was in the same position, for the purpose of keeping the two in power. Our government said: We must do something to draw the people's attention away from the graft and the corruption which has been rampant in this country during the past fifteen years and from our abortive naval policy. On the other side President Taft was practically a defeated man before he made this reciprocity agreement, but now he is able to go boasting throughout that country of having the advantage over Canada and there can be no doubt that he will be reelected on this measure.


William Paterson: What about us?


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: Let me tell the Minister of Customs that when the people of Canada come to thoroughly understand the workings of this scheme, they will never forgive the government for having put it into execution. The government are making themselves servants to the men at Washington. They are taking away our right to making our own tariff. Let the Minister of Customs listen to the utterances of some of the prominent men of his own party. Why did he not listen to the Hon. G. W. Ross who said that reciprocity would be the ruin of Canadian industry? Had I the time I could quote statement after statement by prominent Liberals against this agreement. Take again the position assumed by the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Sifton) with regard to this deal, and also that of Senator McMullen. Go to your hanks throughout the Dominion, and I understand there is only one general manager of a (bank in the whole country who is in favour of this proposition. The others are distinctly and emphatically opposed to it.
The motto ' Leave well enough alone ' has been quoted here to-day, and it is one well worth keeping in mind. The United States are the most aggressive competitors we have, and yet we are entering into a pact with them. We have had gentlemen from the west say : Let us sell in Chicago and New York. But what then would be the use of our building the Hudson Bay railway at a cost of $50,000,000 or the Georgian Bay canal at a cost of $100,000,000 or the new Welland canal, or the Grand Trunk Pacific? Why should we pledge the credit of the people to the extent of over $300,000,000 to build that great transcontinental railway, if the producers in our great west are going to send their products to Chicago and New York? What is the good of our improving our transportation facilities east and west, or of our building the Hudson Bay railway if we are to deal with Chicago and New York?


William Paterson: But the leader of the opposition wants the Hudson Bay railway built at once.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: If you will alter this reciprocity deal we can assure you that as far as we on this side are concerned, we are ready and willing to build the Hudson Bay railway under government control and management.


William Paterson: Read his speech.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: Our Canadian ports will be side-tracked. Let us see what has been our expenditure on railways up to 1910. The federal government has expended $427,000,000 ; the provincial governments, $36,000,000; the municipalities, $18,000,000. Or the total cash expenditure taken out of the public treasury since 1878 and invested in railways is nearly $500,000,000. But that is not all. The federal and provincial governments have besides guaranteed bonds for railway construction in Canada to the extent of $27,000,000 more. In addition tbe various governments' federal and provincial, have granted in aid of railway construction no less than 55,000,000 acres of the public domain.
Then there is no permanency .to this arrangement. The Finance Minister said it was not a binding agreement, and if after reasonable trial it was found unsatisfactory we could change it. But if you pass this agreement and have it in force even for only a short space of time, you will do untold injury to our people. Our financial institutions do not want it ; our transcontinental railways do not want it. If this deal goes through our great transcontinental railway will be but a sink hole for the wealth of our country. Our trade and shipping will be done by the Yankees because the cars and boats which carry the wheat south will not come back empty. We were a happy and contented people before this tariff matter developed, our cities were alive with prosperity, but today Canadians and the Canadian press are appealing to the premier to stay these arrangements. They are appealing to him to restore confidence in our industries, to restore confidence in the old land from which we borrow money in large quantities, to restore confidence in the money market, to restore confidence in our railways and transportation lines. Canadian enterprises and corporations must borrow abroad. They do not borrow from the United States. You are injuring the credit of the loan companies and financial institutions of Canada. The insurance companies take the same position. Railways and transportation companies declare, as far -as they dare without prejudicing their stock against it.

