OCEAN SHIPPING RATES


Mr. A. R. McMASTER (Brome):: Mr. Speaker, with your permission I would like to present on behalf of the special committee appointed to consider the resolution to give the government of Canada control over certain ocean rates, the following as their first, second, third and fourth reports:
Your committee recommend that they be authorized to have their minutes of proceedings and evidence printed from day to day for the use of the members of the committee and that rule 74 be suspended in reference thereto.
Your committee recommend that they be granted leave to sit while the House is in session.
Your committee recommend that the reports on freight rates made by the special committee to inquire into Agricultural Conditions during the 1923 session be referred to the committee.
Your committee recommend that all reports, letters, documents and other papers laid on the table of the House during the present session and referring in any respect to the order of reference to the committee, be referred to the committee.
May I crave your permission, Sir, and that of the House, to move the concurrence in these reports immediately? I do so because they are purely formal and it will tend to expedite the business at the next meeting of the committee, which will not be held until after the Easter recess, when we desire to proceed without delay.


Mr. MEIGHEN:: May I ask the hon.
member who christened the committee with this name?


Andrew Ross McMaster: To examine into ocean freight rates, or give control?


Arthur Meighen: Yes.
Mr. MoM ASTER:	I think it is a
christening for which the clerk of the committee must be responsible. I presume he gathered his inspiration from the speeches delivered in the House in connection with the subject matter.


Mr. SPEAKER:: This motion requires
unanimous consent.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Arthur Meighen: Mr. Speaker, can the
acting leader of the House give us any in-

formation as to when we may expect a report from the delegates sent from this parliament to the Wembley exhibition, and the results of their tour of inspection?


Hon. J. A. ROBB (Acting Minister of Finance) :: I will inquire with regard to a report. Perhaps the deputy minister has it now.
CORRECTION-Mr. LOGAN DUTY ON COAL
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. HANCE J. LOGAN (Cumberland): Mr. Speaker, I desire to make an explanation: In the debate yesterday, when the hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster) was speaking,. I interrupted and stated that the legislature of Alberta had passed a certain resolution in reference to coal duties. I find that I had been misled; it was not the legislature of Alberta that endorsed the increase of coal duties; it was the government of Alberta.


Arthur Meighen: Is that the Progressive government?


Mr. GARLAND (Bow River):: With all due respect to the question of privilege raised by my hon. friend opposite, I beg to point out to him that it was the Premier of Alberta, not necessarily the government.


Mr. LOGAN:: When the premier speaks the government speaks.



RURAL CREDITS-REPORT OF DR. TORY

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. M. N. CAMPBELL (Mackenzie):: May I ask the Acting Minister of Finance if the government has any policy to announce-with regard to the recent report received from Dr. Tory on rural credits?


James Alexander Robb: No, not yet. I will be frank with my hon. friend and say to him that I have not had time to read the report, but I propose to read it during the Easter holiday.



OLD AGE PENSIONS

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. WILLIAM IRVINE (East Calgary):: May I ask whether the old age pensions bill is ready for presentation to the House?


Hon. JAMES MURDOCK (Minister of Labour):: The hon. gentleman will note that there is on the order paper, under Government Notices of Motions, a resolution that is to come before the House as soon as we-get the present business out of the way.

The Budget-Mr. Mackinrwn



THE BUDGET


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Monday, April 6, consideration of the motion of Hon. J. A. Robb (Acting Minister of Finance) that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair for the House to go into committee of Ways and Means, and the proposed amendment thereto of Sir Henry Drayton
Mr. D. A. MACKINNON (Queens):: Mr. Speaker, the problem of finance is always an important one in Canada, and it is getting more complex as the amounts involved become increasingly larger than those of olden times. I think the proposal of the minister who is chargeable with the finances of the country, having to do'with methods of obtaining revenue, is a very good one, namely, to have the assistance of a board of experts who will be able to take up the different items that compose the imports of the country, go into them carefully, and, if they are men of ability and experience in handling tariffs, come to sound and reasonable conclusions. Such men should not be hard to find. In fact, the minister no doubt has in his own department men of ability and experience, but the volume of the work has increased so much that I think it would pay the country well to have such a commission as is proposed by the minister.
I have taken the trouble to look into some of the items of import with a view to understanding the matter thoroughly. I examined the figures with respect to entries for horses and I found that in one case there were $9,000,000 and in another $99,000. It might be thought from these figures that horses could be taxed very heavily and that quite a revenue could thus be provided, but I found upon investigation that most of these horses came in only temporarily, for exhibition purposes and for races, and had gone out of the country afterwards. In fact, the $99,000 was represented by only 123 horses, so that it would not be possible to obtain much of a revenue from an item like that. I mention this only to emphasize the fact that if a commission of, say, three men go into these matters item by item they will know where to recommend an increase and where to recommend a decrease in the duty without resulting disadvantage to any part of the country.
We may have different ideas. There is a school of thought very strongly for free trade, and there is a school of thought very strongly
for protection. We have these two schools, and they are both entitled to their opinion. If the school for protection had had their way last year and had made the duties very high, so that we would have had, say, $100,000,000 of a surplus last year due to protection, it would of course be a great thing to reduce the public debt by that amount, but that burden would have had to come on the people in some way or other, and I think they are not able to stand $100,000,000 more being taken from them through higher tariff duties at the present time. But this board could consider, for instance, the question whether it would be advisable to have free trade within the empire, and propositions of that kind which might help us a great deal in working together. It might take up the proposition whether the tariff should be increased in any one item or another, or reduced. They could take up all these questions and advise the minister and the government on the matter. I need not say anything more on that subject. I think it is a good idea to have this board appointed, for it is a killing business for the Minister of Finance to undertake all this work alone as the head of the department, and we could not long expect to get good men to undertake all this work if the entire burden was left on their shoulders.
I think the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) is also entitled to a great deal of credit in connection with the handling of some of these loans. He had made a saving of 82,500,000 in interest in the loans he has floated, and I think he is to be commended for that. I observe, however, that the loans are floated for short periods, some for so many months, and some for so many years. I would submit with all respect that in Canada to-day, or as soon after this as we can do, a loan of $1,000,000,000 at 3-J per cent should be floated for a term of fifty or sixty years. I think that loan would be taken up. A loan of that kind over a long period would shift the burden, as only the immediate interest would have to paid and there would be a provision for repayment of the principal of the loan in half that period, if need be; but I think we should look ahead and have a long-term loan made by our Finance department in Canada. I think it would be a great help to this country. We are now paying a large amount of interest on our loans, and it is too much for the country to do that and to keep the other necessary works of the country well in hand. In floating a loan like that, it may be a little difficult to find the money, and it will be more difficult still if we go round decrying the country.

The Budget-Mr. Mackinnon
Canada, is destined to be a great country and, I think, is fundamentally sound, if you compare our situation with that of the other nations of the world. Canada is no longer the small colony she was a few years ago. She stands to-day-such was the statement made by a noted man who is well up in finance-seventh amongst the nations of the world in wealth. I think his estimate was put at twenty-two billions of dollars. That is a very good standing for this country amongst the nations of the world, when we have been a nation for only fifty or sixty years. The wealth of the country is the first thing I look at, for in floating a large loan over a long period the wealth of the country would need to be looked into. During the past year we have heard people saying that the country is going back, that business is going back. Let us look at the trade of the country during the past year. I think you will find there is an increase in the totai trade of about $205,000,000 over the year before, and of about $450,000,000 over the year before that. That is very satisfactory. It does not show the country is going back if the trade is increasing. Our trade is up now to almost two billions of dollars, and a country that is doing two billion dollars of trade is no mean country. It is a great country, and it is a country we should do our utmost to clear the way for so that it will advance in commerce more rapidly and more clear of the difficulties which are in the way to-day, and to which I am going to refer a little later. Our imports and exports amount in round figures to $1,900,000,000, or almost $2,000,000,000. It is, I think, very gratifying that our trade should amount to such an immense sum. Not only that, but look at the different places where we carry on trade. We look first to our neighbours across the line, the United States. Some people do not like to deal there. I have heard some speakers express the view that they live within themselves over there. President Coolidge has said that they could produce enough within the country itself for their own needs. But that is a very selfish and limited life. We are going in for a larger life in this northern country, if that is their idea in the United States. If you look at what our people are doing to-day, and have been doing in the past year, you will find' that we are dealing not only with the United States but with all the different parts of the world, with China, Japan, the countries beyond the South Sea Islands, with every continent, with Asia, Africa, and South America as well as Europe. It is wonderful the way our trade has ex-
panded.' I think it is a great proof of the shrewdness and ability of the business men of Canada. And the work of these business men .is being helped to its utmost by the Minister of Trade and Commerce in this government.
Now look at our trade with the United States. I look upon them as a very fine people to trade with. Canada did break their windows at one time, about 1911, when they looked through for reciprocal trade, and I think by their Fordney-McCumber bill they retaliated and put their tariff a little bit higher than they might otherwise have done. You find that three and a half millions of the people across the line are Canadians or descendants of Canadians. I saw a precise statement as to the number some time ago, and I think it wonderful that so many of our people should be over there. They hire good people to deal with, and they have not gone over there within the last year, but they have been going over continually ever since that country became a republic. The statement of which I have spoken gave the numbers of the people coming into the United States from all the countries outside, from Japan and the different countries in Europe. The people over there are our nearest and friendliest people to deal with, not only the American-Canadians but the Americans themselves. They are sympathetic in their dealings with us, and we are dealing with them to the extent of about one-half our foreign trade, to the amount of almost one billion dollars. We should do everything to make that trade grow. We should do everything to maintain fair and reasonable relations with them. We should take care that everything we send them is of the best workmanship, the very best our manufacturers can put up. We do not want shoes or boots to go across the line with their heels made of paper, as I heard one man down the street say the heels of a pair of Canadian boots he purchased the other day were.


Mr. LAPOINTE:: They were not made in Quebec.


Donald Alexander Mackinnon: They were made in Ottawa, I think. That is not the sort of thing that Canada wants. In addition to this importing and exporting business, the workmanship is a thing we should1 look after. Everything we make should be as perfect as it can be made. We should have the very best leather, and the boots and shoes we make and everything we send abroad should be of the very best workmanship, for you can send an article with a good name into the markets cf the world, I care not to what part of the

The Budget-Mr. Mackinnon
world you send it, and you will get a good price for it and carry on a good trade there.
If we look at the other nations we have been dealing with, we find that about $664,000,000 of our trade is with the empire, with the different dominions and Great Britain. This is over half our trade with the United States. We carry on trade amounting to about six hundred and sixty-four millions. I think it is a good thing to promote that trade as much as we can; it will develop among us a spirit of co-operation and if we develop each other's trade it mil be a splendid thing for the empire as a whole. France, Belgium and Germany do a trade with us of over
320,000,000. We also find that a large trade 'S developing between Japan and this country. I think we should have sympathy for the Japanese who have experienced such tremendous losses by earthquakes; we should feel glad that they are reanimated and are continuing to do business with this country in such a satisfactory way and with such good results.
I feel very much surprised at the action of the Mother Country in putting into force an embargo upon the export of potatoes from this country to Great Britain. I was going to say that I almost feel ashamed of the Mother Country in view of the reason for this embargo,-the presence of the Colorado beetle. Why, for fifty years the Colorado beetle has been after the potato plant and the remedy used against it is Paris green. I repeat that for fifty years the Colorado beetle has been extending its territory, and yet because of this pest, the Old Country is to-day placing this embargo against potatoes from the United States and Canada. The embargo comes at an inopportune time for us because our people have entered, in a systematic and scientific way, upon the development of the potato trade. During the past year millions of bushels of potatoes of the best quality were shipped from the Maritime provinces to outside markets, such splendid varieties as the Irish Cobbler and the Green Mountain. They were highly apreciated wherever sold and very appreciative notices appeared in the public press in London with respect to them. To show you the excellent quality of our potatoes, demands are made by Virginia upon our province for seed potatoes. The growers there buy about half a million bushels for planting. And here is an extraordinary thing that occurs: I go to Toronto and I find the people there buying the potatoes from Virginia produced from the seed we send down from Prince Edward Inland. It is an illustration of the curious route that trade sometimes follows.
For the Mother Country to adopt such a strange course with respect to Canada is verv surprising, personally I am at a loss to understand it. The Colorado beetle is not found on the potatoes that go to England. The pest lodges on the plants; it does not stay on the potato itself, and the plants are not shipped to England. If the bug remains on the potato top what happens to the potato? It does not develop at all, and we get no potatoes. Some of the growers in our province have eighteen to twenty acres given up to potatoes; some of them as many as eighty acres. As soon as the bug appears on the plant Paris green is liberally used and the pest is destroyed. Then the plant has a chance to grow and produces a healthy and well developed potato. During the past year I saw many acres of potatoes in Prince Edward Island covered with vigorous and healthy plants without any sign of disease. These potato fields are all carefully inspected by inspectors sent down by the Department of Agriculture. Last year when those inspections were made everything was found to be all right, and shipments made to the Mother Country were consequently free from the Colorado beetle. I have looked into this matter somewhat. I found in the Parliamentary Library a work by an expert in Paris dealing with potato diseases. This work was published in 1923 in French, but I took the liberty of translating it for myself. According to this authority there are 150 species of potato bugs in Europe to-day and not simply one species, the Colorado beetle. When I read that I was more than surprised and felt that the Mother Country was not treating us quite nicely. Great Britain is importing potatoes from other countries in Europe where the potato bug exists, and yet she has blocked our trade in potatoes on the ground of the prevalence of the Colorado beetle. I can see no reasonable excuse for this action on the part of the Mother Country. I do find some excuse for the United States because that country put an embargo on shipment of potatoes from Ireland as far back as 1909. The latter country was shipping potatoes to the United States and competing successfully with the American growers. However, we shall be inspired by this experience to turn to other markets and it may have the result of developing greater initiative amongst us. Never-the less it has been a costly experience during the past year. That is about all I have got to say with respect to the embargo. I speak upon this question with a great deal of feeling because I did not look for this treatment by our own kith and kin, toward those

The Budget-Mr. Mackinnon
who have been struggling to make a living after their European experiences.
One of the other questions which greatly affects our prosperity is that of transportation. I take it as an axiom that neither Canada nor any other country can prosper without cheap transportation. When I came up here in 1922 I did my best with the Minister of Railways to secure better treatment. He referred me to Mr. Hanna who at that time was at the head of the management of the National railways. He took up the matter with other officials but for some months no headway whatsoever was made with the matter. I do not say this for the purpose of censuring Mr. Hanna; he was a great financier and was devoting himself to making the railways pay. Later on, Mr. Dalrymple, who was in charge of freight matters for the Canadian National Railways under Sir Henry Thornton took action in the matter and we had reductions made. Some of you perhaps have heard of the appeal "Have a heart, Maggie" addressed to the old lady when she was spilling the beer in the coal scuttle. I think, perhaps, Sir Henry Thornton is of a sympathetic disposition. He has a heart and if he carries that feeling with him it greatly helps in the treatment of difficult questions. I think he has been managing the National railways in a very creditable manner, and that those railways are now going ahead due to the earnest desire of the officials, who are strongly interested in the progress of the country and in seeing the National railways prosper. I am not criticizing those officials in the past who found it impossible to do anything for us. They held office at the time of a great crisis and perhaps it was impossible for them to pursue any other course. At the present time it is very gratifying to note that there is a favourable balance in the operating of the National railways for the past year of over $17,000,000. I hope it will be possible to reduce the transportation rates at a very early date and still manage the railways with success.
It has been urged that immigrants should be brought into the country, and the argument is that they would help to pay the railway debt of the country and other indebtedness. I count that as nonsense. I think it is a very foolish proposition to advance, and it is a peculiar proposition for any public man to discuss. The point is, can an immigrant live well here, and is the country worth living in and worth fighting for? If a man can come here and earn a livelihood, it is a good country to live in. We think it is as good as any country in the world. A man can get

along here on his merits. We do not want him to come in and bear the burden. We can shoulder our own burdens if it does take a long time to discharge them. We do not want people to come in for any such purpose; we want them to come in if they feel like coming, if not, we can get along without them. I desire to point out that from what I have observed, there is no doubt that a great many people have been going away from Canada. If we adopt a tariff as high as you like to make it, we would not prevent people leaving the country. But I think this is what persuaded them to leave. After the war, in the United States, there was a great fever for building. Hundreds of millions of dollars were expended throughout the United States in putting up buildings. For this purpose they obtained men from other countries. Men from Ottawa and from different parts of the country went to the States to work on buildings, putting roofs on buildings and so on. Many contractors and carpenters went down there. What took a great number of people from our country for a few years back was the expenditure of a large quantity of money which the government of the United States and the people of the United States had and it was used largely in the work of construction and in work and industries. Hundreds of millions were spent. But we find a change has taken place, and now many of the people are coming back to live in their own country. It strikes me that that is the reason for the great unrest and change which we have experienced. Matters became acute down in the Maritime provinces for this reason; when t'he tariff was imposed on our people and this National Policy was adopted, the people said: "Let this go through, we will try and get along if it is for the good of Canada." Some people say the same thing to-day. They say: "If you want an increase on this article of five per cent, or thirty per cent, all right; if it is for the good of Canada, we will suffer down here." That continued until conditions became acute. That policy centralized the factories and the capital, and then what occurred? If transportation had been cheap between the Maritime provinces and the central places where the factories were located, the trade would have gone on as usual, but when transportation became expensive we had to pay for the transportation of goods from the factories to the provinces, and the transportation of produce to other parts where it might be sold, and the condition in the Maritime provinces was rather acute. But the country is progressing. We have over a million people. We have industries

