DISPOSAL OF SEWAGE.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. LEWIS moved for leave to introduce Bill (No. 122) respecting sewage. He said: I do not think there is- any one who will fail to recognize that the grievance which I propose to remove is one that causes severe Mr. LEMIEUX.
injury in this country. The Bill I am about to introduce provides as follows:
1.	This Act may be cited as the Sewage Act.
2.	No person, corporation or municipality shall deposit or cause to be deposited any sewage or refuse of any kind whatsoever in any river or stream in Canada.
3.	Any person who violates the provisions of section 2 of this Act shall be guilty of an indictable offence and may he condemned to a fine not exceeding $100 for each day during which such violation continues; and any corporation or municipality that violates the provisions of the said section shall be guilty of an indictable offence and may be condemned to a fine of not less than $200 and not more than $1,000 for each day during which such violation continues.
4.	This Act shall come into force by proclamation of the Governor in Council.
I do not see that there is any necessity for me to explain the great need which exists for legislation in this line. I introduce this Bill simply for the purpose of bringing the matter to the attention of the government; and I think that the need for legislation of this kind is so great that the right hon. the Prime Minister should have this measure sent to a joint committee of the House of Commons and Senate. I do not pretend for one moment that the Bill I am introducing, and which has been drawn at my request by one of the best legal men in Canada, covers the whole case; but when we reflect that in the great countries of France and England, with their large and congested population, such, a disease as typhoid is almost unknown, I think it is time we should take immediate action.
Mr. SPROULE.: I should dislike very much to allow the statement to go uncontradicted that typhoid fever is unknown in France and England. Our medical literature tells an entirely different story, so of' course it is much less prevalent in these countries than in this. But what I wish particularly to point out is that this Bill is rather an interference with provincial rights, because the provinces have jurisdiction over all matters relating to health except quarantine, and they are now dealing with this very question of typhoid. Of course if we bring this matter under the Criminal Code, that may give us jurisdiction ; but as the provinces are charged with the responsibility in matters affecting the public health and we have provincial statutes dealing with that subject, I am afraid that if we were to undertake to legislate in a similar line we would be interfering with their rights.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first
time.

[Stage Direction]
Bill (No. 121) respecting the Globe Printing Company.-Mr. Harris.

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

*Mr. CAMPBELL:: 1.	When was the fish hatchery at Snake island, Winnipegosis, established?
2.	Whio is in charge?
3.	What experience had he in the care of a station of that kind?
4.	Why was he appointed, and by whom recommended?
5.	What moneys have been expended in that
plant for all contingencies year by year since inception ?	'
6.	What number of eggs have been taken eacli year for hatching purposes?
7.	By whom or by what method taken?
8.	At what cost each year?
9.	What percentage has been hatched each year?
10.	What reports has the department for this year with regard to catch of eggs and success of hatching?


Sir WILFRID LAURIER:: 1.	1908.
2.	A. J. McPherson.
3.	Experienced gained while fishery overseer on Lake Winnipegosis.
4.	Because he was the most experienced person available. The Minister of Marine and Fisheries.
5.	1907-8,	$12,684.42;	1908-9,	$6,718.96;
1909-10, $5,604.06; 1910-11 to January 31, $4,019.70.
6.	1908, 16,000,000 ; 1909, 46,560,000 ; 1910, 44,000,000.
7.	1908, Captain E. D. Coffey, parent fish taken in gill-nets; 1909, employees of department, parent fish taken in gill-nets; 1910, same as 1909.
8.	1907-8, $363.58; 1908-9, $833.90; 1910-11, $1,236.48.
9.	1908, None; 1909, 85 per cent; 1910, eggs now undergoing incubation.
10.	44,000,000 collected. Development satisfactory.


CUSTOMS COLLECTIONS IN CITIES.
Mr. MACDONEI.L:: What was the post office revenue and the customs revenue, respectively, for the years from 1906 to 1910, both inclusive, for the following cities, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary, Quebec, Victoria, Hamilton, Halifax, St. John, N.B., Edmonton, London, Regina, Brandon, Lethbridge, Saskatoon and Brantford?


Mr. PATERSON:: 


CUSTOMS REVENUE FOR THE YEARS FROM 1906 TO 1910.
[Stage Direction]
Port.	1906.	1907.	1908.	1909.	1910.$	$	8	8	8Brantford 	290,453	308,104	355,466	258,304	366,694Hamilton	1,469,407	1,257,494	1,642.004	1,203,876	1,707,558London 	843,032	696,710	964,416	756,793	914,748Ottawa	764,004	621,089	961,977	915,586	1,013,772Quebec	1,451,584	1,113,803	1,801,850	1,450,454	1,421,135St. John	1,200,804	1,024,360	1,352,691	1,155,400	1,322,223Halifax	1,586,827	1,132,917	1,659,637	1,617,997	1,627,523Brandon 	151,624	157,420	178,353	148,396	235,359Winnipeg	3,507,889	3,099,702	4,098,172	3,317,379	4,972,428Vancouver..	1,862,278	1,621,947	2,915,126	2,580,504	3,657,182Victoria	805,740	678,276	1,191,494	1,027,282	1,235,768Calgary	
Edmonton	269,153 104,312	317,499 134,230	502,472 262,457	423,129 230,246	655,243 277,870 171,343Lethbridge	35,058	32,711	64,426	83,942	Regina	83,10c	115,071	186,113	191,057	310,316Saskatoon	15,215	33,620	55,528	46.270	122,168
Notk.-Fiscal period ending March, 1907, was for 9 months only.

Mr. GORDON (Kent):: 1.	How much coal wras imported into the province of Ontario during 1910 from the United States?
2.	What was the total amount of duties on such importations?


Mr. PATERSON:: 1.	The quantity and value of coal imported into the province of Ontario during
the fiscal year ended March 31, 1910, from the United States was as follows:
Tons. Tons.
Bituminous, round. 6,376,137	12,041,314
Bituminous, slack	..	..	1,023,313	1,053,761
Anthracite coal... 2,128,979	9,714,696
2.	The duty collected	on coal	imported
into the province of Ontario during the fiscal year 1910 from the United States was as follows.-

Bituminous, round	$2,853,615	93Bituminous, slack	
142,945	46Total	$2,996,561	39


ELECTRIC RAILWAY CHARTERS.
Mr. BLAIN:: 1.	How many electric railways have been chartered since 1896, and what are their names ?
2.	What extensions of time for construction, if any, have been granted and when?


Mr. GRAHAM:: 1.	Hull Electric railway, Dawson City Electric railway, Ottawa Electric railway, Brantford & Hamilton Electric railway, Edmonton Street railway, Monterey Electric Gas Company, La Compagnie du Che-min de fer Electric, Mexican Consolidated Electric Company, Berlin, Waterloo, Wellesley & Lake Huron Railway Company, Chatham, Wallaceburg & Lake Erie Railway Company, Grand Valley railway, Hamilton & Radial Electric railway, Hes-peler, Galt & Guelph railway, Montreal Park & Island railway, Montreal Terminal railway, Niagara, St. Catharines & Toronto railway, Oshawa Railway Company, Quebec Railway, Light & Power Company, Windsor, Essex & Lake Shore Rapid Railway Company, Nipissing Central Railway Company, Essex Terminal Railway Company, Montreal Southern Counties. The above appears to be all the electric railways chartered by the Dominion government. There are a number of electric railways chartered and under the jurisdiction of the provincial government, which are not herein enumerated.
2.	Ottawa Electric Railway, Act of 1899, chap. 82; 18 months after passing of this Act, and completed within two years. Brantford & Hamilton Electric Railway, Act 1904 , chap. 50; Act in force only January 1, 1905. Edmonton Street Railway Company, Act 1904, chap. 75. Monterey Electric & Gas Co., Act 1905, chap 126. La Compagnie du Chemin de fer Electric, Act 1905, chap 167. Mexican Consolidated Electric railway, Act 1906, chap. 125-146. The department has no knowledge of extension of time for electric railways other than is mentioned in the Acts above cited.


METEGHAN LANDING PLACE.
Mr. JAMESON:: 1.	Was the defective condition of the public landing at Meteghan brought to the attention of the Minister of Public Works, during the year, 1909? If so, by whom, in what manner, and when?
2.	Has any report from the resident engineer been since asked for by the department regarding the condition of such public work? I? so, when?
3	Has any report been received from the engineer, what is the date of anv such, and Mr. PATERSON.	*
in what condition does it state the said public landing to be?
4	Why have the repairs required on such public landing not been provided for and effected ?
5.	What provision, if any, has been, or will bo made, for the repair of such public work?
6.	Was a sum of $4,000 placed in the estimates for the current year for repairs to the public work at Meteghan, and subsequently changed to Meteghan river, expended at the latter place?
7 At whose instance did the minister make the change from Meteghan to Meteghan river in said vote?


Mr. PUGSLEY:: 1.	Yes, by Mr. Jameson, M.P., in Com mittee of Supply.
2.	(A) Yes; (B) April 26, 1910.
3.	(A) Yes; (B) May 6, 1910; (C) wharf requires repairs and extension.
4.	Provision cannot be made for all requirements at once.
5.	Question of making provision in Supplementary Estimates, if any, will have careful consideration.
6.	No.
7.	The minister assumes responsibility for the change in the reading of the item, which was intended to be for Meteghan river.


MR. GEORGE MERCIER.
Mr. CROCKET:: 1. Is the Minister of Customs aware that George Mercier, a customs preventive officer, is said to be a member of the town council of Dalhousie, N.B. ?
2	Is this permissible under the regulations of the department.


Mr. PATERSON:: 1.	No.	.
2.	The customs regulations established by order in council of 14th June, 1875, provide as follows: 'No officer of customs is allowed to hold any corporate office, nor to interfere in political questions, either local or general.' The question of repealing or modifying this regulation is under the consideration of the Department of Customs.


GLACE BAY BAIT ASSOCIATION.
Mr. MADDEN:: 1 Who wrere the members of the Glace Bay Bait Association at the time this association applied for moneys on account of construction of freezer at Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, and when was the first $1,000 paid?
2. What amount was paid to the Glace Bay Bait Association in 1908, and what was the date or dates of such payment or payments?


Mr. BRODEUR:: 1. D. H. McKay, Chas. D. McKay, Angus
H.	Gillis, Jesse G. Dunbar, Alex. McPherson, J. W. Cameron, Chas. Burke, J. R.

McKeen, K. McRitchie, Henrv Debeson, Thos. Mclnnes, Nicholas McDonald, J. A. Carmichael, D. N. Brodie, George Keigan, F. A. Ferguson, J. J. Fraser, R. S. Me-Dougald, Geo. B. Bulmer, Lauchlin McLean, H. S. Tate, W. S. Hay. October 21, 1907.
2. $765.30 by cheque on August 10, 1908, and material was supplied during the building of the freezer worth $234.70.


QUEBEC BRIDGE.
Mr. WHITE (Renfrew):: 
Mr GRAHAM:: 
STEAM TRAWLERS.
Mr. SINCLAIR :: 1.	Are the steam trawlers ' Wren ' and ' Croquette ' registered in Canada ?
2.	If so, in what port or ports and who are the registered owners thereof?


Mr. BRODEUR :: 1 and 2. The ' Wren ' is registered at the port of 'Canso, N. S., and is owned by the Pioneer Steam Trawling Company, Limited, Halifax, N. S. As far as the Department of Marine and Fisheries is advised the * Croquette ' is not registered in Canada.


Mr. JAMESON :: 1.	Has application been made for the payment of fishing bounty to any steam trawler?'
2.	If so, by whom was application made,' and in respect of what trawler or trawlers?
3.	What is the intention of the government with respect of the payment of fishing bounty to steam trawlers?
i. Has any bounty to such been ordered to be paid? If so, when, what amount and to whom ?	t


Mr. BRODEUR :: 1.	Yes.
2.	Application in respect of the steam trawler * Wren ' was made in 1909 by the Pioneer Steam Trawling Company, Limited, Halifax, and in 1910 by the Maritime Fish Corporation, Limited, Canso.
3.	It is not the intention in future to pay any fishing bounty to such vessels.
4.	Yes, for the season of 1909, $111.50, $44 having been paid to the Pioneer Steam 'Trawling Company, and $67.50 to the crew


NATIONAL TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILWAY-NEW BRUNSWICK SECTION.
Mr. CROCKET :: L What is the general standard of the National Transcontinental railway through New Brunswick, as referred to in the government notice of motion respecting the proposed St. John Valley railway?



2. What is the present estimated total cost per mile of the New Brunswick section of said railway P	!


Mr. GRAHAM :: 1.	The general standard ot the National Transcontinental railway through the province of New Brunswick comprises a single track railway with necessary sidings of the standard gauge of " 4 feet 81 inches on a roadbed constructed and ballasted in accordance with the general specifications for the construction of the said railway, upon which is the superstructure consisting of steel rails weighing eighty pounds to the lineal yard with steel fastenings and laid on first-class cross-ties. The substructures for bridges are either of concrete or stone, and the superstructure being of steel built in accordance with the provisions of the general specifications for railway bridges issued by the Department of Railways and Canals, 1908 edition. The said railway being constructed with grades not in general exceeding 0-4 per hundred adverse to east bound and 0 '6 adverse to the westbound and with curves of a minimum radius of 955 feet. Near Tobique river where same was rendered necessary by the physical features of the country a grade of 1 1 is allowed.
2.	The present estimated total cost per mile by construction contract divisions is as follows :
Contract No. 1, extending from the city of Moncton westerly for a distance of about 50 miles is estimated to cost $49,190 per mile.
Contract No. 2, from the west end of contract No. 1 to Chipman, a distance of about 8 miles is estimated to cost $89,710 per mile.
Contract No. 3, from Chipman westerly to crossing of the Intercolonial railway, a distance of about 39 -7 miles is estimated to cost $35,333 per mile.
Contract No. 4, from the Intercolonial railway crossing -westerly to Tobique river, a distance of about 67 miles is estimated to cost $46,920 per mile.
Contract No. 5 from the Tobique river westerly to about 21 miles west of Grand Falls, a distance of about 31 -5 miles is estimated to cost $133,518 per mile.
Contract No. 6, from 21 miles west of Grand Falls to boundary between New Brunswick and Quebec, a distance of about 67 miles is estimated to cost $46,484 per mile.
This covers the contract grading items including clearing, excavation, culverts, substructures of bridges, tracklaying, ballasting, ties, signals, interlocking, appliances, telegraph lines, fencing, water supply, track scales, temporary trestles and extra work-also pumps and pump-houses, rails and fastenings, including frogs, switches and diamond crossings, and the Mr. CROCKET.
steel superstructure and flooring of bridges.
The cost per mile of contract No. 2 is high on account of heavy grading work. At the east end of the contract there is a cut about 2 miles long and 18 feet deep at the highest point. There is also a very heavy fill at the crossing of the Salmon river at mile 57, and a viaduct 1,200 feet long.	.
The cost per mile on contract No. 5 is high on account of the grading being unusually heavy and there is a steel viaduct nearly 4,000 feet long, and with a maximum height of 250 feet across the Little Salmon river.


MARINE AND FISHERIES COMMITTEE.
Mr. FRASER.: Before the orders of the day are called, I wish to inquire of the Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) if it is the intention of the government to call a meeting of the Marine and Fisheries Committee of this House. No meeting of that committee has been held since the Christmas holidays, and I have some matters to place before it. I have spoken to the chairman, but cannot get a meeting of the committee. Will the government order a meeting of this committee?


Sir WILFRID LAURIER.: Hear, hear.


ATLANTIC, QUEBEC AND WESTERN RAILWAY.
Hon. GEORGE P. GRAHAM (Minister ot Railways and Canals).: I desire to give an explanation with regard to some figures placed before the House the other day as to the expenditure on the Atlantic, Quebec and Western railway. Under the Act governing the granting of subsidies, the usual subsidy given is $3,200 a mile, if the road in question costs $15,000 per mile. After that amount has been reached, subsidies increase by 50 per cent of the additional* cost of the road till a maximum subsidy is reached of $6,400 on a total cost of $21,* 400 a mile. The figures given the other day are those estimated for subsidy purposes and are not necessarily the actual cost of the road. The department always wishes to be sure that the road has cost a sufficient amount to warrant it in Paying the subsidy, and, for that purpose,^ the estimates are made, and the figures given to the House the other day were the figures so obtained. They might be misleading as to the actual money spent on that line or on any other. As the Atlantic, Quebec and Western railway has been discussed to a certain extent, I have asked the head of the Audit Branch of the Railway Department to proceed at once to the offices of the Atlantic, Quebec and Western railway and make a complete audit of the money spent oh the line, so that there may be no misunderstanding on the matter. Also, I have asked the chief engineer to send

an engineer over the line to see exactly how much road has been constructed.


RECIPROCAL TRADE WITH THE UNITED STATES.
Mr. MACLEAN (South York).: I desire to give notice to the government that tomorrow, if they move to go into Committee of \\ ays and Means, I intend to discuss the question of reciprocity on that occasion, and to prepare the way for the nresentation to the House, either to-morrow or at a later date, of an amendment dealing with this question.


DREDGING THE NAPANEE RIVER.
Mr. WILSON (Lennox).: I desire to ask a question of the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Pugsley) with reference to the dredging of the Napanee river. This is a matter with which the minister is perfectly familiar. Petitions have been presented to him, and he has had a deputation down here, and has had a great many letters with reference to the state of the navigation of that river. I think last year the minister went so far as to give an order for a dredge to be sent there to do the work. I do not know why they did not go and finish the dredging commenced in 1909. We have certainly established the need for this dredging. The order was given last year to dredge the river ten feet deep with a channel 75 feet wide. But they found that a mistake had been made by the engineer in the previous dredging. Instead of going, just before the dredging was done and making his report on the facts as he round them, he took an old report, made in 1907, and on the basis of that he reported that the water had fallen 18 inches since the time he had made the survey. Consequently, when they came to do the dredging in '1909, it w*as found that the appropriation was altogether too small. They started to dredge to a depth of 10 feet and a width of 75 feet, but they found their money was giving out, so they ran a narrow channel 25 or 30 feet wide, and that only part of the way. Besides, owing to the narrowness of the channel, the dirt dropping over the edge of the dipper made a bank on either side of the channel. The result is that navigation is reported by some of the captains of vessels using the river, to be worse than it was before the dredging was done. This is a matter of very serious importance to the town of Napanee and vicinity, because we get our coal by water, and the engineer reports that where they have to lighten up vessels so that they may get into the river, they have to pay 15 cents a ton more as freight. I bring this to the attention of the minister so that he may make an announcement of what he intends to do. I was surprised to find that there was no appropriation
128*
in the main estimates, as the minister had learned from the reports of his engineers the need for this work. But there are supplementary estimates to come, down and I presume there will be an appropriation in these estimates to do this work. Our county is one that gets very little in the way of government money, but we are modest and do not ask for much. But I would like to see a work of such importance as this proceeded with this year. I am sure it was the intention of the minister to proceed with it last year, because he told me, before I left last session, that the order had been given. And I notice in the return brought down that the order is in the papers. I hope the minister will be good enough to make a promise on the subject now.


Mr. PUGSLEY.: It is true, Mr. Speaker, that my hon. friend (Mr. Wilson) called my attention to the necessity for this work of dredging upon the Napanee river, and also that the work was pressed very strongly upon my attention by prominent residents of the town of Napanee and other localities, the people interested in the navigation of the river.
I was also waited upon by a delegation winch urged strongly the importance of the work. I hoped to have been able to continue the work begun under my directions, but I found it was impossible to do it last year, unless urgent work in other localities was neglected. My hon. friend must know that we have only a certain number of dredges, and I thought this was a work which had better be done by a government dredge; but we may find it desirable to engage the services of a private dredge. In case we do that, the work would have to be advertised for, the same as that which has already been done. My hon friend has called my attention to an order made on the 8th of August, 1910. It is quite true that at that time, I expected to be able to continue the work during the ' past season, and I regretted very much I was not able to do so. As to whether there will be an amount placed in the supplementary estimates for the current year, I am unable to state. I may say, however, that I think it very possible, indeed, I think it very probable, that the work will be undertaken during the coming season, and it is likely that it will be provided for out of the general vote, from an item which is now before parliament for dredging in Ontario and Quebec.