Our policy should ibe closer trade relations between Canada and the whole empire, because the 450,000,000 people in the British Empire are the greatest consumers of our natural products. We have' the best granary in the empire, and it is to be taken away and handed over to the Americans. Our trade will go through American instead of Canadian ports. By drawing nearer to the United States, Canada will set her foot on the road to separation from Great Britain.
Let us look for a few minutes at our trade from 1856 to 1866 under the old reciprocity treaty. I have here the figures, showing Canada's trade from 1856 to 1866, under the old reciprocity arrangement. Canada's total imports in 1854 amounted to $40,529,325. These dropped in 1858 to $29,078,527. Canada's total exports in 1854 amounted to $21,249,308. In 1858 they amounted to $22,029,565. In 1865, the year before the abrogation of the treaty, Canada's aggregate exports were $39,607,919 and her total imports amounted to $44,620,469. Two years after the abrogation of the treaty, in 1868, Canada's exports were $44.000,000, and her imports, $57,000,000; in two years an increase of $5,000,000 in her exports and of $18,000,000 in our foreign trade. During the life of the treaty we sacrificed our St. Lawrence ports and route. Shipments to and from Great Britain were sent and received by Oswego, Buffalo, and New York. The exports from Montreal and Quebec fell 33 per cent in one year. And what are the figures to-day ? Our exports amounted in 1910 to $301,358,529, and our imports to $391,852,692. Why not leave well enough alone. The horn, member for South Wellington said that this would open the door of the United States to our trade in agricultural products. What does that mean ? What does Mr. Hill, the head of the great Transcontinental road in the United States say, speaking of wheat ? :
For the year ending December last the average price in California was 84 cents a bushel, 12 cents a bushel higher than the price in Oregon.
And he says further:
The average price for wheat per bushel, in
1909,	in the North Atlantic states, was $1.12;
in the South Atlantic states it was $1.17}. What made the difference between the two? Was it the tariff? But there is no tariff whatever, so you have to seek for some other cause to account for the difference.	The
average value per bushel on the farm, in
1910,	for Iowa, was 72 cents; for Missouri, 78 cents; for Tennessee, 90 cents; for Alabama, $1.02; for Oklahoma, 73 cents; for Arkansas, 85 cents; for Oregon, 72 cents; fo'-California, 84 cents; for North Carolina, $1.01; for South Carolina, $1.14. Now will some one explain that great difference in price? It is not due to the tariff.
These are statements by one of the pro-Mr. ARMSTRONG.
miment railway men of the United States, which go to show that when hon. gentlemen opposite state that opening the door of United States trade, will increase the value of our wheat, they do not allow for these differences in^price in different sections of the States. You can depend upon it, that when that door is opened, we shall be placed in a very different position from what hon. gentlemen opposite would like us to believe.
Consider, for a moment, the exports of the United States in different kinds of animal and agricultural produce. In 1909, the United States exported $18,000,000 worth of cattle. And yet we find men from the Northwest who will tell you of the wonderful advantages to be gained by getting into that market. If they will only look at the statistical year book of the United States, they will find that the United States itself is an exporter of cattle. Of horses, the United States exported in 1909, $3,386,617 worth. The total value of animals exported from the United States in that year was $22,645,438. I wonder if the Minister of Customs saw these figures before he entered into that arrangement at Washington ? I venture to say he did not take these into consideration. Here is a statement of the breadstuffs exported from the United States in 1909:


UNITED STATES BREADSTUFFS, EXPORTS, 1909.
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Barley	 $ 4,672,166
Oats	 804,759
Corn	 25,194,466
Rye	 1,049,809
Wheat, bushels	66,923,244	valued	at	68,094,447Wheat	flour,	brls.	10,521,161valued	at	
51,157,366Total breadstuffs	
159,929,221
If the Americans could use our wheat for home consumption, that would be a redeeming feature of this arrangement. But they do not need it. And when men talk of receiving a wonderful addition to wheat prices, they will find that the Liverpool and Irondom markets regulate the prices of these products.
Now, let us look at some other exports of the United States:

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Valued at.
Eggs, 5,207,151 doz	$ 1,199,522
Butter, 5,981,365 lbs	 1,268,210
Cheese, 6,822,842 lbs	 857,091
Condensed milk	 1,375,104
Lard, U.S	 52,712,569
Pork, pickled	 4,599,431
Ham and shoulders,	cured	 23,526,307
Bacon, U.S	 25.920,490
Beef, fresh	 12,698,594
Beef, salted and pickled	 3,488,048
Total meat and dairy products
in 1909	 $166,521,949

In view of these figures, what about the butter industry in Canada ? Did the Minister of Customs (Mr. Paterson), take into consideration the fact that the United States exported nearly 6,000,000 pounds, vaiucd at about a million and a quarter of dollars ? Surely, that should have been taken into consideration.
William Paterson: It was, by the dairy associations that passed resolutions in favour of the arrangement.