The Budget-Mr. Chaplin
in the three provinces that produce $135,000,000 and we are not very badly off. We can carry on more industry and if we were able to ship goods to places throughout the world, the Maritime provinces would be able to carry on as well as any other part of Canada. In agriculture the production of the Maritime provinces realizes about $88,000,000 and the fisheries about $14,000,000. They have a very good field there. I think the fishermen will appreciate the removal of the duty on gasoline engines. This change will help them, and they deserve it, because it will help to build up the fishing industry.
Dairying is carried on in those provinces on a splendid scale and I think the cattle produced there are of a very good class. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) has been taking a great deal of interest in Prince Edward Island, and he has decided to assist the industry of dairying in that province and to establish accredited herds in a restricted area. I am glad he settled that matter. I hope the House will approve of his proposition when the matter comes up, because it is a small province and the number of cattle is not very large. When the cows are tested there it will improve conditions in that area, so that the island will become a most healthful spot. I think it is the greatest blessing the Minister of Agriculture could bestow on that island, because it will do a great deal towards improving the health of the people. Sheep raising also deserves special attention. There are 83 million fewer sheep in the world than before the war, so that this field for development is attractive. The other minister who is going to assist in the improvement of the island is the Minister of Justice.
We have more to do with the Minister of Public Works with regard to the construction of works down there. We have very few public works to be put through on the island, on account of the economy that is being practised. The Minister of Marine and Fisheries has a great deal to do in looking after the coast. I mention these matters specially on this account, in order to show that they are acting economically. If in any other branch of the public service the ministers were too lavish, the country of necessity would not prosper as it has been doing.
In closing I may say that I think that the material success of the country is not in such bad shape. We have a good deal of interest in it, and we would all like to see every man and woman in Canada in a prosperous state, no matter on which side of politics they might be. If every one would lead a comfortable life we would all be happy, and it is our duty
to do all we can to that end. We would like to progress, not only in our material interests, but in other respects. Hon. members must observe that in Canada we produce men of intellect, and their powers are not confined to our country alone. They are exercising an influence throughout the whole world in this way: that with the changes which are brought about we are going to see more daylight in the future, and what we -have to do is just to clear the way.
There's a fount about to stream,
There's a light about to beam,
There's a warmth about to glow,
There's a flower about to blow;
There's a midnight blackness changing into gray;
Men of thought and men of action, clear the way I


Mr. J. D. CHAPLIN (Lincoln):: I do not intend to follow throughout the speech of the hon. member for Queens (Mr. Mackinnon) who has just spoken. I find that he has been very moderate, and I concur in very much that he said. One thing, however, towards the close of his address caught my attention, and that was the fact that he had learned, owing to the treatment that he received at the hands of Sir Henry Thornton by way of reduced rates on potatoes, that Sir Henry Thornton had a heart. The people of Canada hope that Sir Henry Thornton has a heart. They call upon him to stop useless expenditure and the extravagance of establishing and paying a large staff in Paris. They ask him, along with this government, to practise more economy in the matter of transportation and to reduce costs, and by that means earn the approval of the people of this country. I am glad to know from the hon. member that Sir Henry Thornton has a heart. I think the people of the country will appreciate that very much. He might also cut out some of the useless expenditure on the radio and a whole lot more foolishness-the building of golf clubs all over the country, and foolishness of that kind. I call the attention of the Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham) to this matter. In common with other members of the House, I regret very much the absence of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) through illness. We think the country also regrets his absence. His guiding hand has been very much needed in this House, and there is no doubt that he has been missed more than ever during the presentation of the last two budgets. I intend to quote some of the last words uttered in this House on budget matters by the Minister of Finance. In 1922, as reported at page 2106 of Hansard, he said:
The Budget-Mr. Chaplin

The Grand Trunk and the Canadian Northern are now virtually owned by the Dominion of Canada, and when we advance money to them we are, in a sense, lending money to ourselves.
Again in 1922, as reported at page 2107 of Hansard, he said:
During the year four Canadian government loans have been floated. Three of these have been in the names of the railway companies and one a direct government obligation.
Continuing, as reported on the same page, he said:
We still keep up the theory of corporations in regard to these railways; the railway loans are issued in the names of the railway companies, with guarantees by the government. As a matter of fact, the government to-day are both makers and endorsers of those securities; so that practically they are now government loans.
Let me quote further. In Hansard of 1923, under the head of income and expenditures, as reported at page 2640, the minister said:
The revenue for the year was $381,952,286.99 against ordinary expenditure of $347,560,690.63. If the surplus is to be ascertained by comparing the ordinary revenue with the ordinary expenditure-and that was the time-honoured way of determining surpluses-then on that year there was a surplus of $34,391,696.36. But there was a capital expenditure of $16,295,332.55. If we take that into account, both ordinary expenditure and capital expenditure, there was still a surplus of $18,' 096,363.81. Then there were certain special expenditures, including demobilization charges, of $1,526,583.22. So, if we take into account ordinary expenditure, capital expenditure and what is called special expenditure, there still was a surplus of $16,569,780.59. So far this is a story of surpluses; but there is a further statement to be made which quite destroys that happy picture. There were charges for advances to railways of $97,950,645.36. If we take, then, the whole expenditure for the year, ordinary, capital, special and railways, there was a deficit in that year of $81,380,864.77. After allowances for some deductions are made, the net result was that in that year we added to the public debt, $81,256,818.04.
The minister was reviewing in his budget speech the year 1921-1922. He continued:
We turn now to the year 1922-23 which closed not many days ago. We have not the complete accounts before us, but there is sufficient information to enable us practically to announce the result. Ordinary revenue amounted to $393,619,000. These are estimates, as the figures, are not absolutely final. Ordinary expenditure amounted to about $331,780,000. As between those two items, there was then a surplus of $61,839,000. Capital expenditure, however, represents $14,500,000; adjustment of war claims, $6,700,000; cost of loan floatations, $3,050,000; these representing in all, $24,250,000. There was thus a surplus over ordinary, capital and special expenditures, of $37,589,000. But again the railways have to be taken into account. We had to advance during that year $92,190,000 for railways, and $6,060,720 for the Canadian Government Merchant Marine, making in all for that charge, $98,250,720. This, of course, takes up all the surplus and leaves a large balance on the other side of the account. If we take everything into consideration for the year, the net result was that we added to the public debt in the year just closed, $49,293,086. The receipt of something over $8,000,000' from the British government on exchange

account helped us to keep down what otherwise would have been a larger addition to the public debt.
That closes the minister's statement, and I may say that this statement of the minister, the total statement that I have read, giving a clear, distinct account of expenditures for the two years, covered one column of Hansard. It took ten columns of Hansard for us to get a confused, elongated statement from the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) that was practically intended to confuse and that gave very little information. The Acting Minister of Finance is not in his seat and not many ministers are present. The Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) is present and I assume that he knows something about the statement. For my part, I have never had any opportunity, although I have some acquaintance with accounts, of seeing these accounts, or of knowing what they contain or how they are made up, and we do not get a full statement of accounts. The Minister of Finance, whose statement I have just read, says that in 1921-22 we had a deficit of 181,000,000 which should be added to the public debt, and that in 1922-23 we had a further deficit of 849,000.000 that should be added to the public debt. I can find no evidence of those two amounts having been added to the public debt. Will the minister who is present tell me if he knows if those items have been added to the public debt? I am sorry I have not been able to engage the attention of the Minister of Justice.


Ernest Lapointe: I am listening to my
hon. friend.


James Dew Chaplin: I see the Minister of
Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) in his seat and I hope he can answer the question whether this amount has been added to the public debt. Do any of the ministers know? Have they any knowledge of those accounts? I explained a moment ago when the Minister of Justice was not listening that I had no way of getting at the accounts and knowing for myself, and I am asking for information now. The hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster) is not in his seat, 'but he told us the other day that these accounts were very clear, and if he were present I would ask him if he knows if those amounts have been added to the public debt. Can any of the ministers tell me if those amounts have been added to the public debt? Are there any other accounts on the other side of the ledger that are not shown in this statement and that should be credited? Do they know that?


Ernest Lapointe: We are not sitting in
committee.

The Budget-Mr. Chaplin


James Dew Chaplin: I am sorry the minister,
who says that we are not sitting in committee, does not know. This is a matter in which the people of Canada are interested. It is a matter that the members of parliament are interested in and I think that some minister should be able to answer the question, which is a fair one.


Ernest Lapointe: My hon. friend may know many things but he does not seem to know the rules of the House.


James Dew Chaplin: I may not know the rules of the House as well as the minister does, but one thing I do know and that is that the people of this country desire to learn something about these accounts. I shall refer again to the statement of the Acting Minister at page 1468 of this year's Hansard. I notice that the acting minister has given us a report for three years, 1922-3, 1923-4, and
1924-5; but has not included the year 1921-2. What was the reason for omitting that year, during a part of which they were in office? That was the year they prepared their first balance sheet and there does not seem to be any reason why it should not be included in this statement. Well, there is a reason; the first year they do include in this comparative statement shows that they paid $80,000,000 in cash to the railways. But had the government included1 the previous year the accounts would have shown that they had to borrow money for this purpose and it did not suit them to give the full information. That is the reason why the year 1921-2 is not included in this statement of loans to the railways. There is another question I want to ask the government but before I put it I shall quote the statement of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) regarding the actual figures for 1922-3. He says:
But again, the railways have to be taken into account. We had to advance during that year $92,190,000 for railways and $6,060,720 for the Canadian Government Merchant Marine, making in all for that charge $98,250,720.
I find on referring to this statement that the acting minister gives us for the year 1922-3 the sum of $80,000,000 as having been paid to the railways in cash, whereas the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) in his budget speech that year gives the sum of $98,000,000. I want to know, and I think the House is entitled to know, what became of the difference of $18,000,000. Where is it? But we are told that we are not in committee and that therefore the government cannot answer.
I referred a moment ago to the fact that the minister had devoted one column of Hansard to a succinct, definite, positive,
straightforward statement of the affairs of this country for two years while the acting minister had taken up ten columns, two of which comprised political propaganda while in the remainder the accounts were so mixed up that nobody on the top of this earth, unless he were an accountant, could make them out. And yet we have hon. gentlemen in this House who will get up and tell us that the accounts are clear and understandable. I want to know just what they mean; but of course we are not in committee and the government cannot answer. So much for this statement. A statement has been sent forth to the country that we have 4 p.m. a surplus this year of $1,800,000.
But before I leave this point definitely I want to make a comparison between the alleged surplus of this year and the accounts as we have had them before; I want to compare the financial statement for 1923-4 with the present one. In the year 1923-4 the receipts amounted to $393,000,000; whereas our present receipts amount to $344,000,000; and in the previous year, the expenditures were $331,000,000 as against $342,000,000 for the past year. In the year 1923-4 there was a surplus of $37,000,000, with a very mucn larger revenue; and the acting minister now shows a surplus of $1,823,000 before the railways are considered. So that for last year this government does not take the railways into consideration at all, but in the previous year I mentioned the minister did; with a surplus of $37,000,000 in his hand he came through, after accounting for the railways, with a deficit of some $49,000,000; whereas this year the government comes through with a surplus of $1,800,000. If that is not the most ridiculous statement ever foisted upon an unsuspecting public I should like to know what is. And the acting minister in two pages of propaganda gives us a certificate that means nothing, from auditors who never audited.
I want now to come to the principal change in the tariff, and that is the duty on coal. Let me say at the outset that I am in favour of that duty. If the duty on coal is intended to stimulate production in the coal areas I am in favour of it; and if it is intended to take care of unemployment I am still in favour of it. But I wish to point out to the minister that there are other parts of Canada which are suffering to-day from unemployment, and if the government can make provision for one part of the country why can they not provide for others as well? Are they doing it in this case only because they are clubbed into it and not because they want to do it and
The Budget-Mr. Chaplin

because it is right? There are in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec to-day people who are using coal on a large scale and who by this tariff have had an added burden placed upon them. They are willing to bear this burden; but at this very moment the government reduces, in many cases to as low as 6 per cent, the protection which they themselves need. If protection is a good thing on coal why should it not be good in the case of other commodities? If protection is a good thing for the employees in the coal mines why is it not good for other employees as well? If protection is a good thing for workers out of a job in Nova Scotia and Alberta why should it not be good for those in Ontario and Quebec? I had hoped that there would have been in this budget some provision for added protection to certain farmers of the country, and I refer especially to fruit and vegetable growers and to those who are interested in the production of eggs and butter and cheese. And I submit that we should have, in regard to these things, a duty approximating the American tariff. That is what we need in order to stimulate the production of these people. But what do we get? The farmers of Ontario and Quebec ask the government for bread, and they give them a stone in the shape of an export duty on power. Export duty on power? It seems to me the ex-Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton) explained that situation pretty well: if that duty could be laid on the American consumer of power it would be all right; no objection would be taken. But that cannot be done; the duty will be paid by the people of Ontario and Quebec. Ontario power is being sold to-day on the basis of cost and any duty that is placed upon it will fall directly upon the people using the power. I miss my guess if the people do not hand the government a few doses back when they get the opportunity. We await very confidently the chance, and so will they.
I want to say a word in reference to the claim that the people of this country have had their taxes lessened by $52,000,000. Last year the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) in his budget predicted that there would be a reduction of $24,000,000 because of the lessened sales tax and because of some slight reductions in the duties. He did not figure on a loss of revenue of $52,000,000. But he estimated wrongly; the reason the revenues went down was because the people did not have the means to buy the goods, and the government should claim credit for that too; they should claim credit for the forced economy of the people. I say the people did

not have the money to buy. Many of them were farced out of employment by this government, and those still in the country were working half time. The government have solved this question in pretty much the same way as they have solved the housing proposition. "Canada is coming through," they say in this advertisement which appeared in a great many papers throughout the country.
I quote from it:
The housing scarcity, which was so serious as the result of the cessation of building during the war, has now been fairly met.
"Fairly met"! The people have been driven out of the country, and there are plenty of houses now. Go to Hamilton, Brantford and other places, and see what the condition is. My own city is better off because the government are spending money there on public works and the local people are getting the benefit. But in Hamilton, I understand, there are three thousand vacant houses; and it is the first time since the war that there have been any vacancies of consequence. And the government have solved the housing problem!
Speaking of miscalculations, in his budget speech of 1923 the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) was very cautious, as he always was; when he came to the question of future business all he did was express a pious hope that business would be better. But the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) was far more optimistic. In 1924 he said:
The more of the products of the farm, the fisheries, the mines and the forest we have going to market, the greater will be the earnings of our transportation companies-the greater the purchasing power of the nation, and as a consequence we shall have factories running full time and tradesmen working overtime to supply the needs of those who have money to buy.
Fine sentiments! We have had in this country, Sir, -three years of fairly average crops, with very large exports; probably as large as we have ever had in any -three normal years. Have our factories been -running full time? Have our tradesmen been working overtime? Again in 1924 he said:
Our budget shows a reduction in debt of $30,000,000 last year and a reduction of taxation of $24,000,000 this year. It is confidently expected that this reduction will give such impetus to trade that it will result in greater development and prosperity to all the provinces of Canada.
Now the acting minister says that the reduction in taxation instead of being $24,000,000 is $53,000,000, Well, if it is reasonable to say that business would be stimulated by a reduction of taxes of $24,000,000, should it not have been far more stimulated with a reduction of $53,000,000? Where has this business stimulation taken place? Has it been in Nova Scotia? Has

The Budget-Mr. Chaplin
it been in any of the Maritime provinces? Is business better in Quebec or Ontario? The truth is that this government have paralyzed business; they have driven thousands of people out of the country, and that is the real reason for our falling revenue and our lessened purchasing power.
I want to discuss for a few moments, Mr. Speaker, a question that is dear to the heart of my friends to the left, and one that has been discussed in this House more times than enough. Hon. gentlemen to my left have accepted it as an axiom that a tariff is a tax and is always paid by the consumer. The hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster) has similar views; and the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) a few days ago said that the tariff is always a tax. Some years ago the United States ,put a duty on wheat of 42 cents a bushel. I would like to ask the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell), for instance, who pays that tariff tax of 42 cents a bushel on wheat; I would like to ask any'of my friends to the left who pays dt? Nobody answers. What is the matter with hon. gentlemen? Are they mute?