NATIONAL TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILWAY-NEW BRUNSWICK SECTION.
Mr. DANIEL.: Referring to an answer just handed over to the member for York, who lias had to leave the chamber, he asked me to ask the minister this question m relation to this last part of the answer:

Near the Tobique river where the same was rendered reasonably necessary by the physical features of the country a grading of 1-1 ia allowed.	j
I would -ask the minister if that is one of the pusheT grades in New Brunswick ?


George Perry Graham: 1-1 we call a pusher grade, I think that is one of the pusher grades in New Brunswick.


John Waterhouse Daniel: Is the minister sure about it ?


George Perry Graham: That is my impression.



WAYS AND MEANS-RECIPROCAL TRADE WITH THE UNITED STATES.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. FIELDING moved that the House go into Committee on Ways and Means.
[".. .. 888,000\t489,500\t669,300\nThat butter was bought last fall at high prices by speculators, who would be glad enough to-day to sell it at cost, but will be forced to take even less. If there were no duty on butter to-day, our Montreal merchants would not only bring butter from New York but from England, which they shipped in the summer, and the English people would be glad to send their butter back at several cents less than they paid for it.\nSometimes hogs are higher in Buffalo than in Toronto, but the market changes.. Three years ago live hogs sold in Chicago at $3.90 per 100 pounds, and four years ago at $4.25; and during the same years in Canada they were selling at $5.90 and Mr. AMES.\n$6.25 per 100 pounds. Taking the last 20 years, the average price, in 18 years'out of these 20, paid in Canada for hogs has been higher than in the United States.\nDuring the last three months lamb has been cheaper in Chicago than in Toronto. To-day it is one cent cheaper, and Hamilton is actually importing lamb from the United States and paying the duty.\nIn eggs there, is to-day a glut in the American market, and refrigerator eggs are being imported into Canada at 14 cents per dozen free on board at Chicago.\nButter is selling in Chicago at 18 to 20 cents per pound, of the same quality as we are paying 24 cents per pound for today in Montreal. If there were no tariff our Canadian farmers would be swamped in a large number of articles which they have to sell.\nI admit that the Canadian farmer might secure at certain times of the year higher prices by having the American market open to him;' but he stands the danger of having his home market made a dumping ground whenever there is a surplus in the United States, Great Britain or anywhere else, and his prices will be knocked down in consequence. What our farmers have hitherto enjoyed is a steady market at reasonable prices, not subject to the fluctuations of the American market; but hereafter whenever there is. an overstock in the United States, the surplus will be dumped on the -Canadian market. So that after all, even from the farmers' point of view there is very great doubt as to whether a mutual interchange of farm products with the Americans would be, taking everything into consideration, to our ultimate advantage.\nThere is another serious phase which has not been touched upon very much by those who spoke for the government or by the newspapers which support it. It must not be forgotten that free trade in natural products between the United States and Canada means practically free trade with the whole world. By letting in the United States, under the terms of this agreement, we also let in all British possessions and no less than a dozen foreign countries on exactly the same terms. The agreement states:-\nThe advantages hereby granted to the United States shall be extended to the United Kingdom and the several British colonies and possessions with respect to the commerce with Canada.\t|\nWhatever advantages we give to the United States we automatically extend to every British possession throughout the whole world, and also to fully, a dozen foreign countries. I know. what the retort will be. Hon. gentlemen opposite will say: Why! Would you give these advan-\n\ntages to the United States and not give them to British colonies? I reply, certainly, I would not treat colonies of the British Empire worse than the United States; no one should be treated better than our own kith and kin. But what I do object to is that these concessions and the sacrifices consequent upon them are the mere incidents of a bargain with a foreign nation and not the result of a straight contract among principals. Instead of letting all members of the family in at the front door, you are sending them around to the back door and then admitting them on a stranger's ticket. What is more, you are letting in a dozen strangers besides without any ticket at all. What does it mean to have free entry of natural products? Take for example the producing centres of the southern hemisphere. Let us look at Australia, New Zealand and the Argentine republic and see how far our farmers can compete with the farmers of these countries. We have in Canada a severe winter during which prices usually go up and our farmers labour under climatic conditions which are a serious handicap. But the three countries I have mentioned have in the first place, no severe winters, and in the second place, our winter is their summer. Consequently when our farmers have the smallest quantity of produce for their home market and expect their best prices, at that very time there is in each of these three countries the greatest surplus for export and prices are lower than at any other period. Then our wheat fields and our great cattle ranches are 1,500 to 2,000 miles away from our seaports, so that it costs a great deal to bring these products to the Atlantic and Pacific sea-boards. But in Australia, the Argentine republic and New Zealand, their pastures and wheat fields are not more than 300 miles from their seaports, and their railway facilities are excellent, so that transportation costs them but a fraction of what it costs us.\nTake for example Australia. Australia exports annually from. 40,000,000 to 50,000,000 pounds of frozen beef, and the Australian government gives the producer of frozen beef every facility and assistance. The most of it is brought down on the hoof to the packing establishments on the sea-board and is shipped in cold storage. I went through some of the establishments in that country and know that they are equipped with the latest improvements, and they consequently export their products to the best advantage. Australia sends from 90,000,000 to 100,000,000 pounds of frozen mutton and lamb out each year, all carefully killed, kept in refrigerators, covered in cotton bags, and sent to the English and other markets in cold storage. Australia exports from 50,-\n000,000 to 75,000,000 pounds of butter annually. She has a beautiful strip of country, about 1,500' miles long between the mountain ranges and the sea thoroughly well watered, about 200 miles wide, and consequently produces dairy products in lar;ge quantities!, .always close to the port of shipment. The quantity of dairy products produced in Australia is rapidly increasing. She has also immense wheat fields. Last year her wheat crop was as large as that of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta, and it was raised not more than 300 miles from the sea-board. If you can imagine Manitoba having a seaport on Lake Winnipeg, you can understand the advantage which Australia enjoys in the export of wheat.\nNew Zealand is famed for its wool, wheat and dairy products. In 1909, she exported $18,500,000 worth of frozen lamb and mutton, and $13,500,000 worth of butter and cheese. Little New Zealand sends to the British market twelve times as much butter as Canada sends. She sends out 5,000,000 carcasses of frozen lamb, mutton and sheep in a single season. I think it well to read to the House a few of the quotations showing what farm produce is worth in New Zealand. I have here a statement from the Weekly Report of the Trade and Commerce Department, page 138, which gives the prices of produce, live stock and provisions for the provincial district of Auckland during the past year.-Let me make a few quotations:-\nFat cattle, per head, $30.\nFat sheep, per head, $3.50.\t1\nFat lambs, $2.50.\nBeef ready for the butcher, 7 cents per lb.\nMutton, 6 cents per pound.\nVeal, 9 cents per pound.\nPork, 12 cents per pound.\nLamb, 9 cents per pound.\nFresh butter, 20 cents per pound.\nCheese, 14 cents per pound.\nDucks, $1.25 per pair.\nFowl, 75 cents per pair.\nTurkeys, $1.25 apiece.\nBacon, 15 cents per pound.\t1\nHam, 16 cents per pound.\nEggs, 21 cents per dozen.\nThese are comparatively low prices, when you consider that this farm produce, or nearly all of it, will be brought free into Canada', and with only the freight rate against it.\nThen, let us take the Argentine. The Argentine is one of the countries that comes under the most favoured nation clause, and consequently enjoys all the rights that we give to the United States. We were greatly indebted last night to the Postmaster General (Mr. Lemieux) for giving us a good deal of very valuable information regarding the Argentine-not knowing, I think, that it is one of the most favoured nations.", "ilOO\nHowever, we can utilize some of the information he gave us. For example, he said that the wages for farm hands in the Argentine were about 64 cents a day, without board, as I understood him. And he said that the rate in Russia was from 40 to 45 cents a day-and Russia is. another country whose products will hereafter come free into Canada on this most favoured nation basis. Now, the Argentine Republic has a trade which is larger even than our own. She exports $400,000,000 worth of goods, 90 per cent of which is live stock and agricultural products. Argentina ships to Great Britain six times as much beef as New Zealand and Australia together, and one and a half times as much mutton and lamb. In 1909 Argentina produced wheat to the value of $320,000,000, and exported over 100,000,000 bushels. The flax crop of Argentina is valued at $115,000,000. Cattle, sheep, horses, donkeys and mules as live stock are exported, usually to Great Britain. When you consider that the Argentine is one of ihe countries that can hereafter ship to Canada, that the Canadian Pacific railway are now arranging a line from Halifax to Buenos Ayres, with cold storage accommodation; that the government are asking us this year to vote a subsidy to a steamship line to the West Indies and South America; that a company is being formed in Montreal for the express purpose of exploiting the business between Canada and Argentina-you will see that the facilities for shipment between Montreal and Argentina in the summer, and between Halifax and St. John and Argentina in the winter in these agricultural products will soon be most excellent, and that we may expect to have our local markets, to a very large degree, supplied by the produce that will come from that country. Be it remembered that the Argentine is peopled mainly by Italians, Spaniards and Germans, who have a scale of living quite inferior to that which our farmers will submit to, and who, as the Postmaster General tells us, are willing to work for 64 cents a day and board themselves. We can see what pressure will be brought to bear on the farmers of Canada to reduce their scale of living and cut their necessities in wages down to the Argentine standard.\nHow will the products of these three countries coming into Canada in winter especially, affect the home markets on the sea-board? Chilled beef from the Argentine and Australia, frozen lamb and mutton from New Zealand can be laid down in Halifax, St. John or Montreal at ruinous prices. The f.o.b. export price on chilled beef of the entire New Zealand product last year was 51 cents per pound. With a duty of three cents per pound, we have kept that meat out, for it would cost 81 cents, plus freight. But with a duty of II cents Mr. AMES.\nthat means that it could be laid down in Canada for 7 cents. And this excellent chilled beef from Argentina and Australia, laid down in Halifax, St. John and Montreal, will bring down the price of every beef animal in the eastern provinces.\tTake, also, the case of New\nZealand lamb and mutton. Last year the entire quantity of the New Zealand product exported averaged 64 cents per pound, and even sold at less. With a protective duty of 3 cents per pound, the price would be 91 cents, which would be enough to keep it out of our markets. But reduce the duty to 11 cents and you bring the price down to 7i cents, and you make it possible to lay this lamb and mutton down at 8 cents .per pound upon our Atlantic or Pacific coasts, and that is a price which our farmers, Who produce for'the home, market, will be unwilling to accept if they are to compete. Australian butter can to-day be laid down in bond in Montreal at 23 cents. A duty of 4 cents means a price of 27 cents, which is prohibitive. But take the duty off and our farmers will have to get down to 23 cents, the price at which it is possible to bring this Australian butter in. In January, 1909, the Montreal produce men imported 5,000 packages of Australian butter. The market at that time stood at 271 cents for Canadian creamery. It fell within a month to 19 cents. Eastern township butter makers, who get 25 cents to 26 cents for what is shipped from the eastern townships throughout the west, would have to cut down their prices. Today a splendid trade is done from the Eastern townships with the west; 100,000 packages go westward every year, and are scattered all along as far west as Vancouver. With reciprocity in force there will he nothing more of that kind. Australian butter coming in from the west and New Zealand butter from the east will each monopolize half our continent, and will meet in competition at Winnipeg.\nThe same is true at the Pacific coast. There is a large interchange now between Alberta and British Columbia. Meat, grain, dairy products and feed pass west from Alberta to British Columbia, and lumber and fruit pass eastward from British Columbia to Alberta. This trade is profitable to both, and should be continued and encouraged But if this reciprocity measure ' goes through, chilled beef and mutton from Australia will flow into British Columbia, and there will not be a city or a mining camp m British Columbia that will want a pound of Alberta beef. And the same will be true of butter, cheese, poultry and eggs. New Zealand butter can be laid down in Vancouver at 241 cents but, with the present duty, 281 cents, this is prohibited. The millers of British Columbia will grind Antipodean wheat, for they will not pay the\n\nfreight rates to haul over three ranges of mountains when they have only to pay ocean carriage from Australia or New Zealand to Vancouver.\nTaking the question by and large, it seems to me that natural products will become cheaper at the ocean ports and for a certain distance, inland. They will be lower in winter. They may possibly be higher in summer, owing to the opportunity afforded our farmers for sending them to the United States. But our farmer, on the whole, will be worse off than before, because he will have to sell his winter 'product at Antipodean prices, and will have to stand the chance of bad times and of Canada being made a dumping ground for the American surplus.\nThere vras another phrase of this question that I was going to allude to. It had been my intention in this House to move a resolution in favour of reciprocal trade arrangements with Australia. I had made some careful preparation in that direction, and had interviewed some of the Australian ministers, and having brought the correspondence down, it seemed to me that a discussion of this question would be a useful one in the House. But there is no use now in bringing up the question of Canadian-Australian reciprocal trade arrangements. The whole hand of the government is on the table, the game is played. All those items which we want, all those commodities which we could fairly send to them, we cannot now send without the intermixture of American goods. Nearly all the items on which we were prepared to make concessions to Australia, are now free. We are henceforth handicapped both in giving to them and taking from them, because we have no longer a basis or means of negotiation. Let me put on ' Hansard ' this schedule, and you will see what I mean. Australia could export to Canada:\nMeats\t\nCanned meats\t\nMutton and lamb.. ..\nPoultry\t\n(Ballon-\t\nButter\t\nApples\t\nGrapes\t\nOranges\t\nPeaches\t\nSalt and a few others\nOn the other hand,\nFormerly.\tNowf\n3c. lb.\tlie.\n271 P-c.\t20 p.c.\n3c.\tlie.\n25 p.c.\tfree.\n20 p.c.\t5 p.c.\n4c. lb.\tfree.\n40c. brl.\tfree.\n2c. lb.\tfree.\nfree.\tfree.\n$1 per 100\tfree.\nlbs.\t\n5c. per 100\tfree.\nlbs.\narticles we can\nexport to Australia from the Pacific coast are limited to lumber, fish and fruit. Our people in British Columbia were expecting to get a great market opened to them. Now, lumber, fish and fruit are all free, and no distinction is possible between Canada and the United States, and it is impossible for us to get any preference in their market. Consequently, the whole game is played.\nThen, under these most- favoured-nation treaty arrangements, there are many other countries we have to consider, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Spain, Switzerland and many others. Norway and Sweden export bacon, salt pork and butter, condensed milk, salt and pickled-fish. Denmark exports butter, bacon and salted meats, eggs and potatoes. In 1909 Denmark exported eggs of the value of $8,250,000. Russia exports eggs, and Siberia exports butter. Spain exports grapes and dried fruits. These countries can now get their goods into Canada without our giving anything in exchange ; in other words, we have practically instituted free trade in natural products with all the world, and the cheapest producer of all the competitors will set the pace for the rest. If the Italian, the German or the Spaniard can live on less than the farmer in Canada, the Canadian farmer will have to come down to his level; there is no other alternative.\nNow let me come to the last phase of my argument and inquire whether there is not a better way for Canada to progress and develop than the way the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Customs have chosen on our behalf. Speaking generally, it seems to me that it is bad policy for a nation to send its raw material out of the country. It was by a strict adherence to that policy, that the German Empire has prospered so greatly, that France has prospered, and that England has prospered and is prospering to-day. Our natural resources represent potential employment, wealth and prosperity. They spell towns, and railways, and industrial establishments, when they are worked up in the country. What we cannot utilize ourselves, we are in duty bound, I think, to hold in trust for those who come after us. To export our raw materials, and to enable the stranger to grow rich in working up our materials, is to draw upon our national capital from the bank, and to present it to outsiders* What would you think of a manufacturer, a shoe manufacturer, for example, who, having bought sole leather at 20 cents a pound, and finding it was worth 22 cents a pound, should forthwith, sell his supply, and close his factory ? You would speak of him as bereft, of his senses, and yet that is exactly what is meant by the proposition we are now contending against. I have always cherished the idea for Canada that she should become a highly developed and self contained country, but this legislation seriously endangers that ideal. It is to my mind, the duty of each one to have regard to the welfare of all, for only thus can a common nationality be upbuilt. Now I contend that there is a better way to build up Canada, than the one that has been proposed by the negotiators, and le|_^me illustrate it by way of analyses. Suppose that", "A,\tB and C discover a mine, and agree to exploit it. A, it is agreed, should mine the ore, B should build a railroad and carry the ore across the country, and C should erect a smelter. A, who mines the ore, is to get 50 cents a ton, and he will employ 100 men.\nB,\twho builds and operates the railway, also gets 50 cents a ton, and he employs 100 men. C, who constructs the smelter, gets 50 cents a ton, and he employs 100 men. Together they employ 300 men, and together they get $1.50 a ton from working up this Taw material. Now, one morning B and C wake up and find to their astonishment, that while they did not know of it, A has made an arrangement with a party on the other side of the mountain to seli his raw material at 60 cents a ton, instead of 50 cents. A says, I am getting 10 cents a ton more than I got before, and what have you got to say to that? He sells his raw material at 60 cents to the man on the other side of the line; and so B's tramway has nothing to carry, his 100 men are thrown out of employment; C has nothing to smelt, and his 100 men are thrown out of employment. 200 man are thrown out of employment in order that A may get 10 cents more a ton on his ore, and only 60 cents a ton is kept in the country on that raw material, instead of the $1.50 which was previously left in the country.\n1 think it is perfectly fair to apply that analogy to some of the items in this schedule, and particularly to wheat. We hear a great deal about the great concessions that are to be obtained for our farmers by free wheat in the American market, and what great things it means to Canada. Let us see if Canada will realize any benefit from it. The Canadian northwest was purchased and was developed for, and by, the entire people of Canada. The debt incurred thereby, rests upon the shoulders of all the people of Canada, and I do not think it unjust to say that the benefits of that northwest should accrue to all the people of Canada. Now suppose we take a bushel of wheat, for which the northwest farmer now gets 85 cents. If that bushel of wheat passes eastward, along Canadian lines, the Tailway companies of Canada get 8 cents out of it, the inland shipping companies gets 4 cents, and the port of Montreal gets 1 cent before it leaves the country; therefore, $1 altogether on that wheat is left in the country. Now supposing it is exported south. For the purpose of argument, J am willing to grant that the farmer gets 88 cents, and 2 cents more goes to the road that hauls it to the border, so there are 90 cents left in the country. All the rest of tlm money goes out of the country to the profit of the men in a foreign nation who handle that wheat. In the one case, $1 is left in the country as an equivalent of that bushel of wheat; and in the other case. 90 Mr. AMES.\ncents is left in the country, which, from a national point of view, is not satisfactory.\nI verily believe that there will be times when the prices will be practically the same. Take the closing quotations yesterday _ for May delivery No. 2 Northern; Fort William 91 cents, Minneapolis 931 cents. The difference is only 21 cents. Is it worth while to allow the wheat of Canada to pass out of the country to be utilized in a foreign land for a difference of 21 cents a bushel? Supposing that it were milled in Canada the advantages would be considerable. The Canadian carriers would profit, the millers would make their flour for export, the Ontario farmer could grow his Ontario wheat, which, mixed with the western wheat, would make exportable flour, and the Ontario farmer will be able to grow no wheat at all unless there is Manitoba wheat to grind with it. Then also the bran and shorts will be distributed among the dairymen and there will be a profit on that for them also. All the good of that is sacrificed by this arrangement. I hold in my hand a very interesting editorial which appears in the Weekly ' Northwestern Miller, of January 8, 1911. I cannot read the whole of the editorial because it is too lengthy, but I think I have time to read several extracts from it which will illustrate better than I could the thought I have in my mind. Here is one. Remember that this is written in Minneapolis from the American point of view, and you will see why the Americans want free wheat in Canada:\nIn course of time, owing largely to the growth of the Canadian wheat crop and its inability to enter the United States, the export flour trade suffered a serious decline.\n. . . Another change is now impending in the trade, and again the ' Northwestern Miller ' goes on record with a prediction: that if the opportunity now at hand to obtain free wheat from Canada is neglected, the American miller will suffer.\nFurther on:\nBountiful nature has placed at the very threshold of this country a natural wheat field,", "This, of course, refers to Canada.\n-the like of which has never before been known since the world was made. Tins magnificent source of supply, a mighty empire in itself, produces glorious wheat of unrivalled quality. Its possibilities are difficult to over estimate. The land was created for wheat-raising. This area can and will produce sufficient wheat to keep American millB supplied to double their present capacity, and to extend their usefulness for good to an almost unlimited extent. This territory lies at our very doors. Our nulls are ready and willing to grind its product. Its people would gladly find a market for their grain in the milling centres of the United States. All is favourable to this traffic save one thing, and\n\nthat places an insuperable barrier before it. Narrow minded protection has built between the mill which needs the wheat and the farmer who needs the market a wall consisting of an absurd tariff of 25 cents on every bushel of wheat that crosses the boundary.\nThe disposition of Canada's surplus is a question upon the answer to which depends the future, not only of the milling interests of the Northwest, but indeed of the United States. Canadian mills do not have capacity enough to grind this wdieat.\nWell, -why should not their capacity be increased?\nIf they had the capacity, they would not possess a market for their flour sufficiently large to take it.\nListen to where the Americans expect to find a market.\nAmerican mills have both the capacity to grind, and the market to supply.\nShould this surplus be shipped abroad, the foreign miller will become possessed of a supply of raw material practically unlimited as to quantity and actually unrivalled as to quality. Therewith he can secure a mixture from which he can produce a flour to rival in strength anything his American competitor can offer. The result must, in the end, inevitably mean the destruction of the American export trade, the shiffting of the American milling centre, the gradual decline of the American milling interest to a purely domestic basis, and its ultimate retrogression to a comparatively unimportant place in the list of large American industries.\nWell, where will they shift to? They will come to Canada, of course,\nCanada cannot grind the surplus crop of her northwestern territories. If America may not do so, because of her own shortsightedness, it follows that the work will fall to the more fortunate miller in Great Britain or on the continent, whose laws are not framed to forbid the free importation of the raw material. The miller who is able to grind this enormous crop will be the miller of the future: and, where he is, there will be the great mills of the world.\n. Are we going to allow the great mills of the world all to be south of the line when we have the raw materials to keep them going?\nTo obviate the danger which threatens American milling interests from the north, there is but one course. The free admission of the raw material is the sole remedy. Milling in bond under present regulations is impracticable, and almost impossible. Millers who undertake it will find it too cumbersome and expensive to be profitable, the margin in flour at best being but slight.\t,\nGoing further on:\nShould foreign millers", 'That is Canadian of course.\n-secure this wheat, they would be enabled thereby to cut off the American export trade, both in wheat and flour.\nA terrible thing, would it not be if we in Canada . supplied the raw material by which the Americans could cut off our export trade in wheat and flour.\nOne bushel mixed with three bushels of the less virile wheat grown in the United States and ground into flour, is sufficient to raise the whole high value.\nThen, going on, there is a significant passage which I would like to read before I lay this down.\nTurning from the pessimistic to the opposite point of view, the contemplation of the future of American milling with the protective tariff removed and free Canadian wheat secured, the prospect is a grand one. With this enormous and steadily increasing crop free to pursue its natural geographical and commercial channel, flowing into the mills and elevators of the States, a splendid tide of activity and prosperity would follow in its wake. Assured of their future supply of raw material, the mills of America would go forward on their developing course, continuing the march of progress which has brought them to the front. New mills would be built, and capacities enlarged. New markets abroad would be sought and conquered. The returns from this renewed and extended activity would be felt in increased commercial prosperity. New railways would be extended into the wheat-growing territory. American railroads carrying the flour from the mills would secure additional freight. American banks would obtain increased deposits, and greatly enlarged exchange accounts; American mill operatives would be in demand, and payrolls would be increased; mill machinery, bags, barrels and other mill supplies would be required in larger quantities; more money would be in circulation; and the benefit would be felt in every artery of industrial life touched by milling. There would be an increase in grain firms, in elevators, and in every branch of the grain-handling and flourmaking interests. This would be felt in the added value of real estate and in the solid and substantial development of every undertaking and enterprise that makes a community prosperous. Farmers would find a better market for their products: and, in the end, should this crop be assimilated at home rather than abroad, they will secure an average higher price for their wheat because of the ability of the progressive and successful miller to pay more for his raw materia).\nThere is an article which goes all the way through to show that the milling interests of the American northwest are stationary if not declining, but that if they can only grind Canadian wheat they will not only hold their own market, but the export markets of the world. Is it not better that Canadian wheat should be ground by Canada and that we should have the markets of the world instead of the Americans? Were there time I might apply this same argument to a great many other subjects. The same could be applied to cattle, hogs and a large number of other articles which the farmer produces and which are really', "raw material. If as raw materials these go out to supply employment and wealth to others the farmer may get a trifle more at times, but the packing interest suffers, export business becomes impossible, the western market goes to Chicago and the profits of the transportation companies disappear. Canada is poorer if we allow our raw products to go out. I might apply it to hay and we would have the interesting spectacle of seeing our hay going away, and the cattle and farmers going out on the same train to the United States. The same is true of lumber, pulpwood, iron ore and many other things. The farmer will not be unwilling to live and let live. Will he cripple Canadian enterprise to make Americans rich? There is just one suggestion-I make it quite unauthorized-and it is a suggestion that occurs to me because after all we all realize that from the western point of view the opportunity of exporting Canadian grain to the United States is a very great thing, and we must consider that our western friends will not lightly turn down a proposition of that kind.\nBut 1 think it is for Canada to take into consideration the fact that we have certain geographical and climatic conditions which render it somewhat difficult for our farmers to compete with the farmers of Argentina, Australia and New Zealand, and that it would be quite in line for this government, or for any government that may succeed it, to do something towards removing these disabilities. The price of wheat is, I think it is admitted, fixed by Liverpool, and the grain grower practically throughout the whole world gets the Liverpool price less the cost of transportation from his farm to Liverpool. Figure that back and you will come to the Canadian northwest. Now, if our Canadian western farmer, say at Regina, cannot send his grain as cheaply over Canadian lines to Liverpool as the American farmer at Grand Forks, Dakota, or some place immediately south of Regina, does, then there is something wrong. It may be that the transportation rates are too high; it may be that there are other charges that are more than the traffic can bear. Well, we have a Railway Commission. and if. after thorough investigation, it is found that for similar distances it costs more to send Canadian wheat to the British market than it does American wheat, I, for my part, would rather see a bonus (of 2 or 3 cents a bushel) paid to the Canadian farmers than to see that grain going to the United States. Let us keep our own materials in Canada, and then the Americans will come over to us and they will be welcome, and they will build their factories here, and we will make up the raw materials here, and we will supply our own home markets and compete foT the1 Mr. AMES.\nexport trade of the world. Sir, Canada would present a sorry sight if she were reduced to the position of digging out and hauling to the nearest railway station her raw materials to have them made up in the country to the south, with all the wealth that accrues from that process going into the pockets of the stranger. There are some who say that this is bound to come anyway, and I think the Minister of Finance told me not long ago that if the Americans wished to take off their duties they have a perfect right to do so. That I admit. I admit that when the Americans need our raw materials they can bring them into their country free of duty. Well, let them do so when they get ready to do it. We can then determine whether it is in our interest to put an export duty on or not, but it will be time enough to face that when it comes. In the meantime, what is the difference between the proposition of the minister and my proposition-the minister's proposition is suicide, the other alternative is murder, and one can die with honour, but one cannot commit suicide with honour. As it is near six o'clock, Mr. Speaker, I shall endeavour briefly to summarize what I have endeavoured to bring to the attention of the House. I consider that at the present time we are doing well and. have been doing well along safe and conservative lines, and to take a leap in the_ dark which may possibly turn out for the Better, but which stands a great chance of turning cut for the worse, would be, under the circumstances. highly inadvisable. As far as this particular bargain is concerned, don't let us lose sight of the fact that it means the unsettling of established conditions, that it means the loss of our fiscal independence, that it means the ultimate abandonment of the principle of protection for all classes in Canada, that it means the loss of our export identity, and that it means farewell to any opportunity for a preference in the British market. These are some of the sacrifices which Canada will be called upon to make, and, after all, why should we make any sacrifices, because, probably we can, without sacrifice, get all the benefits which are worth having. And when we come to look on the so-called benefits we find that where there is reciprocity in similar products between two nations, one of whom is great and powerful and the other small and weak in point of wealth and population, that if anything goes wrong it is the smaller one that stands to suffer every time. Let us further remember that in letting in the United States we are admitting all the British possessions-whom I should like to see admitted, but by the front- door rather than by the back door-and we are also admitting 12 other countries who are giving us absolutely nothing for the priv-\n\nilege. This, I think, will affect the farmers' home market very greatly at the seaport towns, and for some distance inland. 1 think, taking it by and large, that while the Canadian farmer may occasionally take advantage of American high prices and get a little more for his products in summer, he stands a chance of having his market in winter glutted, and of having to take whatever overflow prices may prevail. In conclusion, I bring to the attention of the House the fact that it is bad policy to export raw products any more than we can help. If it be that we cannot use these raw materials in our own day and generation we should at least have the courage and the manliness to keep them for those who come after us. Canadians are a highly developed and self-contained people. I should not like to see them reduced to the position of being mere hewers of wood and drawers of water; mere burrowers of the raw material to send it out of the country to make others rich. I feel that if we pass this measure we are approaching the parting of the ways; that we are turning our faces, which have hitherto been looking round the world, to the other members of the galaxy of British nations; we are turning our faces away from that ideal, and we are looking southward to a nation that has never treated us in' such a way as to make us particularly desirous to extend special advantages to her. And, Sir, let me say here and now that even if the sacrifice-the temporary financial sacrifice-might be hard on individuals in this country, I think in the long run we will be better off if we continue along the road which we have been following and remain in the rank we at present occupy in the list of nations under the British flag.\nProgress reported.\nOn motion of Mr. Fielding, House adjourned at six o'clock.", 'Thursday, February 23, 1911,']
Mr. MONK.: Before you leave the Chair I wish to call the attention of the House to a matter of some importance. It seems to me that in the discussion of the question with which the House is now seized, the members require the fullest possible information, and at the stage at which this discussion has arrived, I think that perhaps what will throw most light upon the subject of this trade agreement, and will, perhaps more powerfully sway the members of this House in their decision, is the production of all the correspondence had before and during the negotiations. In this, as in many other matters, the government, I think, shows an unwillingness to deal fairly with this House, and upon this point particularly, to give us without niggardliness, whatever correspondence we require. Let me illustrate this point. Yesterday I asked the government for the production of all the correspondence had since the last letters were laid upon the table, and let me recall the 'answer of my hon. friend the Minister of Finance:


Frederick Debartzch Monk: 
Mr. FIELDING.: My hon. friend (Mr. Monk) refers to some correspondence which) the Minister of Finance has had in relation! to the Champ Clark utterance?


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I said that amongst other, things it was said that there had been ait exchange of letters in regard to that question between the Secretary of State of the United States and my hon. friend (Mr. Fielding).


John Waterhouse Daniel: 


William Stevens Fielding: There is not a shadow of foundation for that statement.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: Has there been any correspondence?	i


William Stevens Fielding: Note this sibylline answer:
If there is any correspondence in relation to this matter with the United States authorities, properly the subject of consideration by this House, it will always be brought) down.
Well, does my bon. friend not think-because he knew it-that when he gave that answer, he might have told the House that there had been correspondence ? ' If there is any correspondence.' But he adds another qualification. He assumes to himself and to his colleagues, the right of saying whether that correspondence should be brought down; he and his colleagues will bo the sole judges as to what should be given of that correspondence, and what should not. * If there is any.' I submit to you that that is not a tenable attitude. All correspondence of any nature whatever bearing upon this question, we, who are called upon to ratify this treaty, have a right to see. Now, let me add another word, and I speak in the judgment of the members of this House. This question has already passed through quite a range of discussion and deliberation. When my hon. friends returned from the United States, and when we had the first news of their negotiations issued, not only here but in the United States, the discussions and opinions freely given were as to the value of these schedules, what were the concessions made on each side, and nothing else. Then there came a second phase, and we were invited by the public press of both countries, and by those who spoke upon this subject, to give our opinion in regard to the broader question raised by this agreement, that is its effect on trade generally between the two countries, and more particularly on the transportation question. Then it, entered upon another phase, and I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that to-day the discussion has assumed much larger proportions. We are treated in the newspapers of the neighbouring republic, and of our own to a consideration almost exclusively of the ultimate effect of this agreement upon our political relations. Open these newspapers and see what our public men have to say : the utterances which they make turn upon this point. Is this going to lead to annexation, yes or no? I do not insist on that point, but I say that is what it has come to. Look at the trend of discussion in the United States, open their newspapers, and in every part of that country, it is not the schedules, it is not the particular bearing of this treaty upon the interchange of the natural products of both countries, it is annexation, and nothing

else. We have seen what Mr. Champ Clark said. I hear a laugh on the other side. Do my hon. friends find that a droll utterance? For my part I do not. We have that utterance coming from a man, who may be an incurable humourist, but who occupies a position very much the same as my right hon. friend does here, or as the leader of the opposition. It is true that the motion made in the House of Representatives by Mr. Bennett	did	not
emanate from a man possessing similar authority :	but from what I see in the
United States papers, that gentleman holds a^ certain position in the Congress of the United States. His proposals were not accepted, but although they were condemned on many sides, they were treated seriously. The entire press of the country, the deliberations in the legislatures recently again-perhaps you saw in the reports of this morning the reference to the legislature .of Dakota-lead one to believe that they at least, in perfect good faith perhaps, look upon the real .question at the back of this agreement as a question of annexation. In our own newspapers it is very much the same thing. Led on by the discussions, by the trend <8 public opinion here, they are discussing that question in our own country, and when we read the reports which have arrived here, the telegraphic despatches from the other side of the Atlantic, we find that in England they have taken this question quite seriously, interpolations are made in the House there on the subject, and evidently the least one can say is that this phase of the question has created unrest in a country where we would be glad, I may say, to think that there is no doubt as to the attitude of this country.
Are we entirely blameless in this matter? Are the gentlemen who have brought about these negotiations, and the right hon. Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) himself able to throw stones right and left? We know what utterances" in the past, because we have heard a great deal in and out of the House, have fallen in moments of forgetfulness, probably, from the right hon. gentleman. The difference between a British shilling and an American dollar, ripe fruit falling from the tree, continental free trade-all these matters Have been dished up very often, and although I know my hon. friend is not an incurable humorist there was at that time some seriousness in what he said. And my hon. friend the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) in that respect, has been a very hardened sinner, I think, because I have not heard him recant, when, time and again in this House, he has been charged with utterances, in the long ago days; of course, in favour of secession and annexation, I think, too.


William Stevens Fielding: I take exception to the statement of the hon. gentleman. When the hon. gentleman says that I was ever an annexationist he is fabricating a statement which no man in this House can substantiate.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I assure my hon. friend that I am very glad to hear him make that statement.


William Stevens Fielding: The hon. gentleman should not be content with that; he should show some warrant for his statement.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I could show warrant, if-we had the debates of the House in past years, for the statement, that time and again my hon. friend has been charged with holding and. expressing in his province views of that kind.


William Stevens Fielding: My hon. friend, I can assure him, is mistaken. I have never been charged in my presence until this moment.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: If my hon. friend states that he has nothing to retract-


Mr. SINCLAIR.: Mr. Speaker


Some hon. MEMBERS: Order, order.


An hon. MEMBER.: Send and get the book.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: It will be all right.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Take it back.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: With pleasure. But my hon. friend the Postmaster General (Mr. Lemieux) himself, when younger, in his green and salad days, spoke in that way sometimes. My hon. friend knows it, but he has recanted, he has abjured and depied and the most rigid of casuists would find nothing that would be regarded as a blot on his reputation.


Mr. LEMIEUX.: With the 'permission of the hon. member from Jacques Cartier, I will ask him to what he.is referring?


Frederick Debartzch Monk: My hon. friend has often seen quoted, has he not, in the newspapers of the French language in our province, speeches of his own in which he spoke in the sense that I have indicated?


Rodolphe Lemieux: In what sense?


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I have the whole paraphernalia here and I can get it.


Rodolphe Lemieux: In what sense.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: In the sense of annexation.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I now rise to a point of order. I wish to state most emphatically that my hon. friend is in error. I have never, directly or indirectly, expressed any sentiment, by word of mouth or by writ-

ing, in favour of the annexation of Canada to the United States. My hon. friend, if he will allow me just one minute, may have in his mind a speech which I delivered in 1893 at Parc Sohmer, in Montreal.


An hon. MEMBER.: Yes.


Rodolphe Lemieux: I will explain the'incident. In 1893 the St. Jean Baptiste Society of Montreal had organized a public meeting in order to promote the erection of a building called the Monument National, and a public debate was arranged for by the then president of the St. Jean Baptiste Society, the late Mr. J. X. Per-rault. This debate was purely academic.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Oh, oh.


Rodolphe Lemieux: Yes. Four speakers were selected to discuss the following questions : Statu quo, independence, imperial federation and annexation. I was allotted the privilege-


Some hon. MEMBERS: Oh, oh.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Order.
.Mr. LEMIEUX-of discussing the question of the independence of Canada.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.


Mr LEMIEUX.: My late friend, Mr. Archibald McGoun, King's Counsel, was given charge of the imperial federation question; my late friend, Mr. Cardinal, Kings Counsel, of Montreal, was assigned to the discussion of the question of statu quo; the question of annexation was taken up by a good Ontario King's counsel, Mr Elgin Myers. The public was given


Mr. MIDDLEBRO.: May I ask a question?


Some hon. MEMBERS: Order, order.


Rodolphe Lemieux: The public was given a chance to vote on the four questions.


Mr. CURRIE (Simcoe).: Mr. Speaker, I rise to a point of order.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Order, order.


Mr. SPEAKER.: The minister (Mr. Le-mieux) is speaking with the permission of the hon. member for Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk).


Morley Currie: I do not


Rodolphe Lemieux: I am making a statement.


Morley Currie: Mr. Speaker, it is customary in this House, when a member rises in his place and interrupts a speaker, to ask a question, and not to make a speech. Therefore, I claim that the hon. Postmaster General is entirely out of order.


Rodolphe Lemieux: 


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: The hon. member for Jacques Cartier has the floor. He has consented to allow the minister to give an explanation, but the hon. member for Jacques Cartier can resume the debate whenever he wishes.


Rodolphe Lemieux: The public was given a chance to vote


Morley Currie: Order.
Mr.	LEMIEUX-and	in connection
therewith a certain sum of money was subscribed. I may say that the question of the independence of Canada triumphed that evening. It was a purely academic debate and I would not be afraid, when the occasion arises in this House, to quote my speech from beginning to end. It has been fully reported in the Toronto ' Mail and Empire ' and in the press of the country, but as regards annexation, I have always been opposed to it.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: There is no doubt we are often misjudged in public life, but if I were to pursue this examination of conscience with my hon. friends I am afraid I would take up more of the time of the House than I deem it necessary to. I would have liked had he been present to say something about our friend the Nihilist; the Minister of Marine and Fisheries, who at one time earned in our province the cognomen of the Nihilst, because he would concede nothing and claimed everything, and he thought that if we wanted to defend ourselves in this country the home government itself ought to purchase the arms for us, because we could not afford to spend the money.


Mr. TALBOT.: How long ago was that?,


Frederick Debartzch Monk: Oh, not so very long ago. Of course I know that to-day his repentance has been complete and we know him now as an admiral. But, Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt upon one point; there is in the United States amongst people best disposed towards us, those whom we meet when we go there, a disposition to think we are not in possession of freedom here. I have noticed it time and again, and other gentleman of this House must also have noticed that there is a disposition to think that we in Canada require something politically better. Probably their minds are filled with the memory of other days and times when colonial relations were not such as they are to-day. Undoubtedly that feeling exists in the neighbouring republic. Would it not be right for us before we proceed any further in this matter to accentuate precisely our position at this moment. I have not studied in diplomatic schools and I do not claim to know exactly how relations must be conducted between free nations, but I suppose they must be likened to a certain extent to the relations

between individuals, and if I had a business proposal to make to a man I would not be very much flattered if, having my proposal before him, he should discuss the question of annexing me and causing my identity to disappear. It seems to me that we will do a great deal in this country to quiet a feeling of legitimate anxiety which exists if we now voice what is exactly the feeling of the country, because I have no hesitation in saying that there is not a public body in Canada that would not, upon this question, declare themselves, as it seems to me we ought to declare ourselves now. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, without wishing to delay in any way the interesting discussion which was going on yesterday, I beg to move that the following words be added to the main motion in your hands:
But, before resuming the discussion of the terms of the agreement concluded between the government of Canada and the President of the United States, and with a view to dispel the Reeling of unrest created in Canada by comments made in both countries as to the political consequence of the agreement, the House wishes to affirm emphatically its determination to preserve intact the bonds which unite Canada to the British Empire, and the full liberty of Canada to control her fiscal policy and internal automony.