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: The hon. minister seems worried about what the dairy associations say. I think he will find, when these associations take this matter into full consideration, there will be a^different story. And here are the figures of the fruit exports:


UNITED STATES FRUIT AND NUTS EXPORTS, 1909.
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Value.
Apples, dried, 33,474,631 lbs	$ 2,339,936
Apples, green, 896,279 barrels	 2,782,007
Total exports, fruit and nuts.. $16,568,080
Yet, the minister is trying to make the fruit men believe that their industry will not be hurt by this arrangement.

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Clover seed	$1,706,780
Flax seed and linseed	 1,092,539
Timothy seed	 1,009,557
Total seeds	$5,256,623
Then our good friend from the island told us the advantage it would be to the fish industry of the eastern provinces. If he will consult the statistical year book of the United States he will find that $6,000,000 worth of fish were exported from the United States to other countries; so there may not be all the advantage to his island that he expects. What is the position of the meat packing industry? If this Bill passes, the pork packing and dead meat industries will be practically ruined, the meat trust will be in the saddle, and the Minister of Customs knows it. The farmer, in the long run, will not be benefited. Let me read to the hon. gentleman a statement in regard to the meat trusts of the United States:
The United States public pays the six big packing concerns of Chicago the colossal sum of $945,000,000 a year for meat. The net profits of these concerns which are being prosecuted by the government as a monopoly in restraint of trade, amounts to $25,000,000 a year. Such is the light thrown on the present high cost of living, as seen in the enormous profits made this year by the big beef barons.
Of the gross annual business of the packers the following is from authoritative sources:-
Armour & Co	$275,000,000
Swift & Co	 260,000,000
Morris & Co	 125,000,000
National Packing Co	 100,000,000
Suizberger & Sons	 100,000,000
Cudahy & Co	 85,000,000
Total	$945,000,000
The net profits are as follows:-
Armour & Co	$ 9,808,305 69
Swift & Co	
8,000,000	00Morris & Co	
2,171,339	00Suizherger & Sons	
1,600,000	00Cudahy & Co	
1,700,000	00Total	$23,379,644 69

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For years the profits of the packers were known only to themselves and the public had no way of ascertaining whether the profits were unduly large. Since the packers, to raise money to extend their business, began to offer bonds and other securities for sale to the public, they have been compelled by rules of stock exchanges, in which the securities are listed, to make an annual statement of assets and liabilities. Swift & Co. have made statements for several years, but the Armour and Morris Companies only began last year to give the public a bookkeeping view of the packing business.