Mr. FORKE:: Nobody pays it.


James Dew Chaplin: Nobody pays it? Does
this tax, then, come under the head of a prohibitive tax? How can the minister say, how can hon. members to my left say, that the tariff is always a tax? I ask the hon. member who just answered me, is this a prohibitive tax, if it is not paid? Why is it not paid? Why are hon. gentlemen so mute about it? They are not always so timorous.


Mr. SALES:: Did the hon. member ever
hear of a drawback of 99 per cent for export purposes?


James Dew Chaplin: Well, if that is an answer to my question as to who pays the tariff tax, then I .must say it is a very intelligent answer, and I commend it to the rest of the hon. gentlemen.


Thomas Sales: That is exactly what happens.


Robert Forke: What is my hon. friend's
question?


James Dew Chaplin: Who pays the tax?


Robert Forke: What tax?


James Dew Chaplin: The 42 cents a bushel on wheat.	*


Robert Forke: There is none going over.


James Dew Chaplin: Well, is it not going over because the 42 cents a bushel is a prohibitive tax?



REVISED

Mr. BROWN:: The flour that is ground out of that wheat is exported and commands a rebate.


James Dew Chaplin: I am glad I got my hon. friends moving; I am glad I have got under their skins just a little.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


James Dew Chaplin: Let me read what they
say about it in the primer which they put out to educate the people on tariff matters. Let me read for their own particular edification:
If the rates are so high, on the other hand, that foreign goods are excluded from the country, a tax is still extorted from the people in the shape of higher prices for everything they use.
Now what answer have you got to make to that? They go further than that. Here is a further extract for my hon. friends to take note of, and you will notice, Mr. Speaker, that they do not refer to manufactured goods. It is the general principle. It does not make any difference whether it is manufactured articles or raw material. Here is the quotation:
As already explained under a system of protection the consumer is compelled to pay a tax upon all imported goods that come under the tariff schedules-
Not on all the goods that come in, but on all goods that come in under the tariff schedules. It goes on:
Upon all goods of domestic origin produced under a protective system the consumer must likewise pay a tax, although in this case the revenue finds its way to the bank account of private individuals alone.
Now what kind of a theory is that to put up?


Mr. EVANS:: Is not that right?


James Dew Chaplin: Not at all. I ask you now the question: Who pays the tariff tax? But that does not exhaust the points I am going to bring out. I will take now the question of cattle, something that has been disturbing the gentlemen from the west for a long time. They find a difficulty now in selling their cattle. When they want to ship them to the United States, what hinders them? Is it the tax? If the consumer pays the tax, why not ship the goods in and let the consumer pay th; tax?


Mr. MORRISON:: Does not my hon. friend understand that the tax is so high that the people in the United States will not buy the goods? The tax is prohibitive.


James Dew Chaplin: My answer to the hon.
gentleman is this:	If the tax is prohibitive,
let me read him what these people say in their own book:



EDITION

[Stage Direction]
The Budget-Mr. Chaplin
[Stage Direction]
If the rates are so high, on the other hand, that foreign goods are excluded from the country a tax is still extorted from the people in the shape of higher prices for everything they use.
Now let us get along. I, heard in this House a gentleman from the northwest, whose name I do not recall at the moment, describe the situation concerning a carload of butter shipped from some point in Alberta to New York. By the time the freight and duty was paid, he said, there was very little left for the producer. Now what does that mean? Does that mean the consumer in the United States paid that duty on butter, or does it mean the producer paid it? But that does not by any means exhaust the matter. You can take almost any line of goods. I call as my next witness my very good friend the hon. member for Lunenburg (Mr. Duff), who, everybody will admit, is a perfect free trader, except on the matter of coal. What does he say?
The United States have a duty of from $1.60 to $2 per one hundred pounds on fish.
I ask this question: Do the United States people pay the duty on fish that goes in there from Nova Scotia? According to my friends from the west, they do; the consumer always pays the tax. The hon. member for Lunenburg goes on-Hansard 1923, page 112:
For instance, the business in which I am mostly interested, fish, is hard hit, a duty of $1.60 per hundred pounds having been imposed on salt dry fish, and on salt fish, herring, mackerel and so on, a prohibitive duty of 2 cents a pound. The result is that anybody who ships these goods to the United States receives that much less for them, because the price governing fish is not fixed in the same way as the price on grain or manufactured products, that is, the price of fish is fixed in the foreign market, and consequently the shipper has to pay the duty.
I hope I understand the English language.
John Evans: The hon. gentleman has been quoting from the Canadian Council of Agriculture, from their platform and the pamphlet written on it. If he reads the English language, he will find a correct answer to his question in that pamphlet.


James Dew Chaplin: Mr. Speaker, I think I
know that pamphlet quite as well as the hon. member who has just spoken, and if he will indicate to me where that clause is to be found I will have very great pleasure in reading it. There is not a line in the platform that I do not know; I made it my business to know it; and if the hon. member can indicate to me where that is, I will be very glad to read it.


Mr. WOODS:: Who pays the duty on the
Ford cars coming from Detroit into Ontario?


James Dew Chaplin: Do not worry, I can
come to that in a minute; but I do not pro-

pose to be taken away from my subject by any outside questions. I invited questions from my hon. friends a minute ago, and I found them pretty mute, pretty timorous, but of course they will do anything to get me away ifrom my point.


John Livingstone Brown: The hon. gentleman did
not sit down long enough to allow us to put a question.


James Dew Chaplin: I am ready, Mr. Speaker, to sit down at any moment that any hon. gentleman wants to rise. Can it be made any plainer to anyone who wants to listen that this is still another case where the tariff is not always a tax? If so, I would like to know it.
Of course, the same thing can be illustrated in hundreds of cases of manufactured goods. Had I only at the inception taken certain cases of manufactured goods, my hon. friends- as one did a minute ago-would have tried to put me right out of business. I can tell him this. I have been in business forty years. I have grown up in a business from being the office boy to manager. I have during a period of ten or fifteen years occupied the buyer's desk, and I can say that for the period I was buyer, and it was followed up to a few years ago, on everything that was bought and that came in through the customs house the man that sent the goods in paid the full duty. That was part of the buyer's business to see that he got that, and I claim that you cannot have two parties paying the duty. Now as a finish to this-


John Livingstone Brown: I suppose that was not
added to the cost?


James Dew Chaplin: Mr. Speaker, I did not
see the hon. gentleman rise, although he made some remark.


John Livingstone Brown: I would like to rise and ask, if the buyer paid the duty in the first place, was not that added to the cost of the finished article, with overhead and so forth, and the consumer ultimately made to pay the duty?


James Dew Chaplin: I did not say that at all.
The hon. gentleman misunderstood what I said. What I said was that the man who sent the goods in here, the seller, had to make a reduction in his price sufficient to pay the duty, and consequently there was no overhead and nothing else except the ordinary profit to be added.	.


John Evans: If that is the case, then in
what way does the tariff become of benefit to the Canadian manufacturer?

The Budget-Mr. Chaplin


James Dew Chaplin: I am relating something
that happened for years under the operation of the tariff. To take care of that very thing the present Finance minister placed a law on the statute book; he enacted a dumping law , to which these gentlemen profess to be so much opposed. That was the reason for the dumping clause. The present Finance minister realized the necessity for it because he sat at the helm and knew what was going on, and consequently he caused a law to be enacted to prevent it from continuing. That is the answer to .my hon. friend. Is there anything more wanted in the way of proof that the consumer does not always pay the duty than the very law enacted by a Liberal Finance minister to prevent the seller from paying the duty?
Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to refer to another matter. The Acting Minister of Finance has told us that we have lost a lot of revenue. He has even taken that loss of revenue and put it to good account so as to enable him to say "Why, I have reduced taxation." I want to show as briefly as I can some losses that occurred that were not expected, especially when we entered into the French treaty. I have prepared a list-and I think perhaps this may interest the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe)-of imports from France to Canada and of exports from Canada to France, based upon the ten months of the present fiscal year, 31st March, 1924 to 31st January, 1925, and the comparative figures I will give are for the corresponding ten months periods in each of the years quoted. I give the statement in that form so as to make a fair comparison for the ten-month period in question. The Canadian imports from France are as follows:
1923		 $10,255,000
1924		 13,113.000
1925		 15,167,000
So much for the imports; the gradually ascending scale will be noticed. The Canadian exports to France for the same period were:
1923		 $11,299,000
1924		 15,427,000
1925		 8,383,000
From the sum of $15,000,000 our exports to France dropped to $S,000,000. We started in 1923 with $1,000,000 more exports than imports, and ended in 1925 with nearly $7,000,000 less exports than imports. In other words we sold them this year goods to the value of $8,000,000 and we bought from them goods to the value of $15,000,000. Now I want to point out first of all what these exports consist of. They consist principally
123i
of wheat; pulp; lead; nickel and other ores; asbestos; coal tar; mica; some sugar; canned lobster and salmon; some agricultural implements; and a few scattered articles of manufacture every one of which-I refer to the manufactured articles-will disappear. Why do I say that these manufactured articles will disappear? Simply because the French minimum tariff is too high for us to take advantage of it; we are in exactly the same category in the case of France that my hon. friends from the west are with respect to cattle in the case of the United States. In respect of these exports that we have sold you will notice that in nearly every case they are raw materials: wheat, aluminum, lead, nickel, ores of different kinds; all raw materials. They buy from us a little sugar, a few agricultural implements, and some canned lobster and canned salmon in reduced quantities, because of the fact that the duties have been raised. The articles I have mentioned represent nine-tenths of the total exports and less than $200,000 of our total business was affected by the treaty. In other words, in new business we obtained less than $200,000 and in addition we lost several million dollars of old business. France wants these raw materials and she would take them anj'way; and all we get in the way of new business is less than $250,000. Now, what did we give in return? When we made this treaty with France, Canada gave a list of goods which she could sell to France, and France gave a list of her goods that could be . sold here. France gave us her minimum tariff whatever it might be and she got a fixed rate of duty on a lot of articles. That fixed rate of duty could not be altered by this parliament unless the treaty were abrogated. That is the position in which we are so far as the French treaty is concerned, and we get nothing in return to replace what wo grant. 'When this treaty was being discussed I remember quite distinctly the right hon. leader of the opposition saying to the Minister of Finance, "You should have jacked up your tariff before you went over to France. You should have raised your minimum tariff to a scale that would enable you to trade with them and have something to trade with." I also remember that the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown)-he is not here this afternoon.


John Livingstone Brown: He is right here.


James Dew Chaplin: Yes, I see the hon. gentleman now. Well, my hon. friend took exception to the statement of the hon. leader of the opposition when he sairi it. would have
The Budget-Mr. Chaplin

been better for the government to have raised the tariff before entering on negotiations, and said that was a principle of questionable soundness. I have no fault to find with my hon. friend's opinion, I think he gave that opinion honestly, but what has occurred? I want to draw the hon. member's attention to this fact. On looking up the British Board of Trade Journal of January 8, I find this statement:
The Board of Trade have received, through the Foreign Office copy of the government bill-
Meaning a government bill in France.
-to modify the French customs tariff duties on some three hundred articles.
And the paper goes on to say:
The explanatory memorandum to the bill, after referring to the general tariff revision now in hand, describes the nature and purpose of the present proposal, which is not intended to replace or delay the normal tariff revision, but is necessary to enable France properly to negotiate the important commercial agreements now under consideration. The bill therefore proposes to increase tariff duties affecting French industries which owing to the burden resulting from the war, cannot face unlimited foreign competition with the present duties.
In other words, Mr. Speaker, what was a matter of questionable soundness for us to do has already been done by France right in our face, and we stand to-day with several hundred articles on which the minimum tariff is to be raised, and what chance have we to do business with them if the minimum tariff is raised, when we cannot do business now under the present tariff? Let me give the House some examples from this, so as to see what it means:
The duty on blankets and camel hair belting is to be increased by over 100 per cent, and wool, etc., astrakans, plushes, sealskins, etc., would pay from 11 to 22 francs per kilog, instead of 8.82 francs per kilog as at present. The duties on elastic and rubbered clothing would be increased by from 50 to 100 per cent; and on felt hats by from 50 to 200 per cent. The duties on the thinner varieties of oilcloth and linoleum would be increased by 25 to 60 per cent, and other waxcloths would also pay heavier duties.
As regards hardware, the proposed duties on locks, keys and nails are some 30 per cent higher than the present duties; those on saws, files and rasps some 200 per cent higher; and those on other tools, needles and certain cutlery about 100 per cent higher.
And so on through the list. There is no use taking up any more of the time of the House with this matter. The principle is there. Canadians as a matter of fact, have to learn to look after themselves, irrespective of the matter of questionable soundness. This may be all right for France, but it is not a good thing for us. This is the first real big joker in the treaty, and there are a lot of them. I am going to detain the House long enough to

give hon. members some more of the jokers in this treaty.
Now, I wish to say a word or two as to the imports. As I said in my opening remarks on this question, the imports have increased from practically ten million dollars in 1923, for the ten months, to fifteen million dollars in these ten months. We have reduced our duty to France on a great many articles so that she could sell to this country. My hon. friends to my left will say, "Oh well, the people got a reduction in the tariff. It makes no difference as long as the people get the reduction in the tariff." On what articles was the tariff reduced? Let me give the House a rough list of them. They are:
Brandy, champagne, wine, silks, satins, velveteens, laces, silk blouses, silk fabrics, silk clothing, gloves, toilet preparations, soaps, perfumery, statutes, china, jewelry, precious stones, ribbons, embroideries, artificial feathers, and flowers, curtains and shams portfolios, purses and pocketbooks.
No doubt, these purses are for the purpose of keeping some of the savings in taxes that the Acting Minister of Finance is giving back to the people. What did we lose? We reduced our duty to many people who could well afford to pay. If you are ever going to get taxes, you have to get them out of the people who can afford to buy luxuries. This is a rich man's treaty-never intended for the poor man at all. Let me give the House a few instances. I will tell hon. members how I figure the duty, because the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) with that even handed way of treating things, will tell you that I have not figured it properly, and if I tell hon. members how I figure it there will be no misunderstanding. First of all, I have taken the duties as they actually are. I prepared the figures actually paid for the ten months on the articles I have mentioned, and I had the customs house of Canada guarantee they are correct. I have contrasted with those figures the duties that would have been collected under the general tariff if we had no treaty. On that basis, we lose on champagne 880,000 in taxes.


Mr. ABCHAMBAULT:: From Ontario?