Wilfrid Laurier: Mr. Speaker, it is quite evident that the incorrigible jokers or humorists, as my hon. friend (Mr. Monk) styled them, are not all on the other side of the line; we have some of them in Canada. My hon. friend (Mr. Monk) has spoken of some friend of mine on this side of the House who gave expression to certain utterances in his green and salad days, but we have all been young, and for my own part I am ready to confess that I have had my green and salad days too. However, they are over by this time with me, although it would seem that there are some men who are always in their green and salad days, no matter how mature in years they may be. I need not mention who the man is on that side of the House who is still in his green and salad days. Sir, this discussion in which we are now engaged has given rise to a great deal of comment on both sides of the line. Men there are on the other side of the line who have interpreted this arrangement as meaning ultimately the annexation of Canada to the United States. Men there are on this side of the line who have taken the same position, but I am glad to say there is not one man on this side of the House who has ever thought of such a thing. It appears that men there are on the side of the House on which my hon. friend (Mr. Monk) sits whose views upon this question are disturbed, and who believe that in the discussion of this question of a better trade
arrangement between us and our neighbours the Canadian people would be so wanting in self-respect that they might be driven beyond an agreement so wise in itself to a conclusion which the hon. gentleman dreads. If there are such men in this chamber I repeat that they do not sit on this side of the House. But if it is necessary, in order to strengthen the wavering faith of the hon. gentlemen who sit with and around my hon. friend (Mr. Monk), for my part I have no objection whatever to accept the present motion and to say that this discussion will not in any way affect or jeopardize the allegiance of this country to the mother land. Surely, it is not worth while discussing that; surely there was no necessity for this motion. It affirms a principle which everybody is persuaded of and which no one needed to affirm, but in order to make it doubly sure, in order to affirm not only to this country but to the other side also that this discussion in which we are now engaged does not mean what has been stated by my hon. friend (Mr. Monk) it may mean, I shall for my part vote for his motion and I hope all on this side of the House will vote for it also. I have to say to my hon. friend that all the correspondence that has taken place on this question has been brought down. Why should we not bring it down? What object could we have to serve by keeping anything from this House. I do not know as to whether Mr. Fielding or Mr. Paterson, or somebody else has received a private letter or letters, but any correspondence in the hands of the government has been laid before the House. I have only to say, Sir, that we will vote for this resolution.


Mr. R. L. BORDEN (Halifax).: Mr. Speaker, I did not know that my hon. friend from Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk) proposed to introduce this motion until after he had come into the House to-day, and therefore, I did not prepare to speak upon it. I would like to say, however, that it would seem to me to have been a wise course for the Prime Minister, if he thinks that conditions at the present time are such as to justify him in accepting this motion, to have brought it in as Prime Minister of this country, and to have asked the parliament of Canada, and the people of Canada to accept it. But my right hon. friend appears to have departed to-day from the line of argument which he took 'some years ago in accepting this motion. He says that there is no danger, and that the people of Canada realize that there is no danger, and that there is no man in this House who realizes that there is any danger. The loyalty of the Canadian people does not need to be 'affirmed ; but let me tell my right

bon. friend that if these proposals of his mean anything, in my judgment, they mean, in the end that commercial union for which he fought in 1891, and concerning which a man who was his leader for some years, and whom he followed in this House, and in this country, made a memorable declaration over his signature, in a letter published immediately after the election of 1891. Hon. Edward Blake, to whom I refer, had no doubt that commercial union would lead to, would end in the political absorption of Canada into the United States which the right lion, gentleman says is not a danger to-day. My right lion, friend touched with a very light hand some very notable utterances which have been made in the Congress of the United States. I will not deal with the press comment in the United States ; I have seen a great deal of it. My hon. friend from Jacques Cartier is perfectly right when he says that press opinion in the United States in very many influential quarters is supporting these proposals, not upon economic considerations, but for the reason that they will undoubtedly lead to the political absorption of this country into the United States ; and in that they are of course simply following the line which Mr. Blake took in 1891 when he said that commercial union meant in the end political union.
' The Prime Minister was inclined to refer in a somewhat jocular way to the utterances of Mr. Champ Clark in the House of Representatives of the United States. There was a very mysterious silence about those utterances in a certain part of the press of the United States immediately after they had been made. As far as one could judge, it was an inspired silence. I find that on the day following those utterances there -were press despatches in nearly all the newspapers of Canada, which were designed to lead the people of this country to suppose that Mr. Champ Clark had made those utterances in a jocular way. T took the very first opportunity of examining the ' Congressional Record ' to ascertain if possible from the context whether those utterances were serious, or jocular, and I will read them to this House from the ' Congressional Record,' with a portion of the context, and hon. gentlemen can judge for themselves whether they were serious or not. It is perfectly true that this gentleman occupies a very important place in the United States at the present time. He is the leader of the Democratic party in the House of Representatives, and it is believed that he will be the Speaker of that House in the new Congress. The vote upon this reciprocity agreement divided the Republican party. A majority of the Republican party voted against it -if I remember rightly, 87 voted against it, and 78 for it. Mr. Clark made his Mr. BORDEN (Halifax).
appeal to the Democratic party, with the result that 142 members of that party besides himself voted for the agreement, and I think only five Democrats voted against it. So that the appeal that carried the Democratic party in the United States House of Representatives to vote for the agreement was the appeal contained in the speech of Mr. Champ ClarEY What was that appeal? I will read what Mr. Champ Clark said, as reported at page 2623 of the ' Congressional Record ' of the 14th of February, 1911 :
The chief thing that this country needs in its business is a wider market, and I am in favour of this reciprocity Bill because it gives wider markets to American products. That will be one great point gained. Considered as a whole, our exports are large, but our per capita exports are smaller than those of any other great commercial nation on earth, which is not a healthy condition.
You will observe that there is no humour thus far ; everything is matter of fact and plain and serious. He continues
As much as any other living man I desire to see them increased. Therefore I am for this Bill, because it will increase our exports. I am in favour of this Bill because it establishes closer trade relations with one of our nearest neighbours, and the closer trade relations you have with your neighbours the better oft you are.
No humour-nothing of a jocular character, thus far.
When Thomas Jefferson delivered his first inaugural on the 4th day of March, 1801, he enunciated the principles upon which this government should be conducted, and one of the principles was:	' Peace, commerce and
honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.'
No humour there, and nothing of a jocular nature thus far ; and, by the way, the last clause of that sentence in particular would be a very good motto for Canada at the present time. He continues :
That has been the mainspring of our policy ever since, or should have been. We have spent or will spend somewhere in the neighbourhood of $500,000,000 to build the Panama canal. Therefore I am in favour of the reciprocity treaty to promote our trade relations. That is what we spent that money for. We are not spending that vast sum because we are altrinsto but as a business matter.	.
I do not observe anything of a jocular or humorous character in Mr. Clark's remarks up to this point. Then he continues :
I am for it, because I hope to see the day the American flag will float over every square foot of the British North America possessions clear to the north pole.
I do not observe anything which would lead me to believe that that remark -was

made ill a humorous or jocular vein. There is not the slightest indication of it. Then he continues :
They are people of our blood. They speak our language. Their institutions are ^much like ours. They are trained in the difficult 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.
Then he was interrupted with a question :
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.
There was nothing apparently humorous or jocular in that statement. Further on he was interrupted in this way:


Mr.   NORTON@: I wanted to ask the gentleman something along the lines of universal peace. As I understand it, the gentleman favours this Bill for at least one reason, that it will have a tendency in the end to bring Canada into the union.
Mr. CLARK, of Missouri. Yes, I have no doubt about that.


Mr. MORRIS.: 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 dav is not far distant when Great Britain will joyfully see all of her North American possessions become a part of this republic. That is the way things are tending now.
It is thus clear that Mr. Clark's observations were perfectly serious and were part of a serious discussion.
There are a great many other observations in Mr. Clark's speech of a very imr portant character so far as the economic features of this proposed arrangement are concerned. I do not intend to go into these to-day, but shall later on for the purpose of showing that the government could not have chosen a more inopportune time and occasion for entering into these negotiations. Mr. Clark distinctly declared that in addition to his reasons which I have already quoted, for desiring that this treaty should be accepted, he considered it merely an instalment of the tariff changes which the Democratic party were prepared to carry out the moment they had control of Congress. In other words, when the Democratic party gets control of Congress, they would, if we had not been in such haste, have given us every advantage we might possibly gain under this treaty, and it would not have been necessary for this country to make any of the sacrifices entailed by the proposal now before parliament. The whole situation as at present
developed, shows in what an unfortunate position the government have placed the country when it brings down a tariff to parliament and says you must accept or reject it as a whole. There is a very radical difference between a secret tariff made by diplomatic methods and a tariff proposed to parliament to be considered and passed under the ordinary parliamentary procedure prevailing in this country and in the United Kingdom. In the one case, as in 1894,	1897 and 1907, thel
government comes to parliament with proposals that have been worked out by the government themselves, and which they present to parliament for its serious consideration; and in the instances to which I have alluded dozens of amendments', and on at least one occasion, hundreds of amendments, were made to the proposals as brought down. But in the present instance, no discretion of the kind is left us. We are told by the government that they have secretly consented to a certain arrangement, which may work injustice to us in many ways, but which we must either reject or approve as a whole. We are in fact asked to give our approval merely as a matter of form. As- the right hon. gentleman himself said in 1895 with regard to a somewhat similar transaction:	We
must either stvallow or reject it, holus bolus. It is unfortunate that the government should have placed parliament in such a situation. A tariff worked out in secret by diplomatic methods and then presented in such a way as to preclude any amendment or alteration by this House is bound to lead to dissatisfaction and trouble. Further than that, I am firmly persuaded that it would have been much wiser for Canada and for the United States each to deal with its own tariff in every instance, as seemed best without any understanding of this kind. I venture to affirm that an arrangement of this kind, adopted under such conditions cannot fail to lead to complications, irritation and discontent, and to a disturbance of the good relations which have up to the present prevailed between the two countries. An experiment of this kind has been tried before. It has been tried between the dominions of the empire under the British flag, and experience has shown that it has- led to irritation, friction and dissatisfaction.


William Findlay Maclean: I propose to say a few words on this question from the national standpoint which has induced my hon. friend (Mr. Monk)1 to submit this resolution. As regards the suggestion that the proposed arrangement contains the germ of annexation t-o the United States, I believe it does, but I believe also that Canadians are strong enough in their devotion to their
40g;

country to reject any proposal in the direction of annexation.
Some lion. MEMBERS. Hear, hear.


William Findlay Maclean: But what are the circumstances under which this proposal comes before us. A new departure in constitutional government is being introduced. In the old days the King was supreme, and then came the lords and gradually the commons came to have control, and to-day in the old country all the powers are about to be taken by the House of Commons in the interests of the people. But in this country another great development is taking place, and we are asked to give exclusively into the hands of the cabinet the power of making the tariff. That is a, crime against the constitution, against the rights of the people, greater than ever attempted heretofore in this House In the old days, as my hon. friend the leader of the opposition (Mr. Borden, Halifax), has said, this House had the right to control all money* Bills whether for the expending of money or the raising of money for revenue purposes. But to-day we have reached such a stage that the cabinet and the Prime Minister, in an irresponsible way and without consulting this House, frame our tariff and tell us that we must either accept it without amendment or reject it. Well, if there be anything which is of national 'importance, it is that parliament should control all money Bills and the making of our tariff. But here we have had negotiations canned on in Washington culminating with an agreement with regard to the tariff. That tariff was brought down and we are told that we cannot change it, but must take it as presented. Even the screws are put on the government side, and they are given no opportunity of saying what they think about it. In fact a closure is put on the whole House and the whole country, and we are told that we must accept this tariff proposal without any change whatever. As has been said a few moments ago, every other tariff Bill has been submitted to this House as a government measure, open to explanation, discussion and amendment. Deputations were heard with regard to it, their suggestions were considered, some were adopted and changes made.
Other delegations came that were affected by the amendment, and they were heard. And so, after a great deal of talk, after many amendments, after everybody was heard, the new tariff Bill was' voted and carried-the result of a compromise, as every tariff Bill ought to be. But here, for the first time in the history of this House, a tariff Bill is laid before us, the result of surreptitious negotiation between the Prime Minister, who is the new czar of this country, and the czar of the United Mr. MACLEAN.
States, and the people of the whole of North America are committed to a tariff proposal to which there is to be no amendment, negotiated by the czars of the two countries. There is a feeling in the United States, as there is here, that if our tariffs are to be made for us in this way, and if they are to be made for us in Washington, as in this case, the people of Canada, or the parliament of Canada not being consulted, then, on the face of it, the tendency of such a nroposal is toward the destruction of our national autonomy and our gradually absorption into the United States. I have, not any doubt that that will be the result of this proposal. And that that will be the effect the people of the United States believe-not only the members of the House of Representatives and of the Senate of the United States, but men, business men generally. And I take that fact from a friend who has recently come from New York, and who has been in touch with business men there. He tells me that the biggest men there regard the proposal as one step on the road to annexation. And if this proposal realizes, or tends to realize, the view expressed by Mr. Champ Clark as to the American flag waving over the whole of North America, is it not reasonable that the United States should be prepared to make tariff concessions to that end? On the other hand, we, by adopting this proposal, say in effect that, for a tariff consideration, for a money consideration, we will endanger our nationality. Is not our nationality endangered if, when a tariff Bill is to be made, word is sent to the Canadian government to send delegates to Washington to look after our interests? It means, if this proposal is carried, that never in the future can there be another tariff Bill introduced in this House without the consent of the people of the United States. This country will be indubitably committed to such a principle if this proposition is accepted. Never, hereafter, can any move be made in connection with the tariff without first sending to Washington to enter into secret negotiations with them. And never again-and this is the most significant thing of all if this method is to be continued, which I hope it will not be-never again will the people of Canada have the opportunity they have always had heretofore of discussing a tariff measure as introduced in this House, amending it, compromising on it, or adopting it as we see fit. That is the thing that is ahead of the people of Canada to-day- that they are losing absolutely their tariff independence


Onésiphore Ernest Talbot: Even with a change of government?


William Findlay Maclean: No, not with a change of government.. But, adopt this

4CG6
proposal and the people of Canada, forever after, if hon. gentlemen opposite have their way, will have their tariff proposals brought into this House for discussion, but beyond amendment. Those questions will not be for settlement in Canada, but for settlement by surreptitious negotiations carried on in Washington-and we have, shall have, to be satisfied with that which goes to the lesser as compared with the greater. And once they start to break us down in that connection, all legislation proposed in this House will be on that basis: Come to Washington and have a secret negotiation, and we will give you something that you must take to the parliament of Canada to be passed holus bolus. That is the danger of our situation, and it is the greatest danger that ever came to us. It is a great change, an enormous change, an organic change-and 'the proposal is introduced in this House without ever consulting the people with regard to it. Surely, a Liberal party, surely a party headed by one who has made the professions made by the leader of this House (Sir Wilfrid Laurier), would say that if there is to be an organic change, a change of autonomy, it should be only after the people have been consulted by a general election. But there is nothing of that kind. If there is a warrant. as was said a few moments ago by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Borden, Halifax), the only warrant for this change is that the right hon. gentleman (Sir Wilfrid Lanrier) and his friends from 1887 to 1892 were advocates of commercial union. But when they proposed commercial union to the people of this country it was repudiated. Years after the government abandoned it. But, like the dog returning to its vomit, in this quiet and surreptitious way the proposal is made to resume these commercial union negotiations and to put Canada into a commercial union with the United States. And what wag the folly of the right hen. gentleman-mention has been made here of ' green and salad days 1 -what was the folly of his political manhood has to-day become the suicidal madness of his later years, a thing that will bring himself and his party to destruction. I have no doubt that the people of this country to-day are determined to maintain their political autonomy, and above all to make their own tariffs. In that view the people of Canada will repudiate the right hon. gentleman's party in the next election, as they did in the election of 1891. For the proposal which is made-I say it again and insist upon it- means the surrender of our tariff autonomy. I got that idea from my late father, who, in discussing these questions in the old days, constantly insisted on the idea that if Canada was ever to pass beyond the tutelage of the old colonial position, as we
have done, it must be by absolute control of her own tariff. We fought it out in this country and took away the control of our tariff from the mother country, and it was the greatest assertion of Canadian independence that was ever made. To-day the government of this country proposes to give up that independence and hand that autonomy over to our rivals of the United States. That certainly is not in the line of progress, and yet that is the proposal today-that the old commercial union idea should be revived, that our tariff is to be made in the United States, and that the people of Canada are to have no voice in it. Can that be justified on any grounds? Will anybody say that a surreptitious treaty made by two or three representatives of each nation can take in the broad national aspect of the tariff? Why, in this country, it is proposed that we should have a permanent tariff board. *In the United States that has become a practical question *-to have a board of tariff experts to deal with the tariff in order that the very fullest consideration may be given to every element of every question arising, that witnesses may be called, that interests may be heard, and' tariff schedules worked out that will best meet the conditions. Instead of all that, this new and tyrannical view of the constitution is ,to be asserted in this country, and people are never again-because it is not for this session or this tariff alone-to have a voice in parliament as to making the tariff, or Ss to the interpretation of any single item in it. Never was there such an abandonment of national rights and national autonomy as is contained in this Bill; never did any man who calls himself a Canadian have more reason to be ashamed when he sees such a pro-Dosal made in the House of Commons of Canada, a proposal to abandon our tariff autonomy and to hand it over to the people of the United States. Well may the people of the United States afford to make tariff concessions They can tell their farmers: Yes, we are going to let in Canadian farm products, even if they do damage you, because we are not looking at the tariff; we are looking at the effect of this arrangement on national questions, at the effect it will have in raising the Stars and Stripes from Mexico to the Arctic ocean. Now, another aspect which has been raised by this discussion-


Onésiphore Ernest Talbot: I rise to a point of order, as I see the hon. gentleman is proceeding with his speech. A moment ago he referred to the Liberal party, to the party on this side of the House, as a dog returning to his vomit. I want to know, Mr. Speaker, if you consider that expression parliamentary.


William Findlay Maclean: Certainly in no offensive sense at all, but in the or-

dinary sense in which it is used in English literature; and if the hon. gentleman was a little more conversant with English literature, he would see there is nothing offensive in the term in the sense in which I used it.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: My ruling is that it is a figure of speech.


William Findlay Maclean: Even if you had told me I was out of order


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: I understand the hon. gentleman does not use the expression in an offensive way.


William Findlay Maclean: Certainly not.


Onésiphore Ernest Talbot: Then it is an after dinner expression.