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The Armours have a surplus capital investment of $74,000,000 which represents their gigantic profits of past years. Morris & Co., show a profit around 50 per cent annually, last year 69 per cent being earned on the stock. Boasting of their vast business recently, President Suizberger said the packing business was one of unusual stability, the profits being rarely subject to wide fluctuations. In declaring the annual business of his house to be $100,000,000 annually, he said it was exceeded only by the gross earnings of two railroads, the Pennsylvania and Southern Pacific.
In face of these facts, is it not reasonable to expect that when you open the door of the United States to the products of Canada ypu are opening the door to the Yankee trusts to come in and to swallow up the stores we have in this country? Is it any wonder that the Minister of Customs is visited by delegations of meat packers and exporters begging him not to open that door? But in spite of that, we find him ready and willing to do it. What about the flour milling industry? In Ontario we have over 300 flour mills, and they are all opposed .to this agreement. They believe it will, to a large extent, transfer the milling industry to the United States. There is no question that ,it will transfer the large mills to the United States. Take into consideration the fact that a mill grinding
5,000	banels of flour a day, and with flour going into the United States at 50 cents a barrel duty and free wheat from Canada, that mill, by moving over the line, would make $2,500 a day. The milling industry will, therefore, be transferred largely to the United States. In the western
375?
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provinces the people will not long buy from a market to which they sell nothing. The United States will run that business. They will buy our wheat for high grade flour, and take our market for low grades. The American miller will have a better market for his offals. Did the minister take that into consideration? Thousands of carloads of offal from the mills are distributed throughout the province of Ontario, a splendid food for animals on the farms, largely from the fact that they are able to get this offal from the mills grinding grain from the northwest country. What do you find to-day? Some of the men in the west boasting because that offal will be fed in the United States, and the United States will be placed in a better position in that regard than the Canadian farmer by feeding their cattle on the coarse grains and offal from mills. What about our manufacturing industries? Food prices will be raised to the working men through the trusts and the corporations that will control the food of the people who consume them. _ The reduction on manufactured articles is an important one to many of these industries; thus it will stop the American manufacturers from locating in Canada to a great extent. You must remember that labour in the United States is, on the whole, much cheaper than Canada, on the whole. In the city of New York to-day you will find 50,000 men crying for bread. In the city of Pittsburg you will lind 30,000 men working at $1.25 a day, wages that our working men would not care to accept. We place the making of our tariff in the hands of the American Congress. Take the salt industry. The minister has had salt deputations waiting on him, and they have said to him: You are wiping our industry out of existence by these tariff regulations. How do you do it? The salt industry in Sarnia, last year consumed over $6,000 worth of coal, on which they have to pay duty. They have to pay a duty on the bags coming in, and in many instances on machinery and the products that they use to manufacture salt. What about the cattle industry? The United States is exporting $18,000,000 worth of cattle, and with their cheap food coming over from Canada, what' chance would our farmers have* of competing?
What about the butter industry? I told the minister of the large amount of butter coming into the Dominion from New Zealand and other countries, lowering the price of our product. Cold storage and the transportation of these products will be demoralized. It is my privilege to be president of one of the largest butter factories in the Dominion of Canada. Last year, if we had made all the cream into butter that we received, we would have Mr. ARMSTRONG.
made over 350,000 pounds of creamery butter. But we only made 185,000 pounds, because, during a portion of the year, we shipped the cream to the other side and got a good price for it. But that good price only continued for a small portion of the year, and we found that we could make more money for the farmers by making that 185,000 pounds in our own factories. You can depend upon it that the butter industry of the Dominion of Canada will be seriousiy interfered with if this arrangement goes into effect.
You will find the salt and cheap butters of the United States coming into Canada, and filling our market and supplying it to a very great extent. Oleomargarine and the process butters of the United States have full sway in that country, and there is no doubt that if this government will allow all sorts of cheap butters in the Dominion of Canada they are going to undermine' the great butter industry of this country. If you undermine it here you undermine it in the markets of the world, because our butter sells for a good deal more than United States butter on the British market. Our cheese and dairy products command a higher price than United States exports of these same products in the markets of the world. Take the fish industry of our great lakes; the Americans own today the great fishing boats and Canadians will continue to eat the small fish, pike and whatever is left as we have in the past, and our choice fish will go to feed the Yankees. The Canadian bacon hog has gained a record which it has taken years to bring up to the market standard will disappear and this arrangement will leave the market open for the American animal. There are few constituencies in the older provinces that are not directly interested in these industries. Take my own riding; you have seriously interfered with two salt industries, two wagon works, six flour mills, ten cheese factories, twenty miles of fruit land along the south short of Lako Huron, six evaporator works, two canneries, besides many other industries. Cheese and butter factories were built up under British connection. The government assisted them by cold storage and transportation to the extent of something like $600,000 or $700,000. We stand higher in the British market than the Americans in these products. The vegetable industry pays a duty on its coal, glass, fertilizers, implements, &c., and it is asked to compete with the man outside who has all these things at his disposal free. There have been millions invested in this vegetable industry all over Canada. In fruit and vegetables it is always harder for a northern country to compete with the south. American fruit will arrive several weeks before ours is ripe and by the time the Canadian fruit is ready the consumer has tired of that certain fruit and will wish