James Dew Chaplin: I am not discussing Ontario matters; these are Dominion matters, and for the information of the hon. gentleman who asked the question, I say that we are discussing the budget. We are discussing the budget from the standpoint of the poor people of this country, the people who need to have taxes lifted from their shoulders, and are not discussing those people who are

The Budget-Mr. Chaplin
consuming these goods. The losses are as
follows:
Brandy	 $142,000
Non-sparkling wines	 108,000
Velvets, velveteens and plushes	 65,000
Silk fabrics	 104,000
Ribbons	 31,000
Silk clothing	 44,000
Gloves and mitts	 37,000
Perfumery and toilet preparations	 18,000
Tableware of china	 10,000
Medicinal and Pharmaceutical preparations	 11,000
Castile soap	 7,000
Jewelry	 5,000
What happened further was this:	that
under the terms of this treaty Japan and Switzerland did not hesitate to take advantage of it. France put her goods in at the same rate, and the people lost so much money in taxes, and those taxes that should have come out of the people who could afford to pay them have to be laid on others who probably cannot afford to pay them. I have not the figures for all the articles. If an item did not realize at least $1,000 I did not worry about it; it was not of any moment, so far as my argument was concerned. From France alone, on the goods we imported, we made a loss for the ten months of $991,000; from Switzerland we made a loss of $310,000; from Japan, $232,000; and from Norway $30,000. These figures are for ten months. When these gentlemen went over there to . make this treaty they allowed French nonsparkling wines to come into Canada at fifteen cents a gallon. At the very time they did this the home producer of wine was paying thirty cents excise duty. And they allowed the competitor's goods to come in at fifteen cents. Consequently when the matter was called to their attention they had to adjust it; with this result, that, instead of charging the home producer of wine thirty cents, they had to reduce the tax to seven and a half cents in order to place the home producer on an equality. I say that anybody at home who can afford to buy an article like wine can afford to pay a tax, and the tax of thirty cents was reasonable and just. But owing to the treaty this tax had to be reduced, and we lost on that operation on that article the sum of $129,000. The total loss was $1,695,000 for the ten months which I have mentioned. If you add two months more on the same basis, it means a loss in revenue of over two million dollars.
Besides the one big joker in this treaty to which I have referred, there are some others. I have not time to refer to half of them here, but I will give the House a few just for the edification of hon. members. Take the item
of gloves and mitts. We reduced our tariff and France gave us her new tariff on gloves and mitts to France to the minimum tariff, but the minimum tariff is so high that we did not ship any, while France shipped us $383,000 worth. We lost in duty over what we had sold to them before, $37,000.
As regards tableware of china, we reduced our duty to France, and France very accommodatingly reduced her duty to us. Just imagine reducing the duty for us to ship tableware of china into France 1 The result was that France sold us all the china, we did not sell her any; and we lost in revenue $11,000. The poor working man in this country saved $11,000 on his china. As regards perfumery and toilet preparations, we lost in revenue $18,000. We gave France fixed rates of duty and we could not change the duty to-morrow if we wanted to do so.
Let me give the House an idea of what comes into this country in the way of nonsparkling wines. In ten months of 1923 there were imported 56,000 gallons and, in 1924-5,
134,000	gallons. We lost in revenue on this item over $100,000. This is supposed to be a temperance country. The hon. member for Chambly and Vercheres (Mr. Archambault) asked:	Was it in Ontario where this wine
was used? Before he goes out I should like to give him the figures in regard to the item of brandy. I do not think it was in Ontario, but I will give him the result. In 1923 we imported 43,000 gallons, and in ten months of
1924-5 we imported 146,000 gallons. That is pretty good for a temperance country. Our loss in revenue on that item alone was $142,000.
Let us take the item of canned fruits and canned vegetables on which we gave France fixed rates of duties. We had a loss of revenue. We sold no fruits but we sold them $800 worth of canned vegetables. Just imagine 1 We sold France $800 worth of canned vegetables! In 1920, we sold France $1,000,000 of canned fruits and in 1924-5 we sold nothing. Why? Simply because the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) and the then Minister of Marine and Fisheries, the present Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) went to France and made a treaty with her by [DOT] which France had fixed rates of duties on importations into Canada of canned fruits, and the duties that we have to pay on our importations into France are higher than those she has to pay on importations into Canada. That is another joker in the treaty.
On cutlery and jewellery we lost in revenue $8,000. The Minister of Justice in his address last year told us th?' was going to sell
The Budget- Mr. Chaplin

butter to France. He reduced the duty on fresh butter so that our butter would get in. This is what he said:
We have not negotiated a treaty for the Pilgrim Fathers or for the farmers that came with Cartier or Champlain, we have negotiated a treaty for the farmers of the present.
Let me tell the Minister of Justice that the Pilgrim Fathers and the farmers that came with Cartier or Champlain shipped as much butter to France last year, as the present fanners did. Dead as they are, they shipped not a pound, and neither did the living farmers.
A few years ago we shipped condensed milk to France. In 1922, for instance, we shipped $568,000 worth. The duty was increased by fifty per cent, and last year we sold France
87,000	worth. That is another joker. The Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) whom I saw here a minute ago, made a prediction in 1923. He said:
Canada will export boots and shoes to France.
I have looked up the records and I find that no leather boots and shoes went to France, although a few rubbers went. I suppose -we shall have another shot about bronze powder from him too. Last year the story was: "Oh, well, we did not make the records." A lot of bronze powder was exported from this country. The minister produced a telegram from a manufacturer stating that they exported a lot of bronze powder. When I said to the minister:	"This does not appear in the export
records," he said:	"We did not prepare those
records; you prepared them." I have examined the records for the last four years and there are no exports of bronze powder. The minister should communicate with the manufacturers and find out where this stuff 'has gone. It must have gone somewhere and we cannot find it.
Let me mention a few other articles that we used to send to France. In 1920, we shipped $275,000 worth of dried apples; now this trade is gone. In 1922, we sold France $455,000 worth of oats; in 1925, there is no trade-nothing doing.
I cannot pass over this list of luxuries without reading an extract from a speech made by the hon. member for Brantford (Mr. Raymond). We .all know that very delightful gentleman. We all have heard from him of the distress that exists in Brantford, and now that we look back on the matter, we come to the conclusion that the people of Brantford have not gone away because of lack of work. I will let hon. members conclude what the reason is when I read his speech. He said:

In the part of the country that I came from, I beg to say that brandy and champagne are not luxuries, nor, Sir, is sparkling burgundy any luxury. On the contrary, these things are classed with blue pills, calomel and salts.
We had heard that its industries were languishing and its population was scattered, but we are glad to know that its necessities are well looked after. I am afraid that these gentlemen who are out of work in Brantford, instead of having gone away to other localities to look for work, have gone to California or to Florida, and may come back, who knows, in their luxurious motor cars, wearing the luxuries of which I have spoken . I rcgr t having taken up so much of the time of the House and I hope I have not tired hon. members too much.


Arthur Meighen: What about that long list of drugs which appears :n the treaty? Did we sell any of them?


James Dew Chaplin: Answering the question
of the leader of the opposition, I beg ,to say that of all those padded sheets of drugs, several pages, ccntaining some 150 articles, I think there is one on the list of exports, and others that we exported before, now disappear from the list.


Hon. W. R. MOTHERWELL (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, the budget is one
of the time-honoured institutions of this parliament. It affords an opportunity, not only of discussing the financial affairs of the country for and against the ministry s view of these matters, but further of ventilating grievances and especially of discussing problems which members would not get as good an opportunity of discussing later on in the session. I have to congratulate the official opposition upon their mathematical attainments while discussing this particular budget. They started off with a surplus of nearly two millions and by the time this had passed through various hands it had mounted considerably. First, some hon. gentlemen added gently to it making it five or six millions and then later on it was augmented very materially. I cannot recall just now the particular gentlemen wh* added to it but I remember that the hon member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens) and the hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River (Mr. Manion) as well as the hon. member for West York (Sir Henry Drayton) all had a hand in it. All these hon. gentlemen gave it the once-over, so to speak, and each time they made it a little more imposing until finally, when the hon. and genial member for Nanaimo (Mr. Dickie) had got through with it, it assumed the formidable proportions of 8100,000,000.

The Budget-Mr. Motherwell


Arthur Meighen: That statement was made in the very first speech in the debate from this side of the House.


William Richard Motherwell: I did not know
that, but at all events some hon. gentlemen evidently receded from that bold position at first although ultimately they took it up again. And I am afraid that had it not been for the approach of the Easter season, which sometimes has a disciplinary effect on mortals, that S100,000,000 would before long have increased to several hundred millions. Heaven only knows now what it may be after Easter.
I shall now refer to some of the remarks made'by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre and the hon. member for Fort William and Rainy Raver. Exception has been taken by these gentlemen to what they call extravagance on the part of the government, but it will be noted that very few individual items are cited; we have nothing but generalities. The government is brought under one wholesale charge of extravagance and it is said that so bad is this evil that taxation is mounting skyward. And how do hon. gentlemen opposite propose to bring down this mounting taxation? Why, they want to have more protection ; high taxation is to be cured by higher taxation. And so these gentlemen go on proposing their nostrums indefinitely. But the only particular item to which the hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River objected, so far as I could notice, was the alleged extravagance in connection with commissions of investigation, one or two of which he mentioned. The hon. member referred for example to the grain inquiry. Now what is the history of that? It is merely a continuation of an inquiry that was started by the preceding government of which the hon. gentleman himself was for a short time a member. That investigating body created at that time perambulated the whole country, 5 p.m. creating a good deal of consternation because of their crude methods; and things had reached such a pitch that an injunction was sought against their further inquiries. And between these injunctions and their waiting and hovering around, and the fact that the whole country at that time was upset over the prospects of an election, coupled with the further fact that their revenues had been exhausted, they simply hung on until by December 6 they and the government went out together. We had to do something in the matter; and, as will be recalled, the next year the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Millar) voiced the opinion that the inquiiy should be resumed; that was what he urged. So that we find one wing of
the opposition, the official section, the year before starting an inquiry but achieving nothing, not even a report being presented, followed b3- another wing of the opposition, the unofficial section, recommending later to this government, through a resolution offered by one of its members and accepted) that the government take up the matter again and proceed with the investigation. And that has been done. Well, where is the extravagance in that? Have we not got value thus far? We have a report upon the subject and a bill will be introduced after the Easter holidays. But there was absolutely nothing to show as a result of the first inquiry started by the government of which the hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River was a member for a very short time. If this is the only extravagance to which hon. gentlemen can point it is surely a very minor one. But it has not been proved that even here there has been any extravagance, because after all, in view of the importance of the subject, the expenditure that has been involved is very small.


Robert Forke: I want to object to one
expression the hon. member has used which I will not let pass: he referred to us in this part of the chamber as the "unofficial opposition." We are not an opposition.


William Richard Motherwell: I do not know what the proper term should be. Hon. gentlemen say they are not a party and now the hon. gentleman says they are not an unofficial opposition. I suppose they are just neutral; maybe that word would do.


Robert Forke: Probably that would do.


William Richard Motherwell: Yes, a neutrai
party ready to condone or condemn as the circumstances warrant.


Robert Forke: Complete the sentence.


William Richard Motherwell: That is the complete sentence-a neutral party ready to condone or condemn as the circumstances warrant.


Robert Forke: Or to praise if necessary.


William Richard Motherwell: Well, condone would be equivalent to that.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Richard Motherwell: W'e will accept
that word praise too; I aim ready to add that to the qualification. Now, to proceed. That was the extent of the extravagance with which the government was charged by the hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River. It will be remembered also that when the estimates of the Minister of Public

The Budget-Mr. Motherwell
Works (Mr. King, Kootenay) were going through the House the hon. member for Vancouver Centre at one stage discussed the question of over-manning in the civil service, denouncing all and sundry. I do not think he said that the civil servants were paid too much but he did say that there were too many civil servants; he gave us that old chestnut-too much overlapping in the civil service. Well, I would take it as a friendly act on the part of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre or of any other hon. gentleman in this House if he would be good enough to point out where, among the 1,200 cavil servants in the Department of Agriculture, the services of any one could be dispensed with without sacrificing in some measure the interests of the public service. If the hon. member for Victoria City (Mr. Tolmie) were in his place I would ask him, as one who is familiar with the work of the department, to point out where I could dispense with one man without some sacrifice. On the contrary, I know where I could engage a good many more men profitably. The hon. member for Vancouver Centre has himself pointed out on several occasions the disabilities arising in his constituency in connection with the shipment of certain goods packed in straw; and ultimately I believe we shall have to appoint a few more men at that point to take care of that situation. We do not want to do this if it is at all avoidable, but this is one answer to the charge of overlapping in the service. And this same thing is true all along the line; in a dozen directions, instead of there being too many public servants there are too few, to the detriment of the public interest. But the public do not think that; they hear a clamour from one side of the chamber to the other declaiming against the multitude of civil servants, all this talk often reflecting unwarrantably on the ability of these people. I leave the invitation open to any hon. gentleman in the House to show where any services can be dispensed with or economies effected in the votes presented to the House for the department. I speak more particularly for my own department because I am more familiar with it; but there is no member of 'this government who is not ready to give the same invitation and who would not be met with the same silence. So much for that. There are more remarks in this connection but I shall reserve them for more convenient seasons.
The hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River did take up the other day a question that required some explanation. He

gave a part of the information practically correct, and that was as to the imports of a large number of agricultural commodities, which he said should have been grown in Canada; and for some reason or other he suggested that someone was to blame, the government presumably. I shall refer to the list, and I shall mention not only imports but exports as well, for unless you have the two you will not understand the situation in regard to the imports. I shall interject an explanation here and there as I go along. In the year ending March 31, 1924, we imported of butter, in round figures, 1,500,000 pounds and exported 13,000,000 pounds. This year we exported 20,000,000 pounds; the importations are decreasing while the exports are increasing. Of cheese we imported 1,500,000 pounds and exported 116,000,000 pounds. This is nearly all fancy cheese, made in Italy, Switzerland, and elsewhere, which we do not produce in Canada.
Of eggs, the number of dozens imported was 6.500,000 in round numbers, while the export was 2,890.000. This situation is improving yearly. The year before, the imports were 8,000.000 and the exports some
3,000,000. In addition to that, owing to the improved quality of our eggs the consumption in Canada has increased during the last four or five years from sixteen dozen per annum per capita to twenty-six dozen per capita, an increase of about 60 per cent. That is because the eggs are better. So that the exports and imports of this commodity do not at all show the production.


Mr. MARCIL (Bonaventure):: Is the grading of eggs in country districts under the minister's department?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes.


Charles Marcil: The provincial governments have nothing to do with it?


William Richard Motherwell: No, not now; they did a few years ago. There were a number of provincial methods of dealing with it, starting I think with Prince Edward Island about twelve years ago and then being taken up by the western provinces. On account of the expert character of the work it was thought wise to make it uniform and have the whole thing come under the federal Department of Agriculture. At another time when this matter is up I will perhaps make a fuller explanation.
Of fruits, $18,000,000 worth were imported in the year to which I refer, and nearly $9,000,000 worth were exported. Fruits are a very healthful commodity. A great many

The Budget-Mr. Motherwell
of them come in free and are available at times when our own fruit is not available. But it will be noted that to offset the large amount of imports we have nearly $9,000,000 of exports.
The question of hides has been the subject of much discussion. The hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Forke) and one or two other Progressives drew attention to the comparatively small price of our hides and the large import. In the particular year to which I refer 46,000,000 pounds of hides were imported, chiefly from the United States, Argentine and New Zealand, and against that,
49,000,000 pounds were exported. Apparently the users of hides, the boot and shoe makers, buy foreign hides because of the greater uniformity in the article; it suits their trade better. Every farmer in this chamber is familiar with the irregularity of the quality of a great many of the country-killed hides, especially in the winter. I do not know whether that is the reason why these are exported; I suppose it is because it is to the advantage of the sellers to export them and that the quality of the product is perhaps more suitable to the export trade.


John Livingstone Brown: On the question of hides, has the minister gone into the imports or exports of tanned leather made from these hides that are imported?


William Richard Motherwell: No.


John Livingstone Brown: It would be found very interesting.