William Findlay Maclean: Now let me come to the continental aspect of this great question. There are two systems of government on this continent to-day; there is the American system and there is the Canadian or British system. What is the difference between them, and where are we likely to land if the Canadian system should disappear? The British system of government as exemplified in the old land, and more or less exemplified in Canada, is an unlimited system of government. Certainly in the old country they can do anything the people desire, they can carry out any view that the* people may hold. Let me compare that system with the United States system. In the United States the government is limited in every way and problems that arise there cannot be dealt with. Under the British system they can be dealt with, and are being dealt with, as we see to-day where great social and economical questions are being handled and carried lout. In the United States the dominant idea is the exploitation of the resources of the country, the exploitation of its natural resources by the great interests. In England and in Canada more attention is paid to social and economic conditions; but in the United States everybody is devoting his time and energy to the exploitation of the natural resources of the country, and of the public interests by the great corporations. As a consequence of this condition of things, affairs have come to a rather bad mess in the United States, and now we find that the Senate of the United States has gradually absorbed most of the powers of government. Even the integrity of the courts has been questioned, and the control of the legislatures has passed into the hands, to some extent, of the interests. We see now a great magazine movement in the United States, the object of which is to restore the old time conditions and to get them into better shape. They point out that a marvellous change Mr. MACLEAN (South York).
has come about in the last 20 or 25 years, and that the old democracy which existed in that country from the inception of the union down to the period of the great civil war, has disappeared. In former days there was a political equality, one man's vote and influence were as good as another's. Now all that has disappeared. The great interests have control of the legislatures; they have control of the courts, and to such an extent, that the old democratic equality of political power as between individuals no longer obtains, but all power is centred in the great interests, or in what are called the political machines. That is a thing to be deplored. But there is worse than that. There is no longer any democracy of opportunity in the United States, no longer is there any democracy of wealth, all that has disappeared. In the old days one man's wealth was almost equal to another's, but to-day there is an enormous concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. The control of a great many institutions dealing with the savings of the people has absolutely passed to Wall street, the control of the savings of the people vested in insurance companies has passed to Wall street. To-day things are so bad that the people are almost on the verge of revolution. And yet, Sir, at the very time -when this great political upheaval is in sight, we propose to enter into closer relations with the people of the United States, and to put the control of our tariff into their hands. When the inevitable disorder and revolution come about, they will have control of our tariff, and where will we be? We will be dealing with a nation whose record shows them to be not over careful or over scrupulous in the way they handle questions of that kind. They would say: The best way to put down a revolution at home is to extend the American flag all over the continent. That is really the proposal that we are dealing with to-day; they wish to divert public attention from domestic troubles, and to turn it upon this question of trade relations with Canada.
In the past we know that they were not friendly to us. The people of the United States drove out the United Empire Loyalists, who made this country. They invaded this country more than once, they allowed the Fenians to invade this country, and the dream of every American statesman to-day is the unification of the continent. They have the plan all laid out for taking over Mexico any day, but they say that with Mexico in its present condition the people are too yellow for them and they propose to counterbalance them with the white people of Canada and bring the two countries in together. Will anybody deny that such a feeling is existing over there ? I have read it time and again. The republican party of the United States have

refused to entertain a proposal to extend their states farther until a Canadian counterbalance of white people is brought about. Look at the construction of the Panama canal. What is the object of that but the continentalization of the whole of America. They have gradually dipped their hands into the affairs of every little republic in Central America. Morgan, the other day, financed Honduras for the purpose of making it easy to secure American control of the Panama canal. They are building that canal and they are going to dominate the whole of Central America. They took over the Panama belt, not by any right, but by an Act of acquisition, and roughshod acquisition at that. They are ready to take over Mexico, but they want Canada as an offset. Continentalism is the dream of every American. I do not blame them at all for having such dreams, but I do blame my fellow-country then who will aid and abet such dreams by setting down to make a tariff with them to the disadvantage of Canada, the result of which will be that we shall have to go to Washington to make the future tariffs of this country.


Mr. DEVLIN.: Was that sentiment existing in the States in 1894 P


William Findlay Maclean: I cannot say what were the sentiments in 1894; I say that the sentiment that exists to-day is continentalism.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: Will the hon. gentleman explain why, in this House, in 1894, Sir John Thompson, then Prime Minister of Canada, made use of these words:
The hon. gentleman says we could have a{ greater trade than that by throwing down the' tariff wall. He goes on the old fallacy, which we have had put forward in this country for ten years, that all we have to do is to pass* a statute and have reciprocity with the1 United States. By all means, if the regulation of the trade with a foreign country is1 in the hands of this parliament, let us pass' a statute and have reciprocity right away. )


William Findlay Maclean: Reciprocity brought about by the independent action of each House, or rather a tariff made by each House that gives us free trade no one can blame because then each party could act absolutely in its own interest. If such a tariff resulted in promoting trade I could not say anything against it, because it might be a benefit to this country, but to sit down surreptitiously, not openly, and make a tariff without consulting the Canadian people, is a crime against this country, and the country will hold every man responsible who attempts to do it. The tendency of this proposition is towards annexation. The hope of the world is the domination and success of the British system of politics, that system
of government which we have inherited from the old land. There is more thought of humanity and progress in the British association of free states like the mother country, Canada and Australia, than in anything else. There is no hope for humanity in the domination of the American republic over the whole of this continent. They are not taking up any of the great questions of to-day. They "are not fighting the battles of humanity, they are not fighting the battle of the heathen or the oppressed in the distant continents of Africa or Asia. The hope of humanity in the British system, and one of the bulwarks of the British system is the maintenance of Canadian nationality on the northern half of this continent. There is danger of our Canadian nationality being injured by appeals being made to the people based on their pocket rather than on their nationality, appeals where there is no deliberation, where there Is no amendment and no compromise. I say as a Canadian, what I said in opening my speech here to-day, that I have little fear of annexation resulting as some people think. But there is one section of this community that I wish to make an appeal to today. Perhaps I will not be credited with much earnestness in making the suggestion, but I do make the suggestion to my fellow-countrymen who live in the province of Quebec, who are of the French race1 and who value above all the autonomy which they have to-day. I say that anything that tends in the direction of annexation, or if annexation should ever come as the result of these proposals, it means good-bye to the people of Quebec with regard to the autonomy that they have today. It will be wiped out like a flash in the night.


Onésiphore Ernest Talbot: We thank you for the advice.


William Findlay Maclean: I knew I would meet that statement from some one, but I say to the people of Quebec that they had better pause when an organic proposal of that kind is being made and not allow themselves to be led into the support of such a proposal because it means the end of their autonomy and any other autonomy within the limits of Canada will disappear later on. To-day is the day to put in a protest, and if the people of Quebec love their institutions, their language and their rights, as I believe they do, they will see to it-and this is to be my amendment later on.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: Why does the hon. gentleman appeal to Quebec?


William Findlay Maclean: I have the right, I hope. They are my fellow-countrymen, as. much as you are, and if the opportunity is presented to me


Some hon. MEMBERS: Order.


William Findlay Maclean: If the opportunity is presented to me to say a word for the province of Quebec, which is one of the best provinces we have in Canada-


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: And one of the most loyal.


William Findlay Maclean: One of the most loyal to its institutions. But, if the North America Act, which gives autonomy to these people, is to be destroyed in its most significant clause which gives us control of our tariff and we give that away to the people of the United States what next is to come? Thus I say to the people of Quebec that we have this great organic change proposed in this House and we have hardly a single Quebec member who enters a protest.


Mr. CLARK (Red Deer).: If the old Tory party in England had had its way how much autonomy would the province of Quebec have had to-day?


William Findlay Maclean: Thank God, I am not responsible for the old Tory party. Perhaps some hon. gentlemen on the other side are. Certainly the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark) is not; I will give him credit for being a progressive Liberal.


John Howard Sinclair: I would like to know why the hon. gentleman appeals to Quebec ?


William Findlay Maclean: I have given you my reasons. They have, within the British constitution, certain rights and privileges of their own and if our constitution is to be broken down-


Onésiphore Ernest Talbot: 


William Findlay Maclean: Yes, and it is proposed here to-day to do that because it will mean that Canada will never again have a word to say in the making of her tariff. This is a great organic change the effect of which will be that we shall never have a word to say in the making of our tariff but that we shall have to go to Washington for instructions. Again, I say to the people of Quebec, pause now before this thing is done, let us take time to deliberate and then it must not be carried until the people of Canada have had a chance to register their voice on the question.


Onésiphore Ernest Talbot: Why do you not publish a French edition of the ' World?'


William Findlay Maclean: The hon. gentleman is too humorous; if he has no better argument than that, I will not take up my time by answering him. But, if we are to abandon the control of our tariff and give it to the United States, it should not be done without a mandate from the people.


William Findlay Maclean: There has been no mandate. The right hon. Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier), may think he has a mandate. He knows what happened in 1891, when commercial union was repudiated, and he has no right to resurrect that at this time of day without consulting the people in a general election. Does he propose to do it ? Will he go to the people on this question ? I challenge him to-day to face the people of Canada on this question. There are certain things that a government can take in its own hands; it can lead the people into war and it may have to do it, but the government has no right to make a great organic policy change without consulting the people. Twice has the English government recently gone to the people and they say they have the mandate of the people, and Mr. Asquith, the Liberal leader in Great Britain, is pressing a great constitutional amendment this very day, on what he declares to be the mandate of the people. Is the right hon. the Prime Minister pressing this proposal before us to-day on the mandate of the people ? I challenge him to stand up and say that he is. I say that he is abandoning the rights of the Canadian people. He is handing over our commercial integrity to our neighbours and in doing that, he is doing an unconstitutional thing. Again, I tell the people of Quebec that if our privilege in this parliament in regard to the tariff is to go, they will see what may happen to them later on. It is for the people of this country, (not to say perhaps that this nation shall be abandoned for ever), but it ought to be the duty of every man in this House to vote for a proposal that the consideration of this issue shall go further, only when the people shall be (riven an opportunity to speak in regard to it. To prove how deep my idea of Canadian nationality is, I repeat .that we Canadians are on this continent to stay. I believe there is room on this great North American, continent for at least two free and independent communities, based on English ideas of government, and that Canada is, must, and shall be one of these-by the grace of our neighbours if they choose to accord it; in spite of them if we must. That is the true idea of Canadian nationality. I have no fear that even while these proposals of the government tend in the direction of annexation or in the direction of commercial union", that the people of Canada, especially the young men and young women of this newer and greater Dominion, will ever have any other aim than the domination of the northern half of the continent by Canadians and by the maintenance of Canadian institutions in alliance with the old land. In a sin-rle night that great imperial idea of the mother land and the daughter states being associated, disappears, and the whole

thing starts to slide down the hill if we move in the direction of commercial union.
I have spoken from the constitutional and national point of view and later on I purpose telling how this arrangement affects my own riding, my own city and my own province, and how it destroys the industry of the market gardeners around the city of Toronto, who are constituents of mine; an industry laboriously built up by these industrious people. Already the land they cultivate has fallen in value, for fear of this arrangement. The same thing happens with regard to the fruit growers in the Niagara district. Even to-day the future of Toronto is changed by this proposal, and Canadian manufacturers, with annexation in view, are not going to increase their capital and their industries. But the greatest danger of all is to our transportation industry. The transportation of Canada moves east and west and capital moves east and west, and the great source of our capital to-day, is in the mother land, and if we have the policy and commercial institutions of the United States, we soon will see the last of British capital coming to Canada.


Mr. AMES.: I rise to a point of order. The hon. gentleman (Mr. Maclean), is now discussing the merits of the proposal.


William Stevens Fielding: He has been doing that for a considerable time past.


William Findlay Maclean: And I have a perfect right to do it, and the great mistake has been that the Bill has not been discussed on the proposal to go into supply. I was quite willing that the hon. gentleman (Mr. Ames), should go on to-day, and I told him so, but inasmuch as the question came up in this way, I exercise my right to speak on the motion. Again I warn the government that this is an unpatriotic proposal, that it should not go through, that it has a tendency in the direction of annexation, and that no action should be taken until the people of Canada have had an opportunity to pass on this great organic change in our system, which this proposal brings about.


William Stevens Fielding: I desire to offer my sympathies to my hon. friend from St. Antoine (Mr. Ames), who, according to the programme was scheduled to speak this afternoon and who finds that three gentlemen on his own side have cut in to deprive him of the opportunity which belongs to him.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I rise to a point of order. The hon. gentleman has stated that I ' cut in ' for the purpose of depriving my hon. friend (Mr. Ames), of his right to speak.


An hon. MEMBER.: He said * butt ' in.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: Whether it is ' cut in ' r.r ' butt in ' I do not think the expression should be used.


William Stevens Fielding: I would not charge my hon. friend with * butting in ', because it is rather a clumsy way, but I did say that he cut in, which is a more gentlemanly method.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I object to the insinuation of my hon. friend that I had a motive.


William Stevens Fielding: I have not ascribed any motive to the hon. gentleman, I merely mentioned the result, namely, that he has kept the hon. gentleman from St. Antoine (Mr. Ames), from delivering his address, until at last in sheer desperation, the hon. member (Mr, Ames), had to protest against the hon. member from York (Mr. Maclean), discussing the merits of the question.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I have raised my point of order.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: I do not see that any point lies there, unless the hon. gentleman may further explain it.


William Stevens Fielding: There is no point except in what I have stated. We are not favoured in this House with the continuous presence of my hon. friend from York (Mr. Maclean).


William Findlay Maclean: The hon. gentleman is now making an unfair statement. I have been sick quite a number of days, and I have had a lot of sickness in my family, and I would be here long before this, if it were possible.


William Stevens Fielding: rnent as lie is to vote for or against any other matter that may be submitted to ihe House.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Oh.


William Stevens Fielding: If any hon. gentleman takes exception to that statement, I do not know on what ground the exception can be taken. We cannot give effect to this agreement by any act of ours. All we can do, is to present to the House that which we believe, as we believe this to be, for the best interests of the great masses of the people of this country, and present it to the House with the best information and the best argument we can bring forward, and then await the judgment which the House may give. Agreements of any kind are not usually made out on the public street. Whether they be agreements of business or diplomacy or agreements of any kind they are necessarily made by conference between the parties interested, and all that the parties concerned in this matter can expect is, that the results of such conference will be presented to the people's representatives and that the people's representatives shall have a full and unqualified right to pass judgment upon the scheme that has been submitted to them. That is the position with regard to this agreement; that is the position with regard to every treaty and every agreement that is made anywhere. There have been reciprocity treaties and other treaties in times past. To hear hon. gentlemen opposite talk about this thing having been made in secret, one would imagine that all the treaties made in bygone years, had been made on the public highways. The thing is ridiculous. Every treaty is made bv conference between the authorized representatives of the countries concerned, and this agreement, though not a treaty, though less formal than a treaty, has been made in the same way. The hon. member for South York (Mr. Maclean), again and again said: Never again-and he emphasized it in ringing tones'-never . again will this parliament have a right to deal with a tariff matter. How can the hon. gentleman and those who agree with him, expect the people of Canada to be influenced by such statements as that ? and it is only a specimen of hundreds of things that they are saying day after day. What says the document before them ? I do not suppose my hon. friend from South York ever took the trouble to read it.


William Findlay Maclean: I heard it explained by the hon. gentleman.


William Stevens Fielding: I am obliged to assume that the hon. gentleman never read it

	_


William Findlay Maclean: Yes, I read it.
Mr. FIELDING


William Stevens Fielding: Or never listened when I read it.


William Findlay Maclean: Yes.


William Stevens Fielding: That is the most charitable view that I can express, because if the hon. gentleman read or heard it read and explained, and if in the face of that he makes the statement which he made to-day, then I am afraid I would have to use language of a harsher nature than I would like to use with reference to my hon. friend, and" harsher than you, Mr. Speaker, would permit me to use. On the very first page of this agreement we have the statement that the government of the two countries hope that this arrangement will be found satisfactory, and that it will be continued because it will be found satisfactory; and then we have this further statement-and if anybody can make it in stronger language than is contained in this passage, I would like to hear them:
Nevertheless it is distinctly understood that we do not attempt to bind for the future thei action of the United States Congress or the Parliament of Canada, but that each of these authorities shall be absolutely free to make any change of tariff policy or of any other matter covered by the present arrangement that may be deemed expedient.
And with that on the first page of this agreement, the hon. gentleman and friends of his on that side of the House, and men in the press representing them, go on day after day telling the people of Canada that we are bound hand and foot by this agreement. Now, the suggestion was made by the hon. member for South York that we ought to have an appeal to the people on this subject; but I did not find that that suggestion was received with the wildest enthusiasm on the other side of the House. I do not know how many years or how many months we may be from an election, but it cannot be very long before the people of Canada


Some hon. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.


William Stevens Fielding: I hope that it will be noticed that hon. gentlemen, spurred up by my gentle suggestion, have said that they want it now.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.


William Stevens Fielding: Very well, let it go on record; it may be useful by and by. But at some time, before very many months-it is a matter of opinion how many-we shall have an appeal to the people, and we have no reason to doubt that the government which has 'successfully appealed to the people in bygone years will appeal with greater strength than ever by reason of this agreement. I have had occasion to be associated with many public matters in this House, and I say that there never was a public

matter with which I was associated as to which I would be better prepared to go before the people from ocean to ocean, and look for a triumphant victory. But let us admit that at some day not too far distant we shall have an election. If hon. gentlemen opposite have the ghost of a hope of coming into power, why do they say that never again can this arrangement be changed? The agreement says that it can be changed by the parliament of Canada-. Yet my hon. friend from South York says never again can it be changed; and when hon. gentlemen behind him slam their desks and applaud that sentiment, it means that never again in the present generation have these hon. gentlemen any hope of being placed in ia position to change it.
My hon. friend the leader of the opposition is evidently much troubled over this reciprocity matter. He has- now given us three speeches on the subject, and he threatens us with one or two more.


Mr. BORDEN (Halitax).: I do not promise to be confined to that.


William Stevens Fielding: I think my hon. friend will find, before this thing gets through, that he will have to make a great many speeches; and when the time comes for him to go before the people of Canada and explain those speeches before the toiling masses of this Dominion, he will have occasion to make a great many. When 1 first heard the amendment of my hon. friend from Jacques Cartier, I did not think'it was necessary. I thought it was rather useless. It talks about our loyalty and devotion. The man who flaunts his loyalty and the woman who flaunts her virtue are both open to suspicion.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: Is my hon. friend opposed to the motion?


William Stevens Fielding: No, I am going to show my hon. friend that this motion is needed, and why.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: If it is needed, my hon. friend had better not attack it.


William Stevens Fielding: It is needed by some persons and not by others-' they that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.' My hon. friend proposes that we shall make a declaration of the loyalty and devotion of this House to British institutions. Sir, we on 'this side have no need of making any such declaration. If there is need for this motion, it is because hon. gentlemen opposite, by their own acts, have talked annexation in this country for the last month. Who ever heard of it before?	*


Some hon. MEMBERS: Oh, oh.


William Stevens Fielding: 
Mr. SHARPE (Ontario).: Is Champ Clark a Canadian?


William Stevens Fielding: I will come to Champ Clark in a moment. It is because these hon. gentlemen, and they alone, have been talking about annexation, and I call the people to witness that the only people who talk about annexation to-day are the members of the Tory party.
I have now explained why I agree with the hon. member for Jacques Cartier (Mr Monk) as to the need for this motion As doubts and aspersions on the loyalty of our people have been provoked by the attitude of hon. gentlemen opposite, my hon. friend finds it necessary to come forward with a motion which practically says; Do not make any mistake; after all, though we have said a great many foolish things we do not mean them, and are good loyal subjects all the same. There, fore we on this side propose to vote for this motion, not because we think it necessary in our behalf, but because we think it is only right, after all that has Imp-' pened, that hon. gentlemen opposite should have an opportunity of proclaiming to the world that they, who are the only party whose loyalty is in doubt, are devoted to British institutions.


Angus Claude Macdonell: Might I put my hon. friend a question? He has made reference to the opportunities given for the discussion of this matter, I would like to ask if it be true that either before he and his colleague went to Washington or during the time they were there, certain Liberal members of this House were consulted by letter as to whether this proposed arrangement would be desirable or



not, and that no other members of this House and none outside were so'consulted?


William Stevens Fielding: There is nothing new or novel about this matter. It is not one which has been sprung upon the House. Many months ago it was announced that negotiations had been entered upon between this government and the President of the United States regarding commercial relations. A certain arrangement was made for the moment which was brought before this House. That arrangement was condemned by a number of hon. gentlemen opposite, but they never had the courage to record their votes against it. That was an arrangement made to serve the purpose- for the moment, and then there was an exchange of letters which expressed the desire of the President of the United States and the willingness of the government of Canada to have further negotiations looking to a reciprocal arrangement. All that was known for months, and what we are presenting is merely a consummation of an arrangement which has been under negotiation for a long time.


Morley Currie: The hon. minister has not answered the question.


William Stevens Fielding: If I had correspondence with any member of this House with regard to any matter, which correspondence that member and myself saw fit to treat as confidential, I deny the right of the hon. gentleman to put to me any question about it.


Morley Currie: I rise to a point of order. The hon. minister has not answered the question.