some other kind that the United States will supply; so, the Canadian farmer will walk at the tail end and get the glut prices for the fruit if he can sell it at all. With regard to early vegetables the same condition obtains. In Ontario there are 57,000 acres given up to the growing of vegetables,
250.000	acres to fruit and 500,000 in the whole Dominion. It requires years to develop a fruit farm. Fruit men are developing our natural resources just the same as any other line of industry and the industry is one which is launched on the sea of doubt. Fruit men are compelled to pay tribute to every other industry. Our western trade will be demoralized if we cannot ship into that country. From the Niagara district in 1904 a sample car was sent. It was followed in 1905 by 25 cars, in 1906 by 264 cars, sent from one shipping point, and in 1910 by 600 cars. It is expected that
1.000	cars will represent the shipment of fruit this year to that western country. For every dollar that United States people spend on Canadian fruit we spend $22 on theirs. There is an investment of $150,000,000 in the fruit industry of Canada, and there are 30,000,000 bearing trees. It takes from eight to ten years to get returns and ten acres of orchard will employ as much labour as one hundred acres of wheat. Even with the present duty the United States have made a dumping ground of our markets. The fruit growing industry is a great natural asset, it gives a large amount of traffic to the railroads and consumes the product of box, barrel and basket factories besides supplying canneries, cold storage plants, &c. The prices that the fruit men receive for their products depend upon the time they can be marketed. You will turn the fruit men over to the American trusts to handle their goods and you can depend upon it that in so far as the consumers in Canada are concerned they will not get cheaper fruits. Canada imported from the United States last year $4,634,268 worth of fruits of which $3,428,722 were free. I would like to place a few statistics with regard to this fruit industry on ' Hansard ' because I come from a district that is developing into a most important fruit producing country. At the little town of Forest 55,000 trees are sold to be planted this coming spring. At another place they will plant about 30,000 trees, a large number of them peach trees. This is rapidly developing into a fruit district, from a farming district, and remembering the position in which it is to-day you cannot help but feel that the government have dealt most unjustly with the fruit industry up in that country. When you consider that there are 50,000 acres of fruit land in that district alone you cannot but realize that the government have taken a most unfair advantage of the fruit men located there.
Let me examine for a moment the international trade as it applies to the fiscal year of 1909-10 in both countries. There was imported into Canada an amount of fresh fruit, not including those already on the free list, such as bananas, oranges, &c., made up as follows:
Apples (duty 40c. per barrel), 59,071
barrels, valued at	 $261,792
Peaches (duty lc. per lb.), 200 cars
(12 tons)	   155,139
Grapes (2c. per lb.), 267,000 baskets
(81 lbs.)	 112,218
Plums (ic. per lb.), 198,587 baskets
(201 lbs.)	 158,756
Pears, apricots, quinces (averaging ic. lb.), 247,000 baskets (20 lbs.)..	170,346
Cherries (2c. per lb.), 31,860 cases
(10 lbs.)	  40,376
Cranberries (25 p.c.), 40,854 bushels.	91,754
Berries (2c. per lb.), 2,503,594 lbs...	210,796
Other fruits	 4,309
Total
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As to the importations into the United States, the returns are not itemized so fully, but for general purposes the comparison will be found sufficiently clear:
Apples (duty 75c. per barrel), 14,800
Grapes	
All other fruits
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Total	$232,776
The United States fruit-grower then sends into the markets of this country, under present conditions, from five to six times the amount that the Canadian grower sends into his markets. Wha-t will be the effect of the abolition of the duties? Undoubtedly a lessening of the producer's prices in these markets.
Let us look at this question from the farming standpoint. Shipping hay from the farmers' standpoint is a suicidal poll icy. We need our hay to feed our own cattle and we should sell them on the hoof. Cheap feed will go to the south. You would enrich the United States farmers by reciprocity and cheap feed for their cattle. The United States lose made moist cheese and their high coloured salt butter would go to England as Canadian butter. The sheep industry, the cheese industry, the butter industry, our cattle industry have been declining under the present Minister of Agriculture and the hog industry as well. The production of grain per acre has also been declining year after year. Our Minister of Agriculture is wrong on this question as he almost always is. He should leave our farmers to send their products from the farm not as grain, but on the hoof, We do not want to send our grain to the United States to feed their cattle but that is exactly what this agreement will do. The United States have unlimited resour* ces; with a thrifty, intelligent application of intensive farming they can double them output.