William Richard Motherwell: I took just the list that the hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River (Mr. Manion) dealt with; I did not go into that. I have no doubt that there is a very much longer and more interesting story with regard to this whole question than I am prepared to give in the time that is at my disposal now.
Of lard we imported 12,000,000, pounds and exported 8,000,000 pounds. Ever since the Canadian swine industry has been developed along the line of what we call the bacon type there has been a lessened production of lard. The fatter the animal is; the more it comes under the classification of " thick smooth," the less lard you will get from it, so that we need not be surprised if our lard importations increase as we develop the bacon type of hog for the British market. You cannot get it both ways; you cannot have a lean bacon type such as the foreign markets demand, and a fat animal at the same time. This is a good sign, because it is better to produce bacon than it
is to produce lard. Anybody can produce lard, but anybody cannot produce bacon.
Of bacon and hams, 6,000,000 pounds were imported and 99,000,000 pounds exported. There is a demand for the fat ham and the thicker bacon in certain markets throughout Canada, and that is imported because it is cheaper, while the other is exported because it caters to the more fastidious taste of the British market, which is prepared to pay the money for the good quality. That accounts for the difference between the import and the export.
Of fresh pork we imported 22,000,000 pounds and exported 1,000,000 pounds. This import, my information is, is to keep our abattoirs running during a shortage of live hogs on the Canadian market. They find it pays them better to import green pork from the United States, and thus keep the curing facilities going at the abattoir, than to close their packing plants; so that they make this import of green pork and then export the product. The pork is held in bond during the curing process.
Of pork in brine, we imported 9,000,000 pounds and exported only 430,000 pounds. This is the real, old-fashioned three or four inch thick stuff we used to see many years ago in the shanties. There was an idea that the shanty-men had lost their taste for this heavy meat and were demanding the tender cuts just like other people, but apparently there is still a considerable demand for it-so much so that we have not the supply to meet it and consequently we have had to import
9,000,000 pounds.
Of seed we imported nealy $4,000,000 worth and exported over $8,500,000 worth-over twice as much, so that the situation there is quite satisfactory. The seeds that we import are largely those that do not grow in Canada.


Mr. WARNER:: May I ask a question? Is it not a fact that many of our heavy hogs that make the kind of pork referred to are shipped to the United States instead of being used here in Canada? I know of one firm in I\etaskiwin, not far from Edmonton, that claimed to have made $6,000 by shipping just that kind of hog to the United States and then importing the finished product.


William Richard Motherwell: That is quite possible. [DOT] In more than one case Canadian butter and eggs have been shipped to the British market, and in a month or two have been shipped back to Canada. It is a case of overshipment to the British market, and before the new, fresh, winter eggs come in they find it commercially possible an^ feasible to"

The Buuyet-Mr. Motherwell
have them shipped back again. This frequently happens.
The matter of vegetables is frequently discussed by many, particularly our Conservative friends. I want to say quite frankly I have some sympathy with them on the question of vegetables, but when you know the record, it does not look so bad. We imported $3,900,000, nearly $4,000,000 worth of vegetables, and we exported almost the same, $3,700,000, or a difference of $200,000, so it very nearly balances.
Take raw wool. That looks like a reflection on our disposition to diversify and take advantage of all the opportunities on our farms. We imported 19,000,000 pounds, and we exported only 6,000,000 pounds. I think that is easy to explain. These are largely merino wools, the finer wools of Australia that our Canadian woollen factories desire in order to make the finer cloths. We have not the population to make use of all our own coarse wool, and our wool therefore goes to Boston and other United States points, where they have a large population and there is a large and varied demand for all qualities of wool. There is no reflection there such as was apparently desired to be thrown upon the agricultural development of Canada.
There are more of these things we can do. This last year the west alone has produced for export over 10,000,000 additional pounds of butter. The west will develop year by year until in a short time, inside of another ten or fifteen years, it will be exporting 100,000,000 pounds of creamery butter, judging by the rate they are going now. We are getting away from specialized farming, which is not a safety first system at all. Even eastern Canada can develop enormously along the lines of diversification. This old province of Ontario, with a little more attention to winter dairying and improving the quality of the cows, could in ten years double its butter output. We are just awakening to the fact that we have to pay more attention to all these things, and not buy any more than we can help of what we can grow profitably at home. You know quite a wave went over the country ten or fifteen years ago- Oh, it is not worth while bothering with these things. Let us do the things that our farm and the community are specially adapted for, let us specialize. There is a lot to be said for specialization, but when you are specializing in a particularly precarious article, subject to climatic conditions, where do you stand if this specialty, due to climatic conditions or other reasons, falls down? You have nothing left; We are entering an era when
fMr. Motherwell.]
people want to play safe. Why do we see such a tremendous development in our insurance business? People who were insured for $10,000 yesterday want $20,000 insurance to-day; people who were not insured at all yesterday are seeking insurance to-day. They want something that is safe. They do not want to make a big profit out of something, but simply to play safe. That is the result of the discipline we got in the debauch of the war period and for a year or two afterwards, and it is a good sign. We are also playing safe in agriculture by diversifying our farming, and it is a good sign; it is something to congratulate ourselves upon, rather than a reflection upon agriculture, because we find it convenient sometimes to export and sometimes to import. So much for that question.
I have been criticizing the official opposition for a short time-I usually do. I take far more delight in criticizing my regular traditional opponents, whose steel I always respect but whom I like, and I shall like them much better if we keep them just where they are, which it is our business to do. But just now I am under the necessity of criticizing my very good friend from Springfield (Mr. Hoey). I do not think enough attention is paid to him in this House. He is one of the most capable of the front benchers among our Progressive friends. Whenever he speaks he gives us a treat. Anybody, whether he is a literary man or not, who likes a well rounded speech, faultless rhetoric, beautiful sentences uttered in that rich Irish voice, which cannot be beat, cannot but be charmed by the hon. member for Springfield. I am not saying that for the purpose of paving the way for something terrible. I just wanted to point out that while his speech had all these beauties, it had also this danger, that it was misunderstood, I think, by some members of the House, and will be misunderstood by the country. There was not the point to it that seemed to lie on the surface. Take the eulogy, for instance, my hon. friend gave of Mr. Jones as a business man. It was deserving of Mr. Jones as a business man, but I am afraid Mr. Jones has been too much of a business man for my hon. friend. He was pretty nearly so for myself. I had the pleasure of being invited to the Country Club one night, on an occasion, when the honoured guest was Mr. Jones, the manager of the Cement Company, the institution that we have heard so much about, and whose profits a great many Progressives, particularly the hon. member for Saskatoon (Mr. Evans), have complained so much about. I listened to Mr. Jones describing this uniform,

The Budget-Mr. Motherwell
flat rate budget he was going to impose on the country, and unlike this formal occasion, his address was given informally around "* table, after the dinner had been done full justice to, and then afterwards we were privileged to sit in committee of the whole, as it were, and ask questions, and after we started asking questions and began to find out what this flat rate budget meant, I was amazed. This flat rate budget was going to raise not only $130,000,000 that the present budget provides for, but $120,000,000 more, making in all $250,000,000, to be raised by a tariff applied on a flat rate basis to everything that comes into 'Canada-nothing coming in free at all, but just a flat uniform tariff on everything. I think the hon. member for Springfield quite understood that, because he drew particular attention to it. Not only that, but when my colleague the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) mentioned it and asked the hon. member for Springfield if he was in favour of this "Jones'' policy- shall I call it, just as we speak of the Dawes plan-the hon. member for Springfield started out to say that when the government declared just what their position was in regard to the Jones policy he would be ready to declare his. I did not know that hon. members expected the government to declare itself on the Jones plan. Maybe they had heard of this dinner at the Country Club and expected we were going to take over the Jones plan as part of our policy. But my hon. friend from Springfield did not Stop there. He said:
I will state now without hesitation or equivocation-
Like a real Irishman he is afraid of nothing, he goes right to it:
-that Mr. Jones' policy would mean an immeasurably better tariff than we have at the present time.
That means a tariff whose good qualities cannot be measured as compared with ours; the Jones tariff was the best tariff the hon. member had in sight, immeasurably better than the present budget. Let us examine what the unequivocal statement means. It was also pointed out that the Jones plan would produce $250,000,000 of revenue, based on an importation of $800,000,000 worth of goods. Now anybody can take out his pencil and check up. The Jones flat rate tariff was to be levied on $800,000,000 worth of goods, and was to produce $250,000000 of revenue. Divide $250,000,000 by $800,000,000, and you will find you get a uniform flat rate duty of thirty-one and a fraction per cent. No wonder the cement merger would like that arrangement. This man, Mr. Jones, is not as easy as he looks; he gets, as near as I can figure out, not quite ten per cent protection
on cement. I did not know that at the time.
I innocently sat at the feet of Mr. Jones learning the new national policy. Now we are having another policy proposed which is intended to replace the old one. Well, 31 per cent was to be levied on everything on the free list and Mr. Jones says that two-fifths of the goods we need are imported free. Take binder twine. I would not care to go into the constituency of Springfield and advocate a duty of 31 per cent on binder twine; but apparently the hon. member for that constituency (Mr. Hoey) is prepared for such a policy in order that he may "keep up with the Joneses." I cannot understand that. I am in doubt as to whether the hon. gentleman understood what that policy involved. You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that when my colleague asked the hon. member for Springfield whether he was speaking for the Progressive party he promptly said: "No, I am speaking for myself"; he was searching about for some betterment because he said "that the truth did sometimes come out of Nazareth," meaning in this instance, Montreal. So the rest of the Progressive party are in no way responsible for these statements and I am glad of that; I am sorry ever to have to criticize one of them. Here is a list of articles free of duty which I have prepared ; they are comprised in part of the first half of the alphabet, from a to m:
Animals for improvement of stock-ewes and lambs for breeding purposes.
Everybody knows that these animals come in free. The commoner stock does not come in free; it is now proposed to subject the pure bred stock to a duty of 31 per cent in the interest of the live stock industry of Canada.
Animal manures.
One of my hon. friends from a constituency near Montreal is always talking about the heinousness of allowing our barnyard fertilizers to go to the United States, and here is a proposition to apply a 31 per cent tariff to manures.
Antitoxin.
Think of the advantages now enjoyed by human beings. This is one of the greatest boons open to mankind and yet my genial hearted Irish friend wishes to tax it 31 per cent.
Apparel wearing, settlers'.
Like my hon. friend I am an immigrant only I moved from eastern Canada to the west; my hon. friend crossed the Atlantic to Canada. Our apparel now comes in free but my hon. friend would make it subject to a duty of 31 per cent.

The Budget-Mr. Motherwell
Apparatus for boring and drilling for water, gas oil or minerals of a class or kind not made in Canada-
And so forth. This is now free, but my hon. friend would have it subject to a duty of 31 per cent.
Apparatus, and glass ware for laboratory work and sterilizing purposes for hospitals.
I never was in a hospital until I was forty-five years of age. I had thought it was a disgrace for a man or woman to be found in such an institution. Now, I think it is one of the greatest humanitarian agencies in existence, possibly outside of the Christian church. All these things are to be taxed although formerly they were free. " Keeping up with the Joneses " is a terrible game to play.
Artificial limbs and parts thereof.
Hon. gentlemen will remember last year when the public gallery of this chamber was full of members of the Amputation Association. We also heard them as on wooden legs they stumped down the corridors keeping time with military precision. All these limbs now come in free but under my hon. friend's plan they would meet	a duty of 31 per
cent.
Artificial teeth not mounted.
What is a man to do when he gets old and loses his molars and grinders? I am approaching that age. But my hon. friend wants to charge me 31 per cent. I shall either have to " gum " my food or pay 31 per cent.
Asbestos roofing cement.
A very necessary article in building operations in a new district. It will have to pay 31 per cent under my hon. friend's plan.
Augurs, coal mining machinery.
Where are my hon. friends from the Maritime provinces who are so greatly interested in the question of coal? Where are those hon. members who are so constant in urging that the cost of the implements of production be kept down? Here is a proposition to jack up the cost by 31 per cent.
Barbed fencing wire
Binder twine.
I remember how in the good old Liberal days of Sir Wilfrid Laurier we made the welkin ring when we got binder twine and barbed wire on the free list. Our modern reformer, however, wants to place these under a duty of 31 per cent. I am going to exonerate my hon. friend from the responsibility for this; I think he must have been teetotal'ly mesmerized. I sympathize with him because I was almost lured into the same boat. How-

ever, I went further into a study of the figures; I am Scotch and blest with a saving streak which my hon. friend has not got.


Mr. SPEAKMAN:: Does the hon. minister remember at the time the hon. member for Springfield (Mr. Hoey) made the comparison between the Jones plan and the present budget it was before the latest amendment to the dumping act had been brought down?


William Richard Motherwell: Oh, no, it was not, and anyhow the dumping act has nothing to do with this particular question; it is a matter which stands by itself.
Boards, sawn etc., dressed on one side only, sawn, or split only.
Books, namely books on the application of science to industries of all kinds, including books on agriculture, horticulture, forestry and so on.
When people want to know a little more about agriculture, horticulture and forestry and wish to import works on these subjects from any part of the globe they will not be free to do so without paying a duty of 31 per cent.
Bowls for cream separators, steel.
Cream separators.
That was another thing good Sir Wilfrid got for us, but my hon. friend is seeking to put it back at 31 per cent.
Coals, briquettes, anthracite, cutting machines, except percussion coal cutters.
How will the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart) be able to carry out his briquetting proposition when my Progressive friend from Springfield gets a duty of 31 per cent placed on anthracite?


Mr. HOEY:: The minister is talking about 31 per cent duty. Who is advocating that?


William Richard Motherwell: Well, that is the
Jones' plan.


Robert Alexander Hoey: I defy the minister to quote
any such thing from Mr. Jones' statement.


William Richard Motherwell: I will have to quote the figures again.


Robert Alexander Hoey: I defy you to quote any such thing from Mr. Jones' statement.


William Richard Motherwell: I am just brushing aside the rhetorical phrases and letting the statement stand out in bold, naked outline. My hon. friend from Springfield in his speech a few days ago declared:
But I will state now without hesitation or equivocation that Mr. Jones' policy would mean an immeasurably better tariff than we have at the present time.


Robert Alexander Hoey: Hear, hear.

The Budget-Mr. Motherwell


William Richard Motherwell: That is what my
hon. friend himself said. Now I will quote what Mr. Jones said:
From a revenue standpoint our tariff is a complete failure. I am not going into details, but our importations into Canada, in round figures, are a billion dollars per year. In 1921 our imports reached $1,240,000,000, in 1922 they dropped to $774,000,000, in 1923 they were $802,000,000, so that they are now on the up grade.
Then my hon. friend from Springfield makes this comment:
Mr. Jones goes on to advocate what he calls a uniform tariff not only on manufactured goods entering the country, but on raw material as well, which revision he claims would bring an added amount of revenue into treasury of approximately $120,000,000.
And my hon. friend says that such a tariff would be immeasurably better than ours. He does not say what his plan is, but he accepts that as the best he can think of. It is the production of one of the super-men who is summoned to our aid.


Robert Alexander Hoey: Will the minister tell us where Mr. Jones advocated a 31 per cent tariff.


William Richard Motherwell: He did not go that far. That is why he pretty nearly caught some people.


Robert Alexander Hoey: Hear, hear.


William Richard Motherwell: No, he did not go
that far. His estimate, as far as I can recall it, was about 25 per cent. He did not figure it out minutely apparently, nor did I. But I take this document and this is what I am going by now. I assume they were all in a proper frame of mind at the dinner referred to, but it is safer to take the actual document.


Robert Alexander Hoey: The minister refers to a
dinner. The speech I quoted was given before the students of McGill University.


William Richard Motherwell: That does not make any difference.


Robert Alexander Hoey: There was no dinner.