James Kirkpatrick Kerr: No minister or member is required to answer a question.


Angus Claude Macdonell: I would like an answer to the question I have put, which is very simple. I understand that when these negotiations were entered upon, the Liberal members of this House were written to for their opinions, but no request of the kind was made to the Conservative members, nor was the public taken into the confidence of the government.


William Stevens Fielding: Again I say that it is my right and privilege to have correspondence with members of this House; and if any member receives a letter from me and sends me a reply and he and I see fit to treat that correspondence as confidential, I deny the right of any member to raise any question about it.
I do not want to enter into the merits of this whole matter because this is not the moment to do so. This motion is only a species of side show.


Mr. HUGHES.: It is a side show motion which seems to worry the hon. minister.


Angus Claude Macdonell: 


William Stevens Fielding: I do not worry over this annexation bogey. I think that the reply given the other day by the Prime, Minister very aptly fits the interruption. If the worst should come to the worst, we may send the gallant colonel to Washington, and if he will only bring Turpin with him the country will be safe. I notice that my hon. friends opposite quote everything they can find in. the United States papers in favour of reciprocity and annexation. The hon. member for Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk) had a good deal to say about a resolution by Mr. Bennett, a member of Congress from the state of New York. Mr. Bennett moved a resolution in favour of annexation, and my hon. friend concluded that Mr. Bennett must be in collusion with the Prime Minister of. this country and the other members of the Liberal party. He, however, forgot to state one fact, namely, that Mr. Bennett has two fads at Washington, one of which is to talk annexation, and the other, and the most important, is to defeat this reciprocity agreement. The very man who is promoting annexation recognizes the fact that in this commercial agreement there is not a shadow of annexation, and he takes the view no doubt that should we have liberal commercial relations with our brethren-to the south, that will make for a happy, contented and prosperous people on both sides, and when our people are in that enviable condition they will not be anxious for any political change.


Samuel Hughes: Is it possible that Canada might follow the lead of a distinguished Canadian who dealt with that same question some years ago, and not make two bites of a cherry?


William Stevens Fielding: Does my hon. friend refer to Sir John Abbott?


Samuel Hughes: No, I refer to .the Hon. Edward Blake.


William Stevens Fielding: I regret to say that my esteemed and severed friend, Mr. Blake, is in such feeble health that we are not permitted to invite or expect his opinion on this question. In 1891 the hon. gentleman opposite and all his friends, under the leadership of Sir John Macdonald, were endeavouring to get the verj< kind of reciprocity we are now offering them. There was then nothing disloyal about it; it was all right. The only difference is this, that the distinguished and able gentleman who leads this government has succeeded. It seems to be a very loyal thing to make a failure of the business and a very disloyal thing to bring it to a success. I have said that owing to the regrettable illness of my respected friend, Mr. Edward Blake-and there is no man in this House or out of it who has a higher respect for him than I-we cannot know

his views, ?>ut we have the views of a member of his family in pretty close touch with him. I find in the Toronto ' Globe ' of yesterday, a letter written, not by Hon. Edward Blake, but by his brother, the distinguished ex-vice-chancellor of Ontario, Hon. S. H. Blake. After some general observations favourable to this project, Mr. Blake winds up with these remarks, which I commend to hon. gentlemen opposite:
It is always very repulsive to me to find that so many men are now beginning; to place the integrity of the British Empire upon the lew platform of tariff, trade relations, preference, &-c., as if some little change in duty or some little rearrangement of tariff considered to he necessary in the interest of either England or Canada should sever the ties of loyalty and degrade us to the low level of persons who desire to continue the union only because of some material advantage that may arise.
In the absence of any testimonial from Hon. Edward Blake, I present to my hon. friend^ opposite the opinion of his distinguished brother.


Samuel Hughes: What about Mr. Lash?


William Stevens Fielding: Mr. Lash is a very excellent citizen. I have no doubt that if I wanted an opinion on any legal matter I could go with confidence to Mr. Lash. But I do not know that he is infallible. A good many men have spoken on this matter whose opinion would be highly respected on some firings, but who are no better qualified to speak on this subject than the average man.
But let me give one thought in conclusion-and I have already spoken too long. I am going to assume, for the sake of argument, that every human being in the United States favours the annexation of Canada. Why should not they? Canada is like a beautiful woman who expects to be courted and admired. Why, Sir, she feels offended if she is ignored or treated with indifference.


Samuel Hughes: But she does not want to be tied up to one fellow alone.


William Stevens Fielding: She is not going to be tied up at all. But I may mention to my hon. friend (Mr. Hughes) that a decent woman who is to be tied up, is well content to be tied up to one man. But I say, Sir, that Canada has reached a position which has given her a standing in the eyes of the world, of which we should be proud. And if the United States, which has too often treated us with indifference and almost contempt, has come to a different view, if the people of the United States have made up their mind that Canada is worth cultivating, whether in the form, of better trade relations or in any other form, why should we complain of that?
But, if one must speak seriously, I do not believe that one responsible man-I should not say that, I suppose, for Mr. Champ Clark, who is to be the next Speaker of the House of Representatives is certainly a responsible man; it is said that his remarks were humorous; all I can say is it is a dangerous kind of humour; -with, the possible exception of Mr. Clark, I do not believe there is a man in the United States to-day holding a responsible position in the front rank of either party who would seriously desire the annexation of Canada to the United States.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Oh, oh.


William Stevens Fielding: No, I do not believe it. The United States have all the territory they can manage to-day They have all the problems of government that it is well for a nation to have. My opinion is that the best and most thoughtful men of the United States have no serious desire to annex Canada, but, if they had, I am not going to quarrel with them for it. Again, I say, it is a tribute they pay, a tribute of honour and admiration to a country which at one time they treated with indifference. But it takes two to make a bargain. And although hon. gentlemen opposite, unwisely, I think, and unjustly too, have tried to convey the impression that there is some portion of the people of Canada who are not loyal to the institutions of our country and to the empire, I am ready to believe that they have done it for party purposes. I believe that every man of them, and every man on this side, and every citizen of this Dominion is bound to maintain the position of Canada as a portion of the British Empire. But, since my hon. friends opposite think that, in view of their record, it is necessary to make a declaration to that effect. I am going to help them to make it.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: I do not rise to debate the question of reciprocity for, upon another occasion, when this House is in Committee of Ways and Means, I expect to have an opportunity to say a few words upon that subject. I simply wish to treat, in a good natured way, some of the remarks of my hon. friend from South York (Mr. Maclean). If I am using a parliamentary expression, I will say that I presume that when the hon. gentleman made his appeal to the province of Quebec, more particularly in connection with the question of annexation, he was speaking in a Pickwickian sense; otherwise I would consider his appeal as most unjust-I must not say, mean, for that would not be parliamentary-and calculated to attract, presumably for himself, certain cheap notoriety in a section of the press. As to the sentiment of the province of Quebec, I am not here to speak. But I do know this, and I wish to lay stress upon it and to

call the attention of the hon. member for South York to it, that long after he and I have disappeared, should the question of maintaining the rights guaranteed to us under the British North America Act arise, should the question arise of upholding the dignity of this country's institutions amongst the foremost provinces to uphold that dignity and those rights will be the province of Quebec. We have heard a great deal about the question of annexation. I would like to quote a page of Canadian history to my hon. friend, and to a few other hon. gentlemen to whom it may do some good I had the curiosity, while listening to what has been said on the subject of annexation by certain hon. gentlemen opposite, to try to find out where the question of annexation really arose, and in whose mind the idea first took root. I find that it originated in the minds of gentlemen allied with members sitting on the opposite side of the House. I find that so eminent an authority in the Conservative party as Sir John Rose spoke very strongly upon the question of annexation, and, though many people in this country may not be aware of it, Sir John Rose was Minister of Finance in a Conservative administration. Speaking at the time of the famous annexationist manifesto, he said this:
To protract is cruelty; and are we unmanly enough to leave as a legacy to our children a task from the performance of which we shrink ourselves ?
The hon. member (Mr. Maclean, York) must know that the talk of annexation did not arise with the Liberals of the province of Quebec, but chiefly with the members of the Conservative party. The Liberal party has always been true to this counJ try, the province of Quebec has always been true to this country, and to our institutions. It would be more honourable, in discussing a commercial bargain between the United States and Canada, to appeal to Canada as a whole and not to sections of the country.
Amendment (Mr. Monk) agreed to.
Motion as amended agreed to, and House went into Committee of Ways and Means.


Herbert Brown Ames: I suppose the House is now prepared to settle down to a businesslike discussion, and to deal with the question before us without heat and without partisanship. I hope that we may be able to weigh dispassionately the pros and cons of this proposition. I think the people of this country have been waiting with a little disappointment for a more businesslike discussion of the resolution now before the House. I realize that what I am about to say, is capable of being rejected or Mr. DEVLIN.
accepted by men of good faith on both sides of the House.
The year 1910 has been a record year for Canada. Never has prosperity been greater or more widespread. Our farmers have had good harvests and high prices, our manufacturers have enlarged their output and have increased their plant. There have been great works of public utility and transportation undert&ken and carried on to a successful conclusion. Our aggregate trade in 1910 has been greater than in any previous year in the history of Canada. Our banks are increasing their capital, and enlarging their business. During last year credit has been good and payments have been sound, and there has been throughout the country a feeling of optim- _ ism, and a feeling of confidence in our selves and in one another. Canada has admittedly been doing well, she has been treading along safe and conservative lines, along lines that should be, and are I believe, satisfactory to the sound judgment of the country as a whole. We can find optimism everywhere, and confidence is general. Now, suddenly, without the slightest warning, and like a bolt out of the clear [DOT]sky, this government comes into the House and flings upon the table a proposition which alters our fiscal policy that for the last forty years has been profitably pursued on the same lines. This agreement, we are told, must be accepted in its entirety, without any amendment in even a word or a syllable. The whole proposition stands or the-whole proposition falls.
Now, we have had tariff revisions before. I can remember them ever since 1893, but I never remember an occasiou before when a tariff was taken into consideration with a view of amending it that there has not been ample opportunity afforded to all persons interested to be heard, to state their wishes, and to talk over their needs with the ministers, and only after such consideration, has the tariff been amended. The hon. the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) remembers that in 1907 he brought in a Bill to amend our tariff ; and that Bill was altered if I remember rightly in a score of items before it finally passed the House. That is the way to make a tariff. In that way it is possible for interests to be heard, it is possible for injustices to be remedied before it i? too late; and Canada, maintaining her own fiscal independence, is able to make a tariff under which all her people may prosper.
Now, we are just beginning to wake up to the consequences of this far-reaching proposition. Every day some new group of people in the country are beginning to realize that this is affecting them, that it is affecting the country ; whereas a few weeks ago, or a few days ago, they

had no knowledge that this proposition would affec-t them in the slightest degree. Tile area of those who are beginning to feel doubt as to the wisdom of this measure is enlarging with every succeeding day.
Now, I want to ask the government why should they take this leap in the dark? Had the government any mandate from the people to do this? We had elections in 1900, in 1904, in 1908, and not one syllable concerning reciprocity with the United Kiates was uttered on the platforms- by either Liberals or Conservatives in those elections. We were told by the premier, when he went to the west, that there would be no tariff changes without a commission, or at least without an opportuity for discussion. And yet there are tariff changes in this' Bill that wipe out completely some particular industries, and the people whose livelihood is taken away have not had the slightest suspicion that any such thing was in contemplation. And yet, Mr. -Speaker, two men in camera, without the knowledge of a single soul outside the government, make, on behalf of eight million people a hard and fast agreement, an agreement that spells difficulty and sacrifice for thousands, an agreement that spells ruin for many ; and then, when people come forward and ask that the sentence _ be mitigated, they are simply met with the statement : Not one word, it is all or nothing ; this country is pledged, our credit is given, it is too late, there is the door. Talk about despotism ; there was never anything in the history of Russia that for absolute despotism equals the manner in which this arrangement has been made.
But, says the government, this is a bargain which is advantageous to both the contracting parties, a bargain for the good of Canada and for the good of the United States. We must concede something, we are told. That is true, but do the advantages that are to be obtained in return for our concessions greatly outweigh the sacrifices? Let ns inquire for a few moments what are some of the things we are called upon 'to give up in order to have the privileges which the government newspapers tell us are so very great in this reciprocity measure. Let us examine what we get in return for what we give. Let us see whether we could not have got all that is worth getting by waiting a bit, and then we might have spared ourselves sacrifices.
Now, when we come to consider the cost to Canada of the concessions that we are to obtain from the United States, as the first item of cost I would place the unsettling of our trade conditions. Since confederation this country has been steadily progressing, during the greater portion of that time. We have built up a great interprovincial trade, with an enormous amount of business within each province and between the provinces. It is stated that eighty per cent of all we produce is sold in Canada, either in the province in which it is produced, or in the neighbouring provinces. Now, these producers and these consumers have made a large number of business connections one with the other, ramified throughout the Dominion of Canada. There is a constant ebb and flow taking place between the east and the west, and the west and the east, of the commodities they interchange one with the other. The men who entered into these business arrangements have made trade connections with the expectation that there would be in them an element of permanency. They did not anticipate that one stroke of the pen would throw their whole business into disorder. It was reasonable to suppose that if changes were to be made they would be made gradually, after due warning and that they would be made with *due regard for the circumstances. Now what do we find? We find all these interests thrown into confusion. The eastern, miller, the eastern packer to-day does not know where, if this agreement is ratified, he is going to get his raw material. He does not know how much of his home market he will be able to conserve, he does not know whether he can do any export trade whatever, and he finds himself facing a dis-loeatim of trade conditions that is a most serious thing for him. The eastern shipper who sends his butter, fruit and meats over all that long string of provinces to, the Pacific coast and who has been accustomed to place such and such quantities at different central inland points finds that the whole trade is likely to be dislocated and he does not know what he is face to fact with.
The British Columbia fruit grower finds his market in Alberta and Saskatchewan taken from him. The Alberta raiser of cattle and grain finds that his British Columbia market is likely to -be lost. So, all along the line these dislocations of trade are likely to be enormous. The lake carriers are likely to lose their water traffic. The railway companies will lose much of their trade *and ocean steamship companies are wondering how their cargo will hereafter be obtained. So, all along the line we have uneasiness in the businesses affected and a recognition of the fact that these unsettled conditions may mean a great deal. Such a rash and sudden dislocation will mean a heavy loss to many and failure to not a few It will mean financial stringency, I believe, in many parts of this country. I believe that among bankers it will be found necessary to curtail the credits of some of their customers, and it will mean a withdrawal of capital and a lack of confidence on the part of people with capital to invest in Canada. I make this prophecy in all earnestness that there will be a long account on the

debit side, and that the results of many years of prosperity will be wiped out before the debt, the loss, is made up from the unsettlement of our trade, i When yfi cime to count the cost there is another thing that we must take into consideration, and it is that this proposition, if it becomes law, is the inevitable abandonment by Canada of the principle of protection all along the line. There are no two ways about that. Since 1879 wa have built up this country under protection; we have diversified development and diversified employment. We are making an allround nation, and we have been committed to that policy until this time. Now, protection to have any possible excuse, any logical defence, must be claimed by all and granted to all classes of the community. You cannot make fi3h of one and flesh of another. You cannot say to one class of the community: There' is no protection for what vou produce, and say to another class of the community i We will maintain the protection on what you produce. If you remove all protection from agriculture and leave no protection whatever for any of the farmers throughout Canada, how long do you suppose the farmers of Canada will be content to allow the manufacturers to have protection if they can have none? How long do you suppose the farmers, whose produce is open to the competition of the whole world, will consent to pay the price of protection for the articles they use? That same feeling actuates the farmers on both sides of the line. Just let me read to the House a few clauses from a lesolution that was passed at the National Grange meeting, held on the 4th February in New York. The National Grange represents a million farmers in thirty states. Here is part of the resolution;
The Bill provides for tlie admission free of duty of all Canadian farm products. Since Canada is the only country from which any! considerable quantity of these products can1 under any circumstances be imported, this! would result in practically free trade in everything the farmer produces.
While putting farm products on the free list the reciprocity Bill make no material reduction in the high tariff rates on all the manufactured articles the farmer buys, and therefore gives no relief from the heavy burden of taxation- imposed by these duties.
The theory on which our protective policy has always been defended is that all classes and interests are equally entitled to protection.
Then further down it reads;
We hold that the farmers should receive exactly the same measure of protection as is given the manufacturers, and that there must be no reduction of duties on farm products either by reciprocity or tariff revision, unless the duties on all manufactured articles are at the same time correspondingly lowered.


Herbert Brown Ames: Just at the same time there appeared in the New York ' Evening Post ' this significant editorial. It was addressed to the Democrats in the hope that the Democrats might facilitate the passage of this agreement through Congress :
Tariff revision is not likely, even on general principles, to lose favour by scoring an initial victory; people are apt, when they have got a part of something they have been trying for, to be all the more eager to get the rest. The fact that they have got the bars down for butter and eggs and wheat will not tend to reconcile them to buying shoddy blankets and clothes at prices that would pay for woollen ones if the tariff were out of the way.
Remember, this is in the United States.
But in addition to this, there is a special reason for not being afraid that reciprocity will kill tariff revision. How about the farmers in the border states who are squealing now over the threatened competition of Canadian producers ? When their share of the tariff has been taken away, is it likely that tlvev will be as well satisfied as they are now to 'help feed the other beneficiaries? Will thev vote to stick to the high tariff for the manufacturers when they must be content with little or none for themselves?
What is said on the other side of the line is said, in this same strain exactly, by the farmers of this country. Just another instance; by a stroke of the pen salt is made free There is invested $1,500,000 by the Windsor Salt Works in western Ontario, a company which has a pay roll of $60,000 each year. Their salt is now made free, but they still have to pay the full duty on their coal, which is their raw material. Do you tell me that if the people who have been engaged in that protected industry for years, find their protection wholly removed, they are going to continue to advocate protection for others? That will be what the farmer would say, and we will have the butter maker, the fruit grower, the vegetable- grower, the salt manufacturer and a great many others saying; If there is no protection for me there shall he none for the rest of you. If the outworks of protection are stormed it will not be long until the citadel will come down as well. The government has been saying to the manufacturers; Do not disturb yourselves; vou will not be affected, but the government is opening up a stream, the volume of which it will be unable to check after it has once commenced to flow. You have rendered the position of protection illogical. You have made it class legislation. You cannot have, fr^e trade for half the community and protection for the other half. You open floodgates that vou cannot close, and you will find that if this reciprocity treaty goes through there will be no stopping the flood until the last vestige of protection in Can-

ada is wiped out. If protection is wiped out in Canada and the United States as against one another if we have free trade across the border and a common tariff against the world, how long will it be before political union will follow?
When we are counting up the cost, Mr. Chairman, we must not lose sight of the fact that we lose our fiscal independence. That has been discussed a good deal this afternoon and denied; nevertheless, the fact remains true. This is not a treaty, says the Finance Minister; it is a pact which may be changed at will. Well, he has read to us this afternoon from this blue-book, and he has told us that we shall be absolutely free to make any change in the tariff of Canada that we see fit; that both countries that are at the present time parties to this arrangement shall be able to make' any change they like at any time. Let us see if that really is so. Supposing that this tariff arrangement has been in effect for five years, that we find that' it injures us, and we desire to make a change; the moment we do so the Americans resort to reprisals, and every interest in Canada that stands to lose by these reprisals falls upon this government or the government that may replace it and says: You must not sacrifice us, and the government says: Ah, but it is only a little thing. And so they grin and bear it. And step by step there will be that constant encroachment. It is the old story of the camel and the tent^the camel gets one foot in first, then his second foot, then his shoulder, then his head, and soon the camel is entirely in the tent and there is no room for anybody else. Or, if the Americans are the ones who are injured and they desire a change shall we dare to make any reprisals? Did we dare make any reprisals last spring when they threatened us with the big stick? Not at all. Shall we dare to make reprisals? No. there would be too many Canadians who would be seriously injured. And so we will grin and bear it. And I do not see how, Mr. Speaker, if this goes into effect and great avenues of trade are created flowing north and south instead of east and west, I do not see how it will be possible for us to take back anything we have given because the whip hand will be with the larger partner and the stronger partner can threaten us and make us suffer any time. Our fiscal independence henceforth-although on paper I admit we have absolute freedom- -our fiscal independence henceforth will be in the hands of the authorities at Washington. They can hurt us and they can hurt us severely; we can hurt them taut very little and do our very worst. Is it wise to put all our eggs into one basket and then leave the carrying of that basket to those whose interest it may be to let the basket drop? What would be the worst loss that we could inflict upon them? It would be to take
away a market of from eight to ten millions of people; the loss they could inflict on ua would be to take away a market of ninety or a hundred millions of people on certain commodities which by that time had begun to flow in that direction. They could injure us infinitely more than we could injure them, and when they see fit to do so they have a leverage upon us-a leverage upon our commercial and political future the strength of which it is hard even now to begin to realize. How can there be any stability or any permanence under such circumstances? There is actually no stopping place until you have reached the place where you have complete commercial union and the larger partner dominates the policy of both.
Now, there is another price we are called upon to pay. We are called on to give up our export identity. We have special advantages in Canada for raising certain articles for export and this paternal government has endeavoured in a very large measure to educate our people to make the most of these special advantages. We have a rich soil, plenty of rainfall, a cool climate, so that there are certain things that we can produce admirably. We have gone in for export business and spent very large sums of money in improving our methods, and in rendering it possible for our commodities to reach the markets of the world. The excellent quality of our products has become recognized. The Canadian name is worth something when stamped on a box of cheese or a barrel of apples. But, hereafter it will have no value in excess of the value that may be given to the mixed commodity of the North American continent. Wheat so carefully graded and guarded hitherto will go down to Duluth or else to Buffalo and there it will be mixed with the inferior American grades and exported from a United States port as grain from North America. The mixture and export of this grain will make such a thing as Manitoba No. 1 hard and No. 1 Northern disappear; in the future there will be no such thing, but there will be substituted for it a mixture that will go abroad as wheat from the North American continent, and the price will fall accordingly. That mixture will enter into competition with the mixture from Argentina and Australia, and Canadian wheat will be only what its value is to tone up the weaker mixture of (the other countries. Take our cheese as another example. We have been working with a great deal of energy to secure a reputation for Canadian cheese in the British market. We have given them an honest article; we have replaced the American article by the very honesty of our product. But, now, the cheese factories of both countries can ship indiscriminately through their ports, and it will be perfectly impossible hereafter to get Cana-