We may expect the tariff fence to go up
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again any day, and we 'will have to look elsewhere for our markets. It has been said that trade follows the flag, but it may come about in this case, that the flag follows trade. For years Great Britain has been ready to purchase anything we had to sell, the British market was ours when no other market was open to us, and were it not that the United States government find themselves at present in an embarrassing situation they would not offer us their trade now. How soon the United States market will be closed to us nobody Imows. The Finance Minister cannot give us an idea of how long we may expect it to remain open and then when we want to get back in the British market, we will find it occupied by others. It is the duty of this government to place the Canadian farmer on the same footing as the American farmer. The Minister of Customs knows well that the agricultural industry in the United States is assisted generously by the federal government and by every state government, and that millions of dollars are spent where we spend only hundreds of thousands, on experimental farms, and experimental stations, and agricultural colleges educating the American farmers, to a high standard of intensive farming, while we are away behind in that work. The time has come when this government will have to take a more active interest in educating Canadian farmers along new lines of industry, when they will have to establish four times as many experimental farms as they have now, and when they will have to assist the colleges of our great west to educate newcomers in the proper cultivation of their land. Twenty million farmers in the United States have the benefit of rural free mail delivery while we have not even made an attempt worthy of being called rural free mail delivery. In telephonic communication by independent lines the American farmers have far greater advantages than ours. It is encumbent on this government to give to our Canadian farmers better transportation facilities, better cold storage, better freight rates, to remove the embargo on cattle, and to enco.urage by money grants, some of the local governments in the splendid work in which they are engaged in assisting the farmer. When the	Liberals	came to office
they found a united Canada ; they found the Canadian Pacific railway from ocean to ocean, they found the Canadian Pacific railway boats plying to China and Japan, and ships trading from Canada to the West Indies and South Africa, they found the Canadian Northern, under MacKenzie & Mann, developing at a wonderful Tate; they found our canals on which the Conservatives spent $80,000,000 ; they found the Ste. Marie canal and an improved water system to the Atlantic Mr. ARMSTRONG.
which made us independent of the States. When the Liberals came to office they found in their desks a fast Atlantic steamship contract which they threw out and they attempted to give us bottle nosed steamers and turtle back ships both of which failed. The Liberals when they came to office, found in our factories 300,000 workmen, paid $100,000,000 per annum in wages, and with an output of $600, 000,000 worth of manufactured goods. The Liberals had fought the establishment of these industries and the undertaking of the great national railway. They have tried to build a railway to the Yukon between two ice-bergs, for which they offered 4,000,000 acres of land and in respect to which they afterwards had to pay MacKenzie & Mann $347,000, out of file treasury of the country. Now the Liberals propose to disrupt this happy Canadian family and to deliver to the United States our natural products. In 1776 the United States objected to taxation being levied from London and what followed is a matter of history. Canada has been independent up to the present time, but now she goes to Washington to arrange her tariff. The Liberals have given us a tariff in which there is no stability ; we have a maximum tariff and a minimum tariff, a medium tariff and a preference tariff, a French tariff and now we are to have a Yankee tariff. I trust the day will soon come when we will have a maximum and a minimum tariff, and a mutual preference between the colonies and Great Britain.
George Perry Graham: Would not that interfere with the argument against New "Zealand butter coming in ?