William Richard Motherwell: It makes no difference. I say I had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Jones at the dinner mentioned at the Country Club. If he did not quote it properly at the university, I may say it is almost item by item the same speech I heard. It must be a favourite speech of his. No, that explanation will not go. Then we have coal, heading machines and we have crutches and1 specially constructed staffs for the cripples. I won my first election on crutches, and I have great sympathy for those who have to use them. I got my leg broken in the campaign and I did not wish to stand. It was the best vote-getter I ever had. Then we have:
Furnaces blast for copper or nickel.
Hemp seed for agricultural purposes.
I remember when we were making strenuous efforts to establish a hemp factory in Winnipeg, my hon. friend (Mr. Hoey) could not see his way to support it, but actually spoke against it. Now he does not want the seed to come in free. What are we to do? I thought we had a real, genuine Cobden talk from the hon, member for Brome (Mr. McMaster). Sometimes we fail to be able to follow his speech in its entirety, but we have to respect the old teachings. The teachings of our forefathers were great, but when you apply them in all their logical details they are a terror. Now if hon. members have any tears, prepare to shed them now.
Hymn books and Bibles.
These are on the free list. It is now proposed to make the duty on them 31 per cent. Cut that in two and make it fifteen if you will, The hon. member who has so creditably filled the pulpit for so many years cannot be accused of wanting to make the way to the celestial city more difficult. I think we will retire to-night with free Bibles and free hymn books, and if the Jones plan were to be followed we would wake up tomorrow with a taxation. Maybe we would think more of them if we did not get them so easily. Then the next item:
Machines, ditching (traction) (not being ploughs) adapted for tile drainage on farm.
That was another thing in Ontario that they wanted. They wished to get ditching machines, and you cannot get away from this. I have thought this out. Blood is thicker than water. I am always drawn to an Irishman, at the same time I like to have a little round out of him if he deserves it. And I think my hon. friend has been led away by this Jones plan. A flat rate would be a delightfully simple measure. I am sure the Acting Minister of Finance would not mind continuing his occupation if 'he could say, "Put it on a flat basis and we will be through with it." Hon. gentlemen will recall that when out in the west land was very cheap; a certain number of cents tax per acre was placed on it. The Minister of the Interior will recall that. It amounted to about five dollars on a quarter-section. It was very easy, -but when land became valuable, and people insisted on land values being taxed, in order to have any uniformity in the taxes, we found it necessary to provide for an assessment. A flat rate would be delightfully simple. We would be able to tax all raw material, whether hemp, tobacco, cotton or anything else. This

The Budget-Mr. Mothervrell
is the scheme to be followed out under Mr. Jones' modern plan of taxation. You cannot get away from it. I wish somebody would help me get away from it.


John Evans: The Minister of Agriculture is giving the House a wrong impression altogether.


William Richard Motherwell: Correct me if I am wrong. I will sit down for half an hour while you explain how I am wrong, and if I am wrong I will retract.


John Evans: The hon. minister is giving
a wrong impression to the House. Mr. Jones' words were that eighty per cent of the imports are coming in now for the already privileged class. He is not speaking of a one hundred per cent tariff on one hundred per cent of the goods coming in, but on eighty per cent, which is already coming in to the privileged class.


William Richard Motherwell: Does anybody
understand that? There is something wrong somewhere. I cannot understand it at all. I have got the wrong .scent, or else my hon. friend who has just asked a question is on the wrong track.


John Evans: Will my hon. friend read
the words himself?


William Richard Motherwell: I am in the middle of a speech. I do not say this defiantly, but here is a magnificent speech broadcasted all over western Canada, made by one of the most capable men in the House, and I say the statement should be corrected. The Acting Minister of Finance brought down the budget speech. It does not matter where the document came from. It is my duty to defend the budget. If it were my brother or my father it would be my duty to defend it, and consequently my hon. friend' from Springfield will not misunderstand me. He has not a greater admirer in this House than myself. I have never made a practice of taking advantage of anybody in the House. I will give hon. gentlemen an opportunity to explain, and nobody would take advantage of my sitting down and saying I am through with my speech, because I am not. I have only got to "M" in the list, and that is only the middle of the alphabet. There are hundreds of articles on the free list. Suppose we go to an excess in the matter of charitableness and say Mr. Jones only meant it was to apply to $130,000,000 of revenue-that he only meant that the present amount of revenue was to be raised. That will be sixteen per cent, or about half. If you like we will take it that way. But I do not see 
that we could do that, because the hon. member for Springfield adopted the statement right off the bat. Now what about the articles in the tariff that caused my good friends from Brantford (Mr. Raymond), North Waterloo (Mr. Euler) and St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Marler) so much worry. Some of us had to sweat blood to get those duties reduced. Hon. members understand that when you get something by hard labour you do not- let it slip away from your fingers. Here is a list of articles	running	from	six	per cent to tenper cent usually. That is pretty low. You cannot	call that	a protective tariff. Underthe Jones plan	that	has	to be raised towhichever you like now. If they only meant	that we	were	to	raise the $130,-
000,000 which we raise at present, and which they described as no revenue at all to come from the tariff we should have, that means sixteen per cent. If it is to be $250,000,000 it means thirty-one per cent, whichever you like. You pay your money and you take your choice. It makes no difference here. But here is the thing that hurts me more than anything else, because this was in my own time, and the Acting Minister of Finance understands the difficulty we had in getting some of these things. Then we have the item:
Grain binders.
I can remember when they were pretty nearly thirty-one per cent. Then we have:
Drills, mowing machines, cultivators, threshing machines.
I remember when the duty on threshing machines was 35 per cent. The duties on these are all less than 10 per cent now. Last year the Progressive party thought that the budget was not bad and they supported it, the only budget which they have supported in the last three years. The first two budgets they did not support, but they supported the budget last year, thus showing that as a party ! they confirmed it. But the hon. member for Springfield was not speaking for them; he made it quite plain that he was asking nobody to accept responsibility for his statement, and I want my hon. friends to understand that I am not asking them to accept responsibility for this because I am dealing with just the hon. member for Springfield now. These items are to be raised to a uniform tariff, after all the struggle, all the effort we went through to bring the duty down. This gentleman, Mr! Jones, is a business man, in the firm that produces the Beaverbrooks, and apparently you cannot produce them on a 9 per cent ad valorem duty. The duty is a specific one, but working it

The Budget-Mr. Motherwell
out as an ad valorem duty, it comes to around 9 per cent. As I say, you cannot produce them apparently on a 9 per cent ad valorem duty and he would much prefer to have it 30 per cent. He has little dinners here and there and he unfolds a plan that, on the face of it, looks like a crackerjack, but which is meant to be something to make Beaver-brooks out of. That is the situation. I will sit down right now if the hon. member wants to question my statement, as I am not bluffing at all.


Robert Alexander Hoey: Before the minister gets away from that, will he tell us what the rate of duty is on bituminous slack that he is supporting in the present budget? I think it works out a little over 50 per cent.


William Richard Motherwell: It is a specific
duty. I suppose some of them would come down, but look at the number that go up.


Robert Alexander Hoey: Coal would come down anyway.


William Richard Motherwell: We are not all manufacturers interested in bituminous slack.


Robert Alexander Hoey: What about automobiles?


William Richard Motherwell: There must be
something on the other side of the ledger or the thing wrould certainly be a fierce frost. It is certainly a frost enough. I find another remarkable coincidence in regard to this matter. Three years ago when the Minister of the Interior was wrestling with his estimates on immigration hard and long into the night after five full days-and it was the morning of the sixth day before he got even one item through-I recall this fact because it is connected with cement-my good friend got up and advocated very ably that this government should introduce a scheme somewhat similar to the one which the old government introduced. He mudt have thought more of them than he does now. He wanted this government to adopt a housing plan for farm labourers in Canada, east or west or all over, similar to the housing plans of the cities which housing plans we were glad to drop. The buildings were to be made of concrete, indestructible, and worth $2,500 apiece. Labourers are certainly "some pumpkins" nowadays if you are going to build houses of that character for them on a farm when the farmer himself has a shack worth not a quarter of that amount. But we shall let that pass. Concrete is made out of broken stone, more or less coarse gravel and cement, but the greatest of all is cement. Keeping up with the Joneses! Keeping in with the Joneses, apparently! What a remarkable coincidence! I want to exonerate my hon. friend from anything associated with this at all. It is a purely extraordinary coincidence that he should advocate the construction of all these cement houses at a cost of $2,500 apiece, and then come down and advocate a tariff running up to 30 per cent. This Jones business is getting on my nerves. I am very fortunate I did not fall for it myself and I am just as sympathetic to my hon. friend because he fell for it. I think he was tempted. This is the explanation of the whole thing and it is easy. An Irishman is said never to be at a loss for an answer. A Scotchman, in this case the Acting Minister of Finance was one too many for the Irishman-sometimes they will get the better of them, but very seldom-and he up and asked the hon. member if he was in favour of this Jones proposition. The hon. member had to think quickly and he said: "When the government declared where they were." He knew that was absolutely no answer at all, but it gave him time to think, and in my opinion, he should have taken a little more time to think. I do not accept his answer without reservation, but he said: "It is immeasurably better than the plan we have." He cannot get away from that. He was desirous of keeping up his well known Irish characteristic of being always ready with an answer for the faith that was in him. but that time he failed, and that was all. He is one of the most honourable men in this House and a man to be admired, but that kind of devilment gets out and hurts the government, and I am one of the government.
That completes, Mr. Speaker, the first half of my remarks. Might I ask that half-time be called?
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess
The House resumed at eight o'clock.



PRIVATE BILL


[Stage Direction]
Mr. T. L. CHURCH (North Toronto) moved the second reading of Bill No. 42, to amend The Toronto Harbour Commissioners Act, 1911.
He said:	This is a private bill and it is
introduced at the instance of the Toronto Harbour Commissioners who are rebuilding the port of Toronto. The commission comprises five members-three representatives appointed by tb" and two by the federal
Private Bill
[Stage Direction]
government. The bill seeks to amend the powers of the commission and I shall move, in accordance with a telegram I have received from the mayor and board of control of the city of Toronto, an amendment for this purpose. The telegram I have received reads:
April 6, 1925.
Thomas L. Church, M.P.,
House of Commons, Ottawa, Ont.
The city council this afternoon approved of amended bill as follows: The harbour commissioners shall have power to conduct on the lands of the commissioners at Sunnyside amusement recreation grounds and playgrounds or arrange with others to conduct said amusement recreation grounds and playgrounds under certain conditions as to compensation and management and also that the use of the said Sunnyside lands as amusement areas recreation grounds and playgrounds and the erection heretofore of buildings etc., on the said lands by or for the commissioners or the lessees or licensees of the commissioners etc., are by this bill confirmed and declared to be legal and valid.
W. A. Littlejohn,
City Clerk.
The foregoing telegram has reference to the last clause of the bill Oc), and in view of the agreement that has been reached between the city of Toronto through its council and the harbour commission I beg for leave to move an amendment to strike out clauses (a) and (b). The two parties concerned1 are the city and the harbour commission and at a joint meeting in Toronto last Thursday they decided upon an amendment which is offered as satisfactory to both sides namely, only to ask for clause (c) this session.
Hewitt Bostock: If the hon. member will
withhold his proposed amendment he can move it when the bill goes before the committee. It is customary at this stage, upon the adoption of the motion for second reading, to refer bills of this kind to the committee on Miscellaneous Private Bills.
Motion agreed to and bill read the second time.



THE BUDGET


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Hon. J. A. Robb (Acting Minister of Finance) that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair for the House to go into committee of Ways and Means, and the proposed amendment thereto of Sir Henry Drayton.
Hon. W. R, MOTHERWELL (Minister of Agriculture):	For some reason or other the
country generally, including the press, seem to be of the opinion that we are on the eve of a general election. Speaking for myself

I do not see very many signs of an election, but the impression is there nevertheless.
I can however discern some signs of an impending election in the fact that a great many of our friends in both opposing groups are apparently busy attending to their line fences. That is of course a quite legitimate 'business to engage in, and it may account for Some of the speeches that are being made and the resolutions that are being proposed in this House. I am going to refer to one line fence indication now of a more pleasing nature. Our friends immediately opposite have 'been taking care recently of one line fence, in the amendment to the budget. I have not the amendment before me, but if I remember rightly it makes little if any reference whatever to the tariff; although our friends have been talking diligently of protection ever since the 'budget was introduced. It would seem therefore that they have two .policies, one for the country outside, appearing in a manifesto issued through the press on January 4, a manifesto so-called, and distributed broadcast all over the country for outside consumption, 'and a second policy, more .carefully worded in the amendment to the budget, apparently for the consumption of the House.
I do not know what effect it is having on our Progressive friends, 'but even supposing that it avoids protection it evidently has no attraction for them.
I have here a clipping from t'he Montreal Star entitled:
Meighen demands tariff revision and commission. Broad policy of Conservative party outlined by leader. Save resources. Would make preferences conditional on use of Canadian ports.
Then is outlined a manifesto which I think I am justified in dealing with at this time inasmuch as it indicates, in some respects at least, far more plainly than does the amendment to the budget, the .policy of the Conservative party. In this it is distinctly stated that the intention is to resurrect protection in all its various forms and ramifications. That is the centre of the whole manifesto; it aims to restore protection such as Sir John A. Macdonald preached and such as the leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) now advocates; it is going to restore and bring back to life that form of protection. Well, it reminds me of one of t'he Sacred stories in [DOT] Holy Writ in which the dry bones, strewn in the valley, will by the divine hand be restored to life. You will observe, Mr. Speaker, that it took the divine hand to do that. The bones were brought joint to joint and marrow to marrow, were clothed with muscle and flesh, and then covered over with skin and made to stand up and look like men.

The Budget-Mr. Motherwell
Now my hon. friends are going to restore a number of obsolete things like protection. They are going to restore the old nostrum that they have been prescribing for the last twenty-five years; and a preference for preference is outlined here. Well, preference for preference means no British preference. And they are going to build up Canadian ports; that is another one. They are going to build up Canadian ports by shipping in goods under the British preference, although there will be none. Besides, they are two_years late, even if they had that policy. The Minister of Finance adopted a policy two years ago whereby ten per cent addition was made to the British preference, but with the proviso that to obtain the advantage of it the goods must come in by Canadian ports. Under that policy 99g per cent of the dutiable goods from Great Britain coming under the British preference come in by Canadian ports, leaving seven-eighths subject to the reforms of my hon. friends on the other side who are not in favour of a preference at all. Dry bones to be restored? Let us see some more, now.
My hon. friends are to have a 'tariff board, composed of what, Mr. Speaker? Composed of representatives of the manufacturers, of the farmers and of labour. Theoretically fine, but it, really is surprising that a practical man like the right hon. leader of the opposition should be indulging in vagaries and fancies like this. Just imagine; we have been trying this for thirty years-I mean in a private way; many a time the proposal has been made in good faith, and acted upon, that the manufacturers .and the farmers especially should get together and try to evolve a tariff that would be congenial and pleasant to both. It is utterly impossible, in my estimation; yet such is the personnel of the board that my right hon. friend would establish to look over the tariff, to revise the tariff, to make recommendations to the cabinet. Labour is to be represented, too; whether or not that will, make it any easier I do not know. Well, you might as well take a dog and a cat, tie their tails together and hang them over the clothes line and expect harmony. I do not contend that the thing is impossible; I believe it would be a fine thing to aim at. But we have been aiming at it for a long while and we have failed. It is something like the shipping proposition; they have been aiming at a lot of things in the past and they have got us nowhere, and they want to keep on aiming at them. That is another dry bone that they want to restore, to endow with flesh and blood and sinew, and then to breathe into it the breath of life and make it stand up and look like something.
Well, it cannot be done-not by the human hand at least, and no other hand is likely to intervene at this time for this particular purpose.
Mr. GOULD:: I would like to ask the minister when the death occurred which accounts for these bones? I.did not know there was any demise.


William Richard Motherwell: They have been
declining gradually; it is a case of slow but inevitable decay. Some few of them yet remain alive, hence the hope of life.


Arthur Meighen: How about that duty on coal? Is it alive or dead?


William Richard Motherwell: We will come to that after a while.


Arthur Meighen: Take it now.


William Richard Motherwell: That is the nicest morsel of all; I am leaving it until the last.


Arthur Meighen: Do not forget it.