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dian cheese in any way distinguishable from American cheese. We must come down to their level; there will be North American cheese hereafter and a North American price; such a thing as Canadian cheese will be practically unknown. The same is true about bacon. We have made special arrangements to cater to the British market and we are sending $6,000,000 or $7,000,000 worth of bacon annually, and the hogs are specially grown in Canada and cured in a special manner for the British market. Hereafter there will be no opportunity of distinguishing our bacon products; Canadian bacon on the British market in future will be simply a product of North America. We have been endeavouring for a long time to secure the removal of the embargo on Canadian cattle. We have told them that our- cattle were Sound and well and that our quarantine arrangements prevented diseased cattle coming in from the United States. Is there any chance of our getting that embargo removed now? Certainly we cannot; we must let all the cattle from Hudson bay to Texas into the port of Montreal hereafter.
And, when we are counting the cost, we must also remember that a preference as far as Great Britain, is concerned now becomes impossible. We have lost completely the identity of what we export. The government may increase the preference on British goods if they see fit; the government after cajoling the manufactures and bringing them on year after yeaT to imagine they were in fancied security, may, as a counter demonstration of loyalty decide to make that exhibition at the expense of the Canadian manufacturers. They can reduce the duties on the goods coming from England into Canada just as far as they like, but they can never hope to get any preference in the British market hereafter. Our products will be undistinguishable in the future from the products of the United States, and that renders a preference for us absolutely impossible. And so I think Mr. Bourassa was not very far wrong, when, in Ms newspaper not long ago, resuming at the end of a series of articles bis appreciation of the result that this convention would have upon Canada, he wrote: ^ Consbitue-t-elle un obstacle infranchissable a l'union douaniere de Tempi re ? Oui-et c'est le motif qui, a nos yenx, milite le plus en sa faveur.
Does' thist constitute an insurmountable obstacle to a tariff union within the empire? Yes it does. And that is the very reason which in my eyes militates in its favour.
Is that the reason which militates in its favour with the Prime Minister?
Rodolphe Lemieux: What paper is the hon. gentleman quoting from?


Herbert Brown Ames: From ' Le Devoir.'


Herbert Brown Ames: 


Rodolphe Lemieux: Signed by Mr. Bourassa?


Herbert Brown Ames: Signed by Mr. Bourassa. Let me read from the New York 'American' under the heading ' America Cuts Loose from the British Empire,' the following:
In ratifying the 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. And the prosperity of the western continent will receive an immense impetus through a definite a final disentanglement from the intrigues of European politics.
That is how it is viewed by the Americans. Let me read this extract fro-m the New York ' Herald ' of February 1, 1911:
The discussion of the last few days shows that the key to the imperial reciprocity situation, so far as Canada may be a party to it, is held by the United States.
Yes, that will be the result; the key of the imperial reciprocity situation so far as Canada is concerned will hereafter be held by the United States, and can be used only with the consent of the United States. When the right hon. the Prime Minister and his associates go over to the Imperial Conference in May next, they will go and confess to their friends from other parts of the British Empire that as far as they are concerned they can do nothing in respect of fiscal matters without consulting Washington. We formerly enjoyed the proud position of being the mistress in our own house and daughter in our mother's house. Hereafter we are no longer the mistress in our own house and we become the stepdaughter in our mother's house, and can not even sign our own name without the consent of the dominant party.
Although the contrary has been frequently asserted, I would like again to bring to the attention of the Finance Minister the fact that this proposition does affect the British preference-at least, in one very important item; that is, the item of rolled plates. I cannot see how he ever allowed that to slip into the agreement. Formerly the duty on rolled plates coming from the United States to Canada was 5 per cent, although we permitted them to come from Great Britain free. They are now made free to both countries, and the result is that the whole of our trade, amounting to $4,500,000 annually, will go to the American steel trust.


William Stevens Fielding: That article is now on our free list? What we did was to secure its free admission to the United States.


Herbert Brown Ames: You will not send one ton to the United States, but you will transfer 50,000 tons that now come to Canada from Great Britain in British bottoms to the - American steel trust.


William Stevens Fielding: We have more faith in our manufacturers than my hon. friend.


Herbert Brown Ames: The American steel trust will deal with this as with the other opportunities which the Finance Minister has given them to control the markets of Canada, and I can see no hope of benefit to Canadian interests.
Now, we are sometimes told that there are many benefits from this arrangement. I do not deny that there are some benefits, of course, but I do venture to say that if we had not been so precipitate, we could possibly have got most of these benefits without having made the sacrifices that we have made. The New York ' Journal of Commerce,' an independent paper, com. menting on the situation, said the other day:
The concessions we (the United States) made 8 re' in themselves for our benefit, and most if not all of them it would be wise to make if we got nothing in return. The concessions of Canada are also for our benefit as wel as that of the people of Canada.
I think there is little doubt that we would have got the greater portion of these concessions without having to make sacrifices for them. There is a moribund administration at Washington. The new Congress has been elected on a pledge to reduce the tariff all along the line. Would it not have been wiser for us to have waited to see what they would do before we rushed in and gave concessions? Would it not have been wiser also to have waited until after the Imperial Conference? Then we would have been in a position to see how far our neighbours to the south would go of their own initiative, and if it were then necessary to make a limited treaty with them on articles on which they were not prepared themselves to give us freedom of access to their markets, it would have been a right and proper thing to do so. One has only to read the letter of President Taft, which has often been quoted in this House, to see how much the United States realize that they are in need of our raw products. The whole letter teems with expressions to that effect:	' We are exhausting our own, we shall soon need more, we must have those of Canada, let us take this opportunity to secure them.' That is the whole tenor of the letter from beginning to end. And yet our ministers rushed down precipitately and practically gave away our whole hand before the time.


William Stevens Fielding: Will my hon. friend say in what respect we are giving them concessions as respects access to our raw materials?


Herbert Brown Ames: I have shown a good many things that we have sacrificed.


William Stevens Fielding: My hon friend says that we rushed to give away our raw materials to them. W'ill he show by anv concession that we are proposing to give them any more access to our raw materials than they have to-day?


Herbert Brown Ames: Yes, there are many.


William Stevens Fielding: Mention a few.


Herbert Brown Ames: Wheat, for example. Tt does not go free.


William Stevens Fielding: Is my hon. friend referring to wheat coming into Canada or wheat going out of Canada?


Herbert Brown Ames: I am referring to wheat going to the United States.


William Stevens Fielding: They are absolutely free to do as they like. It is no concession on our part that makes wheat free into the United States.


Herbert Brown Ames: I will deal with that when I come to it. Now, I want to look at some of these alleged benefits and see what they mean-whether they are all wool and a yard wide and without serious drawbacks. We are told that this arrangement is for the benefit of the Canadian farmer-that he stands to gain by it all along the line, I admit that when the farmer first hears that he is to have access to the American market, he was inclined to favour this arrangement. But when the farmers of this country begin to learn what tags are on what is given to them, they will not be so sure that they want the present which the Finance Minister is offering to them if they have to take all the responsibilities that go with it.
I think it is a self-evident proposition that in a reciprocity agreement between countries which produce similar products, where one country is weaker than the other, the smaller of the two stands to endure the maximum of suffering. The United States and Canada raise identical products, and the United States can raise them cheaper than they can be raised in Canada, although the prices are sometimes higher there than in Canada; but they have the oportunities and the climatic conditions which render it possible for them to raise the raw products cheaper than we in Canada can. They raise wheat and cattle and hogs and dairy products, and we the smaller country stand to suffer the greater, loss on a falling market. Even at the present time, notwithstanding the duties, there is more of nearly all agricultural products imported into Canada from the United States than go into the United States from Canada. The Minneapolis ' Journal ' gives a list of these-horses, apples, grapes, cherries, cranberries, potatoes, melons, corn, barley, dressed poultry, eggs, dried fruits, and a number of other articles; and the same paper adds:
Some persons in this country do not appreciate how much, we have the best of it in

a free exchange of agricultural products with Canada.
The Michigan bean growers evidently do not. But, I judge from the equanimity with which the farmers generally receive the agreement, they are on the whole well pleased and that they do understand they have the best of the trade.
There is too much our farmers can grow in abundance which the Canadian cannot grow well or cannot grow at all, yet which the Canadian must have. The few figures I have given you at random from the customs reports on last year's business between the two countries seem to make that clear. Of course, if on so -many different products the balance was so heavily in our favour in spite of a high duty, it must be apparent that ur.der a free exchange the American farmer will derive a very great benefit from the natural stimulation of the trade, provided this agreement is ratified.
And the expectation of this paper is that when the barriers are taken down altogether, the American farmer will undoubtedly have the best of it. Now, at times in the United States there are enormous surpluses of agricultural products. Taking them throughout the year, prices vary much more in the United States than in Canada. There are times when they are higher than with us, but there are also times when they are lower and they are more subject to speculation. Our farmers have a safer market on the* whole, taking one year with another. At present there is a great glut of many farm products in the United States. I have here a report in the New York ' Produce Review ' of the 4th of January, which shows that the stocks of butter held in New York, Chicago, Boston and Philadelphia at present are eri-ormous. These four leading	storage	centresheld on amounts:-	January 4	the following	Packages	1911.	1910.	1909.New York..	.. .. 237,300	134,400	183,400Chicago.. ..	.. .. 350,000	166,000	250,000Boston.. ..	.. .. 236,010	154,200	172,300Philadelphia	.. .. 64,690	35,000	63,600


Totals ..: .. .. 888,000	489,500	669,300
That butter was bought last fall at high prices by speculators, who would be glad enough to-day to sell it at cost, but will be forced to take even less. If there were no duty on butter to-day, our Montreal merchants would not only bring butter from New York but from England, which they shipped in the summer, and the English people would be glad to send their butter back at several cents less than they paid for it.
Sometimes hogs are higher in Buffalo than in Toronto, but the market changes.. Three years ago live hogs sold in Chicago at $3.90 per 100 pounds, and four years ago at $4.25; and during the same years in Canada they were selling at $5.90 and Mr. AMES.
$6.25 per 100 pounds. Taking the last 20 years, the average price, in 18 years'out of these 20, paid in Canada for hogs has been higher than in the United States.
During the last three months lamb has been cheaper in Chicago than in Toronto. To-day it is one cent cheaper, and Hamilton is actually importing lamb from the United States and paying the duty.
In eggs there, is to-day a glut in the American market, and refrigerator eggs are being imported into Canada at 14 cents per dozen free on board at Chicago.
Butter is selling in Chicago at 18 to 20 cents per pound, of the same quality as we are paying 24 cents per pound for today in Montreal. If there were no tariff our Canadian farmers would be swamped in a large number of articles which they have to sell.
I admit that the Canadian farmer might secure at certain times of the year higher prices by having the American market open to him;' but he stands the danger of having his home market made a dumping ground whenever there is a surplus in the United States, Great Britain or anywhere else, and his prices will be knocked down in consequence. What our farmers have hitherto enjoyed is a steady market at reasonable prices, not subject to the fluctuations of the American market; but hereafter whenever there is. an overstock in the United States, the surplus will be dumped on the -Canadian market. So that after all, even from the farmers' point of view there is very great doubt as to whether a mutual interchange of farm products with the Americans would be, taking everything into consideration, to our ultimate advantage.
There is another serious phase which has not been touched upon very much by those who spoke for the government or by the newspapers which support it. It must not be forgotten that free trade in natural products between the United States and Canada means practically free trade with the whole world. By letting in the United States, under the terms of this agreement, we also let in all British possessions and no less than a dozen foreign countries on exactly the same terms. The agreement states:-
The advantages hereby granted to the United States shall be extended to the United Kingdom and the several British colonies and possessions with respect to the commerce with Canada.	|
Whatever advantages we give to the United States we automatically extend to every British possession throughout the whole world, and also to fully, a dozen foreign countries. I know. what the retort will be. Hon. gentlemen opposite will say: Why! Would you give these advan-

tages to the United States and not give them to British colonies? I reply, certainly, I would not treat colonies of the British Empire worse than the United States; no one should be treated better than our own kith and kin. But what I do object to is that these concessions and the sacrifices consequent upon them are the mere incidents of a bargain with a foreign nation and not the result of a straight contract among principals. Instead of letting all members of the family in at the front door, you are sending them around to the back door and then admitting them on a stranger's ticket. What is more, you are letting in a dozen strangers besides without any ticket at all. What does it mean to have free entry of natural products? Take for example the producing centres of the southern hemisphere. Let us look at Australia, New Zealand and the Argentine republic and see how far our farmers can compete with the farmers of these countries. We have in Canada a severe winter during which prices usually go up and our farmers labour under climatic conditions which are a serious handicap. But the three countries I have mentioned have in the first place, no severe winters, and in the second place, our winter is their summer. Consequently when our farmers have the smallest quantity of produce for their home market and expect their best prices, at that very time there is in each of these three countries the greatest surplus for export and prices are lower than at any other period. Then our wheat fields and our great cattle ranches are 1,500 to 2,000 miles away from our seaports, so that it costs a great deal to bring these products to the Atlantic and Pacific sea-boards. But in Australia, the Argentine republic and New Zealand, their pastures and wheat fields are not more than 300 miles from their seaports, and their railway facilities are excellent, so that transportation costs them but a fraction of what it costs us.
Take for example Australia. Australia exports annually from. 40,000,000 to 50,000,000 pounds of frozen beef, and the Australian government gives the producer of frozen beef every facility and assistance. The most of it is brought down on the hoof to the packing establishments on the sea-board and is shipped in cold storage. I went through some of the establishments in that country and know that they are equipped with the latest improvements, and they consequently export their products to the best advantage. Australia sends from 90,000,000 to 100,000,000 pounds of frozen mutton and lamb out each year, all carefully killed, kept in refrigerators, covered in cotton bags, and sent to the English and other markets in cold storage. Australia exports from 50,-
000,000 to 75,000,000 pounds of butter annually. She has a beautiful strip of country, about 1,500' miles long between the mountain ranges and the sea thoroughly well watered, about 200 miles wide, and consequently produces dairy products in lar;ge quantities!, .always close to the port of shipment. The quantity of dairy products produced in Australia is rapidly increasing. She has also immense wheat fields. Last year her wheat crop was as large as that of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta, and it was raised not more than 300 miles from the sea-board. If you can imagine Manitoba having a seaport on Lake Winnipeg, you can understand the advantage which Australia enjoys in the export of wheat.
New Zealand is famed for its wool, wheat and dairy products. In 1909, she exported $18,500,000 worth of frozen lamb and mutton, and $13,500,000 worth of butter and cheese. Little New Zealand sends to the British market twelve times as much butter as Canada sends. She sends out 5,000,000 carcasses of frozen lamb, mutton and sheep in a single season. I think it well to read to the House a few of the quotations showing what farm produce is worth in New Zealand. I have here a statement from the Weekly Report of the Trade and Commerce Department, page 138, which gives the prices of produce, live stock and provisions for the provincial district of Auckland during the past year.-Let me make a few quotations:-
Fat cattle, per head, $30.
Fat sheep, per head, $3.50.	1
Fat lambs, $2.50.
Beef ready for the butcher, 7 cents per lb.
Mutton, 6 cents per pound.
Veal, 9 cents per pound.
Pork, 12 cents per pound.
Lamb, 9 cents per pound.
Fresh butter, 20 cents per pound.
Cheese, 14 cents per pound.
Ducks, $1.25 per pair.
Fowl, 75 cents per pair.
Turkeys, $1.25 apiece.
Bacon, 15 cents per pound.	1
Ham, 16 cents per pound.
Eggs, 21 cents per dozen.
These are comparatively low prices, when you consider that this farm produce, or nearly all of it, will be brought free into Canada', and with only the freight rate against it.
Then, let us take the Argentine. The Argentine is one of the countries that comes under the most favoured nation clause, and consequently enjoys all the rights that we give to the United States. We were greatly indebted last night to the Postmaster General (Mr. Lemieux) for giving us a good deal of very valuable information regarding the Argentine-not knowing, I think, that it is one of the most favoured nations.