Joseph Elijah Armstrong: The hon. gentleman must remember that under these circumstances, we would have a preference in the British market, for our products, and that would more than compensate for the small amount of New Zealand butter that might come in. Let the hon. Minister of Railways who is interested in Transportation remember that 77,000,000 tons of freight passed down the River St. Clare last year, and let him remember what the result of this policy will be, our shipping industry will be crippled on the Atlantic ports, on the ports of the Great Lakes and on the Pacific coast. To-day Canada stands at the parting of the ways. For years we have spent our energies towards developing our markets and our tariff has been framed with that object in view, but just as everything is going along smoothly, there comes the cry: we must trade with the United States, and not with Great Britain. It is proposed to dam the trade and commerce of Canada so that it will flow through American ports and channels, break up our commerce with the old land and divert our great trade which

flows east and west to north and south. There are few citizens of Canada, who are not affected adversely by this arrangement entered into by this government to sell our heritage and endanger our national existence. The Finance Minister apd the Minister of Customs who made the agreement, after 14 long years of office without any apparent effort or change in the fiscal policy of the country, have at last found the opportunity to open the door to continental free trade. A tottering government in the United States has entered into an arrangement with a government tottering to its fall in Canada. I believe, Sir, that this is the first step towards the dismemberment of the British Empire. We possess a country so vast and so rich in grain producing and mineral wealth and so advantageously situated that of all the lands on the globe we offer the most favourable outlook of any nation. This land belongs not only to us, but to our children's children, and it is our duty to preserve it intact for their heritage.
We are building a nation and building it our own way and according to our ideals to-day but what of to-morrow?
Our neighbours to the south say: Come in with us, we will help you but you must build as we desire. We answer: Canada is not for sale-our laws are firm, yours are lax. Our marriage vows are sacred, yours are lax. We can control our trusts if our government will only go about it in the proper way while yours are running rampant. We were kicked out of the American market in 1866. Who will say that we cannot be kicked out in 1912? In 1867 we started a system of interprovincial trade, the development of our natural resource^, the creation of home industries, and the disposal of our surplus products in the permanent market of Great Britain.
The government of that day opposed unrestricted reciprocity. They advocated national development, and opposed conti-nentalism. They were right and time has proved it. The United States ignored us then, they are courting us to-day. In 1831 this country registered the course it would follow. This government registered its protest against reciprocity in 1897 when they came back from Washington. The power rests to-day with the United States to cancel this agreement, unrestricted reciprocity means free trade, free trade means direct taxation. Using the words of Sir John Macdonald in 1891: 'Shall we endanger our possession of the great heritage bequeathed to us by our forefathers, and submit ourselves to direct taxation, for the privilege of having our tariff fixed at Washington with a prospect of ultimately becoming a part of the American Union?
Canada is sure of her future, if she remain free, Canada has to-day a trade for her goods outside the United States, Can-119}
ada has to-day a market for her goods outside the United States, Canada is independent of the United States, Canada would not be independent of United States if this treaty went into effect. Our infant industries have had a struggle and have survived without the United States tariff'. In 1910 we sold the United Stares $100,000,000, they sold us $223,000,000. The Canadian tariff is 26 per cent; the United States tariff 42 per cent. This is a sample of Yankee fair trade. I am opposed to this arrangement because it is not consistent with the policy of conserving our natural resources. Are Winnipeg, Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and other leading cities and towns throbbing with life and activity to be content, with the left over trade of the United States.
Quebec, Halifax and St. John cities which the Grand Trunk Pacific were to help will be sidetracked and the trade go and come through the United States. Why disrupt our general business conditions, disturb the activities of our cities, lessen the earning power of our trunk lines of railroads if we are to be a united people with common political ideals and aspirations? Let us throw out this measure.
As a people we are only emerging from childhood; let us leave well enough alone. As Canadians for Canada let us guard well the political destiny of our future.
There is no use offering amendments to the deal, any change would nullify the whole agreement. Canada by adopting this policy will bid a long farewell to her greatness, and as the handmaid of the American trusts, contribute the 51st Star to the flag which will control the continent. It is the work of little Canadians. I belong to a nation to-day that is full of hope and prospect. In a few weeks if this measure passes the future of this country will be fixed. The wealth of our forest are the heritage of our workingmen and capitalists alike.
The labour interests of our cities and towns are vitally affected. You send the raw material to United States to be finished instead of at home. Let us keep the raw products at home and employ our own men in preparing them for the market. Taft cannot wait. The United States government say ' Canada dig your ore, send it to us and we will refine and perfect it. Canada give up your raw materials, and we will finish them and export the finished product.'
If you pass this Bill you will lead us back to pre-confederation days when the eastern provinces traded with the eastern States, Ontario with New York and the western States and British Columbia traded with the States on the western coast. You have sold the salt men, meat men, the fruit men, the manufacturers, the financier, the railroad, the lake freighter, labour man and farmer. These men


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live in Canada, they pay taxes, they are good citizens; they pay duty on almost everything they buy. The Yankee would take your last salmon, your last stick of timber, your last barrow of ore. Trade invariably follows the line of least resistance. The American tariff has been the means of developing our exports to the mother country. It has taken years of time and much money and energy to bring this trade to its present importance.
The great forests of our western provinces are open to exploitation, the Dominion government is in control of them and should guard them. If it is a good thing for Canada to send her natural products to United States why not send our pulp wood from Ontario and Quebec.
Surely our loyal Canadian people will not allow this agreement to become law without being given a chance, to vote on it. This is the thin edge of the wedge. How can we as Canadians who have received all that we possess, all that we hold so dear, insult the country from which our fathers came. Great Britain for years has purchased all we had to offer and is willing to do so yet. We had no other market a few years ago, the German market was closed the United States market was closed and who knows how soon again it will be closed. Many of our forefathers left their homes and surroundings in the United States so they might live and die under the British flag. Others have taken up arms to protect their country against the Yankee invaders. We look to Great Britain for our support, for our defence. The Canadian people are loyal to the core. Let us stand to our guns and fight this deal with every energy we possess and forever end that Yankee cry, one flag, and that the Stars and Stripes, from central America, to north pole.
On Motion of Mr. Paterson, House adjourned at 11.50 p.m.
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Friday, February 17, 1911.