William Richard Motherwell: When a little boy has a choice piece of bread with jam on it he always leaves it until the last. I hope my right hon. friend will not interrupt me like that. Now, here is the funny part of it: when you get these three parties represented on a congenial body of this kind, and protection is handed out under their auspices, then-will the Progressives listen to this?-if anyone takes unfair advantage of the protection given, this body will report the fact to my right hon. friend-that is, when my hon. friends opposite get into power, which is something I do not think we need be alarmed about to-night. But when they get into power this unfair advantage will be reported and the protection will be withdrawn. Why, you might as well set a man before a good meal and say that if he takes advantage of it the meal will be taken away! Is that not What protection is for, to be taken advantage of? What is the good of it, as some hon. gentleman over there asked the hon. member for Lincoln (Mr. Chaplin) this afternoon, if they do not take advantage of it? There are occasions when protection can go so far as to retain the market, in a measure, and the full advantage of it is sometimes taken; and occasionally the other party to the contract assumes the cost of protection. Not always, but nearly always, it goes to the consumer-that has been dealt with by the hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster).

The Budget-Mr. Motherwell


Mr. ANDERSON:: May I ask the minister what would be the personnel of the tariff board under the present government?


William Richard Motherwell: The Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) has not disclosed that yet.


Robert King Anderson: What classes would be included?


William Richard Motherwell: I can say it would not be a foolish one, such as is proposed by my hon. friend. That would simply mean a deadlock. It might be that some of those mentioned by my hon. friends would be represented on it, but not as such.


Arthur Meighen: WThat ones?


William Richard Motherwell: We have enough
vocational and professional groups and institutions here without starting to establish more.


Arthur Meighen: Will not the minister try to answer the question? Make a stab at it anyway.


William Richard Motherwell: WThat did the right hon. gentleman say? I thought he promised to be good. Anyway, that is one more dry bone. Unfair advantage? We have heard of it for at least fifty years, and now it is restored, resurrected, renovated, rejuvenated, but by the hand of man only.
Now then, here we have another boneyard exhibit. My hon. friends make this proposal :
That to enable the products of the western and Maritime provinces to reach more readily the markets so developed the special transportation burdens borne by those provinces should be shared by the whole Dominion either by contribution to long haul freight costs or by assistance in some other form.
And this coming from the right hon. leader of the opposition! He is going to assist the Maritimes by some special contribution that is to be provided by the whole of Canada. That, I say, from the same gentleman who did his best to remove the advantages that the western provinces were enjoying under the Crowsnest pass agreement. In fact, he did suspend it for three years, and when we restored part of it he opposed the measure tooth and nail in this House. Last year when he went -through the western provinces he said again that he was opposed to it; it was not right; it was not fair that the eastern people should have their freight rates controlled by the railway commission while those of the west were controlled to some extent by act of parliament. Now he comes down at this eleventh hour and says: "We want some special consideration for the Maritime prov-

inces, and we want the rest of the people to pay for it." I am not objecting to the principle; I simply want to get at the cause of this sudden conversion. There is another phase of it: the intercolonial rates that the Maritime provinces had were tantamount to a little "crow" of their own down there until my right hon. friend took them away in the consolidation of that road with the National railways. There is a slight increase, I understand, over the old low rates in the present day consolidated rates under the Canadian National. But my right hon. friend and his government-or i-t may have been under his former leader, Sir Robert Borden, I do not recall-took away the special privileges and the special rates which complied, I believe with the spirit of the understanding under which the Maritime provinces entered the confederation. Now the hon. gentleman and his party come along in this mealy-mouthed fashion and ask an opportunity to give them back. Too late. Why do they talk that way? Oh, their bones are dry and their hope is gone, and they are going back to wallow in protection again. Well, it cannot be done. Protection is not all gone yet; I do not know whether we will ever live to see it all abolished; it may not be possible to do away with it all, it may not be desirable; but at all events we do not want the brand of protection my right hon. friend and his party preach. So much for these relics, so much for this valley of bones. They seem sad over the impending fate of Canada. It is business depression that is preached bv the hon. member'for Fort William and Rainy River (Mr. Manion). It hangs over us, according to him, about as thick as a London fog. As a matter of fact, a little introspection will show us that the depression is in 'the Tory prospects in this country; that is where the -depression has been ever since their defeat in the second battle of Hastings. Their spirits have been getting lower and lower ever since, and the last -tiling they want is an election. I do not know that anybody in this House is particularly pining for an election. People do not look for this heavy expense and turmoil before they have to. The regular term of parliament is five years. Why should we add twenty per cent to the cost of that by bringing on an election every four years? That is what the -man in the street may be saying. The hearts of hon. gentlemen opposite, as a matter of -fact, are frozen for fear an election might come. , Hence the depression.


Mr. HANSON:: What seat has the hon.
gentleman decided to contest the next time?

The Budget-Mr. Motherwell


Some hon. MEMBERS:: York-Sunbury.


William Richard Motherwell: If my hon. friend
looks after his seat I will 'look after mine. I may say candidly I do not know where it will be, but I have had four or five seats offered to me. I do not know how many more there will be before the time comes.
As I was pointing out, Mr. Speaker, there was a time when hon. gentlemen opposite wanted an election, and that was a little over a year ago. I think they would have welcomed one at the end of our first year here, when we were sweltering 'between two forces that were grinding us to pieces, the Cavil Service Commission and the upper chamber. My hon. friends were ready to jump in then and take advantage of our apparent helplessness. Last year, when they thought they had something terrible on three or four members of this government, maligning them and libelling them as anything but honest men, they would have liked to go into the country; in fact, they went to the country themselves in West Hastings, and they would have 'liked to go to the country all over Canada. But I am not going to bring out all the harrowing details of that disaster which they 'brought on themselves; but that is when they wanted an election, and they got- it. They do not want one now, and no amount of bluff will prevail on me to believe they do. They are not ready. As a matter of fact, who is ready? But they are the least ready, Mr. Speaker, in the whole House. Now I think I am through with the valley of bones. We will have to get Ezekiel on the job if my hon. friends hope to resurrect all this dry timber and manufacture something out of it that will look like new.
Now, I have got in wrong with one of the Progressives at least, and I presume I have got in wrong with all the Conservatives. That is my luck. I suppose I am going to get in wrong with some of my own friends. I am going to talk now a little about two things, the Hudson Bay railway and the St. Lawrence route.
I was not an ardent advocate of the Hudson Bay railway until last year. This is a work that the people of western Canada have been looking for and sighing for and waiting for, for forty years. Sometimes our friends down here think we are not just right on that question, that we are a little bit sprung on it. Let me point out to you, Mr. Speaker, that ever since trade has been established between the nations, go away back to the early history of mankind, if you like, and you will find that people have sought the sea for the purpose of trade. That was the cheapest way to 124i
transport their goods, rather than by the com-bersome and expensive caravans travelling overland in those days. It is the inherited instinct of the human race to seek the shortest cut to tidewater in their endeavour to trade with other nations, and we are only exhibiting what is bred and born in us, that inherent instinct in the human race, in seeking this access to tidewater. The Dominion of Canada has committed itself to this work-both parties, all parties, if you like, in this House. Take a compass, if you can imagine one long enough, with one prong in the city of Regina and the other in Fort William, and then swing it around and it will land you at Port Nelson. Therefore, when you ship a cargo of goods from the west to Fort William, it is the same distance to take those goods to Port Nelson, and that route is 1,000 miles nearer the market than if you shipped them by Montreal. Do not blame us, Mr. Speaker, for entertaining these hopes. I remember less than fifteen years ago everybody smiled at the thought of Vancouver being a port through which to send our products to the Old Country via the Panama canal. The first article I ever read on the subject was by the present Senator Laird, and I thought he was plumb bug-house when I read it. Everybody told you the water was so warm down there that the wheat travelling that route would be all heated and fermented, and experts were sent with thermometers to test the wheat in transit. Well, anybody who knows anything about conduction knows perfectly well that heat and cold are not conducted in a granular body like wheat or sand. And now the complaint is made with regard to the Hudson bay route that that is too cold. Some people are never pleased. I have been studying the whole situation, and I want to say that so far as my judgment goes there is no more chance of failure in the building of the Hudson bay route than there was in the building of the Panama canal, or of the Suez canal, or in the building of the Canadian Pacific railway. Why should there be?
I am not going to deal with the question of when the Hudson Bay railway should be completed, because that matter is already in a resolution on the order paper. I would point out, however, this similarity. You remember the story, Mr. Speaker, of Christopher Columbus when he set sail some years ago, I do not, remember just when, to cross the uncharted Atlantic, and when he arrived about the same distance across the Atlantic as we are towards Hudson bay, that is eighty per cent, his muntinous crew wanted him to turn back, but Columbus persevered

The Budget-Mr. Motherwell
and landed on this continent. Well now, there are, I will not say mutinous, but fainthearted Canadians who want us to turn back now we are four-fifths of the way to Hudson bay. Is that the kind of stuff we are made of? Does that in Canadians mean ambition? Ambition should be made of sterner stuff than that. Surely the country that built the Canadian Pacific railway across the lake region and the prairies and over the mountains should not falter at completing the Hudson Bay railway some time. I can only put it that way in respect to the hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Knox) and his resolution. This was a matter of public concern away back in Hugh Sutherland's time, over forty years ago, before the Canadian Pacific was built. As a matter of fact, it was in those early days that we got the real views of experts on the question. No other influences governed them, there were no other influences to govern them. Information was available on the question, and I am going to read some of that information after a while.
What I want to point out is this:	Just
as the Liberal party was the party to turn the first sod in the building of the Canadian Pacific railway under government construction, so the Liberal government under Sir Wilfrid Laurier was the first government to commence the building of the Hudson Bay railway. They started to build it in 1910, and were continuing the work in 1911; I remember there was only one constituency that went Conservative at that time. That [DOT]was the year of the reciprocity treaty, and the reason that constituency went Conservative was because we were not, in its opinion, building that railway fast enough. I refer to the constituency of Prince Albert. When the Conservatives came in for good or for ill- we will say it was for good; we will have to take it that way anyway-when they came into power, to their credit, I think, they took the right course. The Minister of Railways of that time went on a tour through the Hudson bay district and around to Nelson. He came back and apparently reported favourably on the project because the then government went on building the line; we must give everyone his due. The bridge over the Kettle river was built by the preceding government; and then the subsequent government-Union government, Conservative government, hybrid government, or National Liberal and Conservative government; you know the one I mean, the one with the long name, longer than you can remember, that is the one-went on with the enterprise.

Well now, the country is committed to the project; there is no use in discussing at this late date the practicability of the Hudson bay route. Over 100 years ago the Selkirk settlers entered Canada that way. That was their route to the western plains-it was not by railway that they hoped to go in there

and people had been going in that way for 250 years. Why, there were fortifications on Prince of Wales island, at the mouth of Churchill river, equal almost to the fortifications at Quebec. They were splendid fortifications. When they were built they were built with an eye to the future. People believed in the route at that time. Then, look at the primitive sailing vessels of that day without any radio, without any fog horns, without any lights, or any of the aids to navigation such as we have to-day all along the St. Lawrence. Under those conditions, with comparatively few facilities, the primitive sailing vessels of that day followed that route for 250 years. Nowadays, we have modern steamships and all possible aids to navigation, and they do not need to run into ice jams. The ocean there is the same Atlantic that laves the shores of old England, it is an arm of the Atlantic, a bay and a strait that never freeze, in the sense that we understand the term and are jammed full of ice only for a comparatively short period. Well then, why do we fear? The question of the practicability of this route was decided long ago. The only question now before the country is when can we afford to build the line? I suppose, if I were to be quite (candid, that if either the Hudson Bay railway or the Welland canal were mooted to-day for the first time, it is very unlikely that either would be commenced just at this period. But both enterprises have been started, we have got to take things as we find them; and it is very important to get the Welland canal finished. We have a big sum in the estimates for that purpose, and rightly so. But there are not enough of us in this House who think the Hudson Bay railway should be finished. Now, the reason I am saying this, and appealing to my hon. friends on this side particularly, is because I listened, with great interest, to the speech of the hon. member for St. Lawrence-8t. George (Mr. Marler)-in the debate on the Address. I have watched that young man ever since he came to the House. Sometimes, he stumbles a bit from my standpoint, but he is groping for the truth, he is a true Canadian, and he is trying to evolve a balanced policy for Canada. Some weeks ago I noted some press reports of a speech made

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by the hon. member and I asked him for a copy of that speech the other day and he gave me one. From a careful reading of the speech so far as I can understand, his heart's desire is that the strong should bear the burdens of the weak, and by reason of the dissimilarity of interests that exist, where the tariff is burdensome on a weak, outlying province, then Canada as a whole should come to the relief of that province. My right hon. friend the leader of the opposition is just coming to a realization of that policy but I am afraid he is too late. The hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George is preaching the policy of equalization; preaching the policy that if you cannot treat all the provinces alike do something else by way of compensation. Although I do not think that I shall succeed as well as he did I am going to endorse the same principle.
I ask for the sympathetic consideration of members of this House on behalf of those of us in the west who are looking to get to tidewater by the shortest possible route. Now. I want hon. members to keep an open mind on this question. Personally I have gone up as far as the Kettle rapids on the Hudson bay route. I did not go to Nelson river; I had an engagement in Winnipeg and the trip that far would have occupied two or three weeks longer. Consequently I could not go there as I would like to have done. I suppose I do not know as much about the facilities of Nelson harbour as I should have if I had gone there and seen the harbour for myself. I am not a maritime man and do not pretend to know much about ports; I do know however, that some of them cost quite a little money. What information I have has been gathered from navigators, engineers, fishermen, settlers and trappers. I do not know why we are not now going to Churchill instead of going to Nelson, and I am going to read and1 put on Hansard some of the authorities whose testimony makes that question still more puzzling. Again I ask, in view of what these authorities say, why did they go to Nelson? I do not know. Some of our western friends are impatient on this subject, and I do not blame them because they have really been thwarted on this matter so long. I do not blame the late government for suspending work in 1917 and 1918. I recognize that I run the risk of being misunderstood in casting doubt on the practicability of Nelson as a proper harbour. I have come to the conclusion that there has been a big blunder made in going to Nelson. Why did they dP it? Who am I that I should presume to have information on that point?
Well, I am going to quote what was stated in an annual report of the Department of the Interior in 1884:
The Nelson, in the last thirty miles of its course expands like a funnel, from half a mile to many miles in width at its mouth so that it offers no natural advantages or facilities for a harbour, but rather the reverse.
Why should we fight against nature? If we get nature on our side, all the forces of nature, it will be like going down hill with the wind at our backs; but fighting against nature is a different thing. When I passed through St. John I did not see Courtenay bay which is washed by the Fundy tides. That work is taking quite a lot of dredging. I have heard a lot about it but did not see the locality myself; I came through at night and took sail early in the morning. When I compare Nelson to Courtenay bay I do not know to which I am doing an injustice; but I think it will involve interminable dredging to keep open the channel of the Nelson as it enters Hudson bay. Now I quote from the report of the government expedition under Lieutenant Gordon in 1886:
I consider the estuary of the Nelson river is one of the most dangerous places in the - world for shipping
to go.
What evil spirit directed our people to Nelson instead of Churchill where people have been going for over 250 years, where there is a land-locked harbour with a narrow entrance of less than half a mile, and with deep water; and if you want to enlarge it, it will take care of our shipping for a considerable length of time, being capable of being enlarged with comparative ease.
Lieut. Gordon continues:
I can only repeat my previously expressed opinion that the Nelson harbour is no port, nor would the expenditure of any amount of money make it a desirable place for shipping.
If you wanted to queer this project you would shoot it into Nelson, and that is as far as it would go. Captain Bernier is one of the living apostles who gives evidence. I would like to meet him, but am sorry to say I never did. I believe he was in Ottawa a short time ago. He is a sailor and no theorist, a practical mariner, an explorer, a man who goes north every year or almost every year on Arctic expeditions. He knows what ice is and realizes what danger is. He has been captain of a vessel since he was seventeen years of age. I understand that in middle life he thought there was more money in farming. He tried it, but he is back now on the sea. Perhaps he was unfortunate. If we keep our business in hand I say that there are worse occupations than farming. Here is what Captain Bernier says:

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In the Hudson bay, as far as my experience has gone, there are two ports-Port Nelson, which will never be a port, because the river gives so much sediment and every spring when there is a heavy thaw there is a wash-out which changes the channel of the previous year. Therefore, a vessel coming in would need to have full knowledge of the present spring before she could enter, and she might be obliged to discharge outside. I consider that Canada is too poor to maintain a port like Nelson.
Listen to this:
I consider Canada is too poor to maintain a port like Nelson.


Mr. BIRD:: What date is that?


William Richard Motherwell: That statement was made before the Roj^al Grain Commission in 1923 by Captain Bernier. Now, what about the engineers? I do not want to reflect upon the engineers, but after reading this evidence I will explain what I thiink the situation is:
At Nelson you have to build on sand or make foundation.
Hon. members know what happens to a foundation built on sand. Then he refers to Dr. Bell.
The difficulty of mapping the shore accurately is increased by the fact that the sea is receding at an appreciable rate.
It is shallow there. It is a tidal harbour with a very low tide, and they have to discharge their cargoes there. It has two advantages which I will deal with later. One does not count but the other does.
Mr. Joseph Robson, the surveyor of the Hudson's Bay Company reported:
Monday, the 15th July, 1745, fifteen minutes past seven in the morning, set sail in the factory's long boat, in company with Capt. Fowler, from on board the Sea-horse pink, then lying in Five-fathom hole, to sound and discover Port Nelson river. At thirty-eight minutes past seven, abreast of the beacon that stands at Five-fathom hole, the water fallen one foot, a neap tide, wind N.E., fresh gale.

At sixteen minutes past ten we had three fathom water; being on the north side of the sand that parts the fairway into the two rivers Nelson and Hayes.
And then, he goes on and says.
We cut our names on the trees in the N.E. end of Seal island.
From eight fathom and a half we stood to the S. eastward about three miles, saw a point or ridge of stones on the south side, distance about three-quarters of a mile, sounded three fathoms; this point of stone dries three or four feet perpendicular and seems to lie two or three miles from shore; but there are flats that dry at low water all the way to the shore, so that a man may walk from these stones to the land.
This indicates that in the estimation of these gentlemen who are practical men, perhaps not engineers and may not know much about the theory of engineering, the project is practicable. These men are doing things and giving us a real opinion, and are like

Captain Bernier in this respect; no matter what engineers say, he has done it himself. What he knows he tells under oath before the Royal Grain Commission. What I have been reading is against Port Nelson, but here is something in favour of Fort Churchill, written by Sir Henry Lefroy, secretary of the British Geographical Association:
It (Churchill) will undoubtedly be the future shipping port for the agricultural products of the vast Northwest territory, and the route by which immigrants will enter the countiy.
In Lord Selkirk's time that is the way they came through:
They wintered . at a point between Kettle rapids and Nelson, proceeding to the Red river settlement in the spring. That was before the Canadian Pacific railway was built. Nobody thinks of going in that way, we do not have to, but it just shows they saw a vision of an entrance into the northwest via Hudson bay, a great arm of the Atlantic.
Dr. Bell, Director Geological Survey of Canada, in an address to the Royal Geographical Society, October, 1881-that is the year the Canadian Pacific railway contract was entered into says:
The Churchill river is remarkable for having at its mouth a splendid harbour, with deep water and every natural convenience for the purposes of modern commerce.
Ask a pilot on the St. Lawrence or a pilot anywhere what he wants. He will tell you good deep water and good coast line. He does not want to go any place where he has to hold1 his breath for fear of bumping on the rocks below. Then George A. Bayne, civil engineer, gave evidence before the Royal Grain Commission as follows:
The harbour of Churchill is one of the finest I have ever seen. Nature has done so much for it in the way of protection from storm and the depth of water, that without further improvements it is fitted to take rank among first-class ocean ports.
Mark that
It is fitted to take rank among the first ocean ports.
That means that it is fitted to take rank with Montreal, Quebec, Halifax and St. John. Why do we fear? What is going to happen if we have one more ocean port? Will anything but good happen to us?
Mr. William Smith Deputy Minister of Marine and Fisheries, in an article in the Nautical Magazine, August, 1892, said:
"Stone lies at the water's edge ready to be laid into the docks or piers, and nature seems to have left little to be done to make this a capacious port, capable of doing business on a large scale, and, what is of the greatest importance, an inlet by Hudson bay is the only thoroughly independent channel which can ever be established between Great Britain and her north American possessions. ' '
The only channel? I wonder is that true? Let us see how our grain goes now. I know that I never realized till last summer that we are dependent on a friendly foreign nation

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for every carload of grain which leaves Canada for Europe. If it goes via Vancouver it must go through the Panama canal, over which we have no control. I think there is some international arrangement, but hon. members know what happens to such arrangements. I am not fearful that they are going to be disturbed, but I have pointed out that the grain that goes west does not go through an independent channel, but through a splendid canal built by our friends to the south, and every bushel of grain that comes from Port Arthur and Fort William and goes down to Montreal and Buffalo has to go through the American Sault at Sault Ste. Marie. Why? Because the Canadian Sault is not sufficiently deep for the large vessels of the upper lakes or for any of these vessels. I was there last summer and I found that our boats drawing grain came down the American Sault. Consequently, strictly speaking, right off the bat, it is true, as has been stated, and no equivocation, that this is the only independent route worth speaking of, from the great plains of the west to the outside world. I do not think we will ever have any difficulty about it. I say to our friends from Montreal and from Quebec that we are all proud of those ports, and the better we do the better they do, but what makes Montreal great? It is the great fertile country that she serves.
Let me read this report about Churchill:
A harbour such as that of Churchill on Hudson bay would have the advantage over Quebec or Montreal of connecting directly with the open sea, and here in the autumn vessels would not, be liable to be frozen in, as occasionally happens in the St. Lawrence. There has been some discussion as to the length of time during which Hudson strait and bay might be navigated each year. There does not appear to be much evidence that the straits any more than the bay is closed at any season.
Why be faint-hearted in this matter, especially if we get a project in the manner described by the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Marler), and if we approach it in that way with the idea of having a great family of Canadian provinces, each with some regard for the interests of the other, the strong provinces of the centre, if they find it necessary to impose something on the weaker provinces, compensating them in some way? I try to speak for the. western provinces when I say that we feel shut in there sometimes, like rats in a trap. We want to get out to the world by the short cut. Everybody in these days is always on the look-out for short cuts. In Ottawa, for instance, if a man can save half a step, he will cut across somebody's lot. That is what we want to do. but we want to do it legally
and practically. This means a great development for us. We never can do our best in the west until we get that port, or until we know it is either a port or a bad dream. We want to make a spoon or spoil a horn and we believe we can make a spoon. These are some of the reasons why we believe we can, and if we do, you will hear no more of this croaking, some of it justified, that has been going on. Those who have studied out these matters know things are not going aright. They know the heft of opinion and influence is down here and they feel put upon, irritated. They look to the west, with the mountains rising up to the heavens. They look to the east; they have never lived here and it is a long distance away. They are afraid of the east; they do not like the look of it, because they do not know us The story takes a great deal of telling when many others are telling the other side of it. We want to get out through that way and nobody will prosper more as a result of that than the east. In that way you will get the old settlers with their hearts aglow with new hope, and that is what brings the new settlers. When the old settlers feel that they are doing something, getting somewhere, becoming a factor in the country, they will go home and tell the new one3 to come out. They will say to them: This is a goodly land; we are well treated here; we have a good country and we are getting along nicely. You will not get new settlers in the right numbers until that happens, and when it happens Montreal will grow bigger and better than ever, so will Quebec, so will the Maritime provinces and all the east generally. Our purchasing capacity will be increased, and if you in the east make your prices reasonable, we shall buy Canadian goods in preference and not be doing as we did after reciprocity was defeated, when many of us, setting our teeth, said: Well, they cannot make us buy from them anyway. That is a bad spirit. I am glad to say we are getting ashamed of it and, wherever there is a disposition to make the duty reasonable, a duty for revenue, such as we have on agricultural implements now, the old spirit is coming back and we say: Other things being equal, we will buy Canadian goods. But after reciprocity was defeated, we did not have that spirit at all, far from it. I will not, however, go into that. Dr. Bell continues:
The only harbours on the west side of Hudson bay are those formed by the mouths of the rivers, but none of them, with the exception of Churchill harbour can be entered by vessels drawing more than ten or eleven feet and only at high water even by these.

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A harbour such as that of Churchill on Hudson bay would have the advantage over Quebec or Montreal of communicating directly with the open sea, and hence in the autumn vessels would not be liable to be frozen in.
That is similar to testimony that I have read by another party, so I will not repeat it:
Churchill harbour does not freeze up until November and the sea is open close to it during the whole winter.
Salt water! Many people have the idea that this is a fresh-water bay. It is not; it is the Atlantic ocean. You can be in the middle of the strait and not see land on either side. You would not know that you were not in the Atlantic if you were there in the summer time. Of course, at other times of the year, you would be aware that you were not in the Atlantic. Many icebergs can be seen in the north Atlantic as late as August. Why should you bump into them more in Hudson bay than on the Atlantic? This talk about icebergs has been just an excuse. Captain Bernier, in another place, says that the Hudson bay is navigable for at least four months in the year, and with a ten per cent addition to the cost of the construction of our boats by adding a proper plating to withstand the ice pressure, you would have another month added, making five, if not six months that the bay is navigable. Another quotation:
Hudson Bay. The western shore is. low and affords but one well-sheltered spacious and perfectly safe harbour, Churchill, situated 200 miles from York factory.
Perfectly safe harbour! Would the mariner on the seven seas not sigh for a perfectly safe harbour when the storm from without threatens his vessel? Why do we not carry out this project? There is a story which I may as well tell now-I know the gentleman's name, but I will not mention it-that
9 p.m. somebody got a homestead on Churchill harbour, securing all the water front, and that he sold many town lots. Hon. members will remember the boom time and some of us here probably got stung, perhaps not as regards that place, but as regards others which had existence only on paper. This was one of the great ports of the world! Possibly somebody had been reading this and thought the development was going to take place right away. He did not know that there were as many, not mutinous, but faint-hearted officers on board as Columbus had, who wanted to turn back. I do not know what government was responsible in this connection and feel quite free to speak about it; but somebody said that Churchill was not tlhe port the man who homesteaded there thought it was, and some engineer advised them to go down to

Nelson, at least to get away from the ambitious homesteader and to open the port at Nelson. What about the engineer? The only explanation I ever heard was this and I can understand it. An engineer would not have much of a job opening up Churchill. The Lord himself made Churchill and you cannot improve on His handiwork, but no such provision was made at Nelson and an engineer had opportunities there. Why go to Churchill? You will never make a record at Churchill for any engineer because the work is all done. Here is Nelson, exposed to the sea, an uncertain channel, better, it is true, than we thought it was a few years ago. The season opens up a little earlier at Nelson, but there are low tides, great mud flats, with a channel away off from dry land, with half a mile of steel trestling to get to it, quite a considerable quantity of dump to get to the steel trestling, and an artificial island at the end of that. Imagine that! Just a row like these desks for half a mile of steel trestles to go across a mud flat to the channel which is constantly changing at Nelson. Then you have to build a great island on which to erect elevators like those at Montreal. The man who built on sand was, it seems to me, a wise man in comparison with this one. Why did they go there? There has been spent on that harbour up to date about six million dollars, and it is believed that Churchill could be established as a port for one-half of what it would take to complete the harbour at Nelson. Those of you who know what dredging means will realize how slow a government dredge can be, especially if you have ever gone down the St. Lawrence and looked, at some of .the locks there: the lock-keepers have to put up a picket to see whether the dredges are moving or not. As to dredging Nelson harbour, you would have to wait from now till the crack of doom to get results. Those gentlemen who are familiar with the Saskatchewan river no doubt know that the channel is seldom twice in the same place, for it is nothing but shifting sand; and those who are still more familiar with the bay of Fundy know what it is like there: the tide digs in here and digs in there and the least little thing will divert the course, so that you have it goring Into the opposite bank, sometimes beneficially to the land adjoining. The assumption is that the engineers in this instance, seeing an opportunity of doing something by which they couild become famous, by making the impossible possible, decided upon Nelson. But as Captain Bernier says, Canada is too poor to carry out. a stunt of that kind just now. Shall we therefore, in the face of these

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evidences, persist in following what is apparently a hopeless course? Possibly I was waylaid by designing men when I was out there, but I met different classes of people from some of whom I gathered that the opinion was that. Nelson was not regarded as satisfactory. I met some engineers who I am sure would not give me wrong information, but I will not give their names inasmuch as it might get them into trouble. They are men of high repute whose word I would take and they declared that a mistake had been made, although they did not want to talk much about it. But there was no doubt as to the opinion held by more talkative people such as trappers, miners and fishermen. Let me quote from Lieut. A. R. Gordon, of the government expedition of 1SS6:
This (Churchill) harbour is admirably suited for a railway terminus. The necessary docks could be easily and cheaply built, and the deep water basin enlarged at small cost. Stone is lying at the water's edge ready to be laid into docks and piers and Nature seems to have left little to be done in order to make this a capacious port fit for doing a business of great magnitude."
There is no equivocation at all about that. Then why do we go to the other place? I do not know', and the explanation that is offered, is not sound. The explanation, about shifting to Nelson to get ahead of that ambitious homesteader who squatted at Churchill, will not do. Can anyone imagine engineers arguing that they would risk their reputation by doing something that might prove a failure merely in the hope that that reputation would be enhanced if the undertaking were successful, when the chances of success were so very small? Can anyone imagine such a thing? That explanation I cannot understand. Human nature, Mr. Speaker, is so strangely contradictory that if Churchill had been decided upon some people would have advocated Nelson. But there is no doubt about the fact that the great majority of those who know anything about this matter are agreed that the evidences in favour of Churchill are incontrovertible; there is a great value there that we have overlooked.
One of the advantages about Nelson is that it is open ten days earlier owing to the fact that it is further south by 120 miles. But the deciding factor is not the earlier opening of Nelson harbour; the important thing is the navigation of the Hudson strait. So that the fact of Nelson being open ten days earlier is immaterial. On the other hand it is 90 miles nearer to tide-water to go by Nelson, that is to say, to go via Churchill a distance of 90 miles further by rail haul. The only compensating factor would be that much less of
a water haul, which is not nearly so important as 90 miles by land. In addition to that there is from Churchill to Kettle rapids on this side a certain amount of muskeg. But there is no danger in that, because the muskeg is easily removed; you can roll it off like a carpet and let it freeze. There is no great engineering difficulty involved in it, and for that matter three of us could attend to it ourselves. It would not be true to say that it is not cold up there, because you do feel the cold; but it is sheltered and no wind breaks are required nor is there any need of snow fences. And it is some 400 miles with a drop of S00 feet towards the bay. It is the only road in North America that has not a bonded debt and there are no dangerous level crossings. I will quote from Captain S. W. Bartlett, in the Cruise of the Neptune, 1903-4:
The mouths of all the large rivers to the southward of Churchill are more or less blocked by deposits of sand and clay brought down by the streams. In consequence of these obstructions only small craft can enter the harbours inside the mouths of these rivers, and larger ships are obliged to lay in the dangerous roadsteads usually several miles away from the nearest dry land.
The approach to the harbour of Churchill, if aided by a few beacon lights, would be comparatively safe, ic the channel of approach is fairly deep and wide. Once outside the points of the mouth, the harbour extends up stream about a mile and has an average width of half a mile, with a couple of shallow places in the upper part that might easily be removed by dredging: the general depth of the harbour being from four to four and one-half fathoms.
Now I am a believer in the Hudson bay route and I take some satisfaction after all in the thought that it has not been rushed on to Nelson, for if these statements are true it would have been a calamity to do that and would have meant the ruin of the whole project for the present generation. It is true that one generation has worn itself away in anticipation of the achievement of this great enterprise, but it would have worn another generation away waiting to get real practical developments via Nelson. That is my opinion and I have given my authorities. And there is no one authority amongst them that so convinces me as the evidence of Captain Bernier. I do not by any means despise our scientific men; indeed, I have a profound respect for men of science, men of engineering knowledge and skill; I think very highly of our experts. We could not possibly do without the experts and I respect them. But in this particular case I have still greater respect for a man like Captain Bernier who has been captain of vessels continuously from the age of seventeen. He knows what he is talking about, as only a man with actual experience can know. For these reasons I