ilOO
However, we can utilize some of the information he gave us. For example, he said that the wages for farm hands in the Argentine were about 64 cents a day, without board, as I understood him. And he said that the rate in Russia was from 40 to 45 cents a day-and Russia is. another country whose products will hereafter come free into Canada on this most favoured nation basis. Now, the Argentine Republic has a trade which is larger even than our own. She exports $400,000,000 worth of goods, 90 per cent of which is live stock and agricultural products. Argentina ships to Great Britain six times as much beef as New Zealand and Australia together, and one and a half times as much mutton and lamb. In 1909 Argentina produced wheat to the value of $320,000,000, and exported over 100,000,000 bushels. The flax crop of Argentina is valued at $115,000,000. Cattle, sheep, horses, donkeys and mules as live stock are exported, usually to Great Britain. When you consider that the Argentine is one of ihe countries that can hereafter ship to Canada, that the Canadian Pacific railway are now arranging a line from Halifax to Buenos Ayres, with cold storage accommodation; that the government are asking us this year to vote a subsidy to a steamship line to the West Indies and South America; that a company is being formed in Montreal for the express purpose of exploiting the business between Canada and Argentina-you will see that the facilities for shipment between Montreal and Argentina in the summer, and between Halifax and St. John and Argentina in the winter in these agricultural products will soon be most excellent, and that we may expect to have our local markets, to a very large degree, supplied by the produce that will come from that country. Be it remembered that the Argentine is peopled mainly by Italians, Spaniards and Germans, who have a scale of living quite inferior to that which our farmers will submit to, and who, as the Postmaster General tells us, are willing to work for 64 cents a day and board themselves. We can see what pressure will be brought to bear on the farmers of Canada to reduce their scale of living and cut their necessities in wages down to the Argentine standard.
How will the products of these three countries coming into Canada in winter especially, affect the home markets on the sea-board? Chilled beef from the Argentine and Australia, frozen lamb and mutton from New Zealand can be laid down in Halifax, St. John or Montreal at ruinous prices. The f.o.b. export price on chilled beef of the entire New Zealand product last year was 51 cents per pound. With a duty of three cents per pound, we have kept that meat out, for it would cost 81 cents, plus freight. But with a duty of II cents Mr. AMES.
that means that it could be laid down in Canada for 7 cents. And this excellent chilled beef from Argentina and Australia, laid down in Halifax, St. John and Montreal, will bring down the price of every beef animal in the eastern provinces.	Take, also, the case of New
Zealand lamb and mutton. Last year the entire quantity of the New Zealand product exported averaged 64 cents per pound, and even sold at less. With a protective duty of 3 cents per pound, the price would be 91 cents, which would be enough to keep it out of our markets. But reduce the duty to 11 cents and you bring the price down to 7i cents, and you make it possible to lay this lamb and mutton down at 8 cents .per pound upon our Atlantic or Pacific coasts, and that is a price which our farmers, Who produce for'the home, market, will be unwilling to accept if they are to compete. Australian butter can to-day be laid down in bond in Montreal at 23 cents. A duty of 4 cents means a price of 27 cents, which is prohibitive. But take the duty off and our farmers will have to get down to 23 cents, the price at which it is possible to bring this Australian butter in. In January, 1909, the Montreal produce men imported 5,000 packages of Australian butter. The market at that time stood at 271 cents for Canadian creamery. It fell within a month to 19 cents. Eastern township butter makers, who get 25 cents to 26 cents for what is shipped from the eastern townships throughout the west, would have to cut down their prices. Today a splendid trade is done from the Eastern townships with the west; 100,000 packages go westward every year, and are scattered all along as far west as Vancouver. With reciprocity in force there will he nothing more of that kind. Australian butter coming in from the west and New Zealand butter from the east will each monopolize half our continent, and will meet in competition at Winnipeg.
The same is true at the Pacific coast. There is a large interchange now between Alberta and British Columbia. Meat, grain, dairy products and feed pass west from Alberta to British Columbia, and lumber and fruit pass eastward from British Columbia to Alberta. This trade is profitable to both, and should be continued and encouraged But if this reciprocity measure ' goes through, chilled beef and mutton from Australia will flow into British Columbia, and there will not be a city or a mining camp m British Columbia that will want a pound of Alberta beef. And the same will be true of butter, cheese, poultry and eggs. New Zealand butter can be laid down in Vancouver at 241 cents but, with the present duty, 281 cents, this is prohibited. The millers of British Columbia will grind Antipodean wheat, for they will not pay the

freight rates to haul over three ranges of mountains when they have only to pay ocean carriage from Australia or New Zealand to Vancouver.
Taking the question by and large, it seems to me that natural products will become cheaper at the ocean ports and for a certain distance, inland. They will be lower in winter. They may possibly be higher in summer, owing to the opportunity afforded our farmers for sending them to the United States. But our farmer, on the whole, will be worse off than before, because he will have to sell his winter 'product at Antipodean prices, and will have to stand the chance of bad times and of Canada being made a dumping ground for the American surplus.
There vras another phrase of this question that I was going to allude to. It had been my intention in this House to move a resolution in favour of reciprocal trade arrangements with Australia. I had made some careful preparation in that direction, and had interviewed some of the Australian ministers, and having brought the correspondence down, it seemed to me that a discussion of this question would be a useful one in the House. But there is no use now in bringing up the question of Canadian-Australian reciprocal trade arrangements. The whole hand of the government is on the table, the game is played. All those items which we want, all those commodities which we could fairly send to them, we cannot now send without the intermixture of American goods. Nearly all the items on which we were prepared to make concessions to Australia, are now free. We are henceforth handicapped both in giving to them and taking from them, because we have no longer a basis or means of negotiation. Let me put on ' Hansard ' this schedule, and you will see what I mean. Australia could export to Canada:
Meats	
Canned meats	
Mutton and lamb.. ..
Poultry	
(Ballon-	
Butter	
Apples	
Grapes	
Oranges	
Peaches	
Salt and a few others
On the other hand,
Formerly.	Nowf
3c. lb.	lie.
271 P-c.	20 p.c.
3c.	lie.
25 p.c.	free.
20 p.c.	5 p.c.
4c. lb.	free.
40c. brl.	free.
2c. lb.	free.
free.	free.
$1 per 100	free.
lbs.	
5c. per 100	free.
lbs.
articles we can
export to Australia from the Pacific coast are limited to lumber, fish and fruit. Our people in British Columbia were expecting to get a great market opened to them. Now, lumber, fish and fruit are all free, and no distinction is possible between Canada and the United States, and it is impossible for us to get any preference in their market. Consequently, the whole game is played.
Then, under these most- favoured-nation treaty arrangements, there are many other countries we have to consider, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Spain, Switzerland and many others. Norway and Sweden export bacon, salt pork and butter, condensed milk, salt and pickled-fish. Denmark exports butter, bacon and salted meats, eggs and potatoes. In 1909 Denmark exported eggs of the value of $8,250,000. Russia exports eggs, and Siberia exports butter. Spain exports grapes and dried fruits. These countries can now get their goods into Canada without our giving anything in exchange ; in other words, we have practically instituted free trade in natural products with all the world, and the cheapest producer of all the competitors will set the pace for the rest. If the Italian, the German or the Spaniard can live on less than the farmer in Canada, the Canadian farmer will have to come down to his level; there is no other alternative.
Now let me come to the last phase of my argument and inquire whether there is not a better way for Canada to progress and develop than the way the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Customs have chosen on our behalf. Speaking generally, it seems to me that it is bad policy for a nation to send its raw material out of the country. It was by a strict adherence to that policy, that the German Empire has prospered so greatly, that France has prospered, and that England has prospered and is prospering to-day. Our natural resources represent potential employment, wealth and prosperity. They spell towns, and railways, and industrial establishments, when they are worked up in the country. What we cannot utilize ourselves, we are in duty bound, I think, to hold in trust for those who come after us. To export our raw materials, and to enable the stranger to grow rich in working up our materials, is to draw upon our national capital from the bank, and to present it to outsiders* What would you think of a manufacturer, a shoe manufacturer, for example, who, having bought sole leather at 20 cents a pound, and finding it was worth 22 cents a pound, should forthwith, sell his supply, and close his factory ? You would speak of him as bereft, of his senses, and yet that is exactly what is meant by the proposition we are now contending against. I have always cherished the idea for Canada that she should become a highly developed and self contained country, but this legislation seriously endangers that ideal. It is to my mind, the duty of each one to have regard to the welfare of all, for only thus can a common nationality be upbuilt. Now I contend that there is a better way to build up Canada, than the one that has been proposed by the negotiators, and le|_^me illustrate it by way of analyses. Suppose that

A,	B and C discover a mine, and agree to exploit it. A, it is agreed, should mine the ore, B should build a railroad and carry the ore across the country, and C should erect a smelter. A, who mines the ore, is to get 50 cents a ton, and he will employ 100 men.
B,	who builds and operates the railway, also gets 50 cents a ton, and he employs 100 men. C, who constructs the smelter, gets 50 cents a ton, and he employs 100 men. Together they employ 300 men, and together they get $1.50 a ton from working up this Taw material. Now, one morning B and C wake up and find to their astonishment, that while they did not know of it, A has made an arrangement with a party on the other side of the mountain to seli his raw material at 60 cents a ton, instead of 50 cents. A says, I am getting 10 cents a ton more than I got before, and what have you got to say to that? He sells his raw material at 60 cents to the man on the other side of the line; and so B's tramway has nothing to carry, his 100 men are thrown out of employment; C has nothing to smelt, and his 100 men are thrown out of employment. 200 man are thrown out of employment in order that A may get 10 cents more a ton on his ore, and only 60 cents a ton is kept in the country on that raw material, instead of the $1.50 which was previously left in the country.
1 think it is perfectly fair to apply that analogy to some of the items in this schedule, and particularly to wheat. We hear a great deal about the great concessions that are to be obtained for our farmers by free wheat in the American market, and what great things it means to Canada. Let us see if Canada will realize any benefit from it. The Canadian northwest was purchased and was developed for, and by, the entire people of Canada. The debt incurred thereby, rests upon the shoulders of all the people of Canada, and I do not think it unjust to say that the benefits of that northwest should accrue to all the people of Canada. Now suppose we take a bushel of wheat, for which the northwest farmer now gets 85 cents. If that bushel of wheat passes eastward, along Canadian lines, the Tailway companies of Canada get 8 cents out of it, the inland shipping companies gets 4 cents, and the port of Montreal gets 1 cent before it leaves the country; therefore, $1 altogether on that wheat is left in the country. Now supposing it is exported south. For the purpose of argument, J am willing to grant that the farmer gets 88 cents, and 2 cents more goes to the road that hauls it to the border, so there are 90 cents left in the country. All the rest of tlm money goes out of the country to the profit of the men in a foreign nation who handle that wheat. In the one case, $1 is left in the country as an equivalent of that bushel of wheat; and in the other case. 90 Mr. AMES.
cents is left in the country, which, from a national point of view, is not satisfactory.
I verily believe that there will be times when the prices will be practically the same. Take the closing quotations yesterday _ for May delivery No. 2 Northern; Fort William 91 cents, Minneapolis 931 cents. The difference is only 21 cents. Is it worth while to allow the wheat of Canada to pass out of the country to be utilized in a foreign land for a difference of 21 cents a bushel? Supposing that it were milled in Canada the advantages would be considerable. The Canadian carriers would profit, the millers would make their flour for export, the Ontario farmer could grow his Ontario wheat, which, mixed with the western wheat, would make exportable flour, and the Ontario farmer will be able to grow no wheat at all unless there is Manitoba wheat to grind with it. Then also the bran and shorts will be distributed among the dairymen and there will be a profit on that for them also. All the good of that is sacrificed by this arrangement. I hold in my hand a very interesting editorial which appears in the Weekly ' Northwestern Miller, of January 8, 1911. I cannot read the whole of the editorial because it is too lengthy, but I think I have time to read several extracts from it which will illustrate better than I could the thought I have in my mind. Here is one. Remember that this is written in Minneapolis from the American point of view, and you will see why the Americans want free wheat in Canada:
In course of time, owing largely to the growth of the Canadian wheat crop and its inability to enter the United States, the export flour trade suffered a serious decline.
. . . Another change is now impending in the trade, and again the ' Northwestern Miller ' goes on record with a prediction: that if the opportunity now at hand to obtain free wheat from Canada is neglected, the American miller will suffer.
Further on:
Bountiful nature has placed at the very threshold of this country a natural wheat field,

This, of course, refers to Canada.
-the like of which has never before been known since the world was made. Tins magnificent source of supply, a mighty empire in itself, produces glorious wheat of unrivalled quality. Its possibilities are difficult to over estimate. The land was created for wheat-raising. This area can and will produce sufficient wheat to keep American millB supplied to double their present capacity, and to extend their usefulness for good to an almost unlimited extent. This territory lies at our very doors. Our nulls are ready and willing to grind its product. Its people would gladly find a market for their grain in the milling centres of the United States. All is favourable to this traffic save one thing, and

that places an insuperable barrier before it. Narrow minded protection has built between the mill which needs the wheat and the farmer who needs the market a wall consisting of an absurd tariff of 25 cents on every bushel of wheat that crosses the boundary.
The disposition of Canada's surplus is a question upon the answer to which depends the future, not only of the milling interests of the Northwest, but indeed of the United States. Canadian mills do not have capacity enough to grind this wdieat.
Well, -why should not their capacity be increased?
If they had the capacity, they would not possess a market for their flour sufficiently large to take it.
Listen to where the Americans expect to find a market.
American mills have both the capacity to grind, and the market to supply.
Should this surplus be shipped abroad, the foreign miller will become possessed of a supply of raw material practically unlimited as to quantity and actually unrivalled as to quality. Therewith he can secure a mixture from which he can produce a flour to rival in strength anything his American competitor can offer. The result must, in the end, inevitably mean the destruction of the American export trade, the shiffting of the American milling centre, the gradual decline of the American milling interest to a purely domestic basis, and its ultimate retrogression to a comparatively unimportant place in the list of large American industries.
Well, where will they shift to? They will come to Canada, of course,
Canada cannot grind the surplus crop of her northwestern territories. If America may not do so, because of her own shortsightedness, it follows that the work will fall to the more fortunate miller in Great Britain or on the continent, whose laws are not framed to forbid the free importation of the raw material. The miller who is able to grind this enormous crop will be the miller of the future: and, where he is, there will be the great mills of the world.
. Are we going to allow the great mills of the world all to be south of the line when we have the raw materials to keep them going?
To obviate the danger which threatens American milling interests from the north, there is but one course. The free admission of the raw material is the sole remedy. Milling in bond under present regulations is impracticable, and almost impossible. Millers who undertake it will find it too cumbersome and expensive to be profitable, the margin in flour at best being but slight.	,
Going further on:
Should foreign millers

That is Canadian of course.
-secure this wheat, they would be enabled thereby to cut off the American export trade, both in wheat and flour.
A terrible thing, would it not be if we in Canada . supplied the raw material by which the Americans could cut off our export trade in wheat and flour.
One bushel mixed with three bushels of the less virile wheat grown in the United States and ground into flour, is sufficient to raise the whole high value.
Then, going on, there is a significant passage which I would like to read before I lay this down.
Turning from the pessimistic to the opposite point of view, the contemplation of the future of American milling with the protective tariff removed and free Canadian wheat secured, the prospect is a grand one. With this enormous and steadily increasing crop free to pursue its natural geographical and commercial channel, flowing into the mills and elevators of the States, a splendid tide of activity and prosperity would follow in its wake. Assured of their future supply of raw material, the mills of America would go forward on their developing course, continuing the march of progress which has brought them to the front. New mills would be built, and capacities enlarged. New markets abroad would be sought and conquered. The returns from this renewed and extended activity would be felt in increased commercial prosperity. New railways would be extended into the wheat-growing territory. American railroads carrying the flour from the mills would secure additional freight. American banks would obtain increased deposits, and greatly enlarged exchange accounts; American mill operatives would be in demand, and payrolls would be increased; mill machinery, bags, barrels and other mill supplies would be required in larger quantities; more money would be in circulation; and the benefit would be felt in every artery of industrial life touched by milling. There would be an increase in grain firms, in elevators, and in every branch of the grain-handling and flourmaking interests. This would be felt in the added value of real estate and in the solid and substantial development of every undertaking and enterprise that makes a community prosperous. Farmers would find a better market for their products: and, in the end, should this crop be assimilated at home rather than abroad, they will secure an average higher price for their wheat because of the ability of the progressive and successful miller to pay more for his raw materia).
There is an article which goes all the way through to show that the milling interests of the American northwest are stationary if not declining, but that if they can only grind Canadian wheat they will not only hold their own market, but the export markets of the world. Is it not better that Canadian wheat should be ground by Canada and that we should have the markets of the world instead of the Americans? Were there time I might apply this same argument to a great many other subjects. The same could be applied to cattle, hogs and a large number of other articles which the farmer produces and which are really

raw material. If as raw materials these go out to supply employment and wealth to others the farmer may get a trifle more at times, but the packing interest suffers, export business becomes impossible, the western market goes to Chicago and the profits of the transportation companies disappear. Canada is poorer if we allow our raw products to go out. I might apply it to hay and we would have the interesting spectacle of seeing our hay going away, and the cattle and farmers going out on the same train to the United States. The same is true of lumber, pulpwood, iron ore and many other things. The farmer will not be unwilling to live and let live. Will he cripple Canadian enterprise to make Americans rich? There is just one suggestion-I make it quite unauthorized-and it is a suggestion that occurs to me because after all we all realize that from the western point of view the opportunity of exporting Canadian grain to the United States is a very great thing, and we must consider that our western friends will not lightly turn down a proposition of that kind.
But 1 think it is for Canada to take into consideration the fact that we have certain geographical and climatic conditions which render it somewhat difficult for our farmers to compete with the farmers of Argentina, Australia and New Zealand, and that it would be quite in line for this government, or for any government that may succeed it, to do something towards removing these disabilities. The price of wheat is, I think it is admitted, fixed by Liverpool, and the grain grower practically throughout the whole world gets the Liverpool price less the cost of transportation from his farm to Liverpool. Figure that back and you will come to the Canadian northwest. Now, if our Canadian western farmer, say at Regina, cannot send his grain as cheaply over Canadian lines to Liverpool as the American farmer at Grand Forks, Dakota, or some place immediately south of Regina, does, then there is something wrong. It may be that the transportation rates are too high; it may be that there are other charges that are more than the traffic can bear. Well, we have a Railway Commission. and if. after thorough investigation, it is found that for similar distances it costs more to send Canadian wheat to the British market than it does American wheat, I, for my part, would rather see a bonus (of 2 or 3 cents a bushel) paid to the Canadian farmers than to see that grain going to the United States. Let us keep our own materials in Canada, and then the Americans will come over to us and they will be welcome, and they will build their factories here, and we will make up the raw materials here, and we will supply our own home markets and compete foT the1 Mr. AMES.
export trade of the world. Sir, Canada would present a sorry sight if she were reduced to the position of digging out and hauling to the nearest railway station her raw materials to have them made up in the country to the south, with all the wealth that accrues from that process going into the pockets of the stranger. There are some who say that this is bound to come anyway, and I think the Minister of Finance told me not long ago that if the Americans wished to take off their duties they have a perfect right to do so. That I admit. I admit that when the Americans need our raw materials they can bring them into their country free of duty. Well, let them do so when they get ready to do it. We can then determine whether it is in our interest to put an export duty on or not, but it will be time enough to face that when it comes. In the meantime, what is the difference between the proposition of the minister and my proposition-the minister's proposition is suicide, the other alternative is murder, and one can die with honour, but one cannot commit suicide with honour. As it is near six o'clock, Mr. Speaker, I shall endeavour briefly to summarize what I have endeavoured to bring to the attention of the House. I consider that at the present time we are doing well and. have been doing well along safe and conservative lines, and to take a leap in the_ dark which may possibly turn out for the Better, but which stands a great chance of turning cut for the worse, would be, under the circumstances. highly inadvisable. As far as this particular bargain is concerned, don't let us lose sight of the fact that it means the unsettling of established conditions, that it means the loss of our fiscal independence, that it means the ultimate abandonment of the principle of protection for all classes in Canada, that it means the loss of our export identity, and that it means farewell to any opportunity for a preference in the British market. These are some of the sacrifices which Canada will be called upon to make, and, after all, why should we make any sacrifices, because, probably we can, without sacrifice, get all the benefits which are worth having. And when we come to look on the so-called benefits we find that where there is reciprocity in similar products between two nations, one of whom is great and powerful and the other small and weak in point of wealth and population, that if anything goes wrong it is the smaller one that stands to suffer every time. Let us further remember that in letting in the United States we are admitting all the British possessions-whom I should like to see admitted, but by the front- door rather than by the back door-and we are also admitting 12 other countries who are giving us absolutely nothing for the priv-

ilege. This, I think, will affect the farmers' home market very greatly at the seaport towns, and for some distance inland. 1 think, taking it by and large, that while the Canadian farmer may occasionally take advantage of American high prices and get a little more for his products in summer, he stands a chance of having his market in winter glutted, and of having to take whatever overflow prices may prevail. In conclusion, I bring to the attention of the House the fact that it is bad policy to export raw products any more than we can help. If it be that we cannot use these raw materials in our own day and generation we should at least have the courage and the manliness to keep them for those who come after us. Canadians are a highly developed and self-contained people. I should not like to see them reduced to the position of being mere hewers of wood and drawers of water; mere burrowers of the raw material to send it out of the country to make others rich. I feel that if we pass this measure we are approaching the parting of the ways; that we are turning our faces, which have hitherto been looking round the world, to the other members of the galaxy of British nations; we are turning our faces away from that ideal, and we are looking southward to a nation that has never treated us in' such a way as to make us particularly desirous to extend special advantages to her. And, Sir, let me say here and now that even if the sacrifice-the temporary financial sacrifice-might be hard on individuals in this country, I think in the long run we will be better off if we continue along the road which we have been following and remain in the rank we at present occupy in the list of nations under the British flag.
Progress reported.
On motion of Mr. Fielding, House adjourned at six o'clock.

Thursday, February 23, 1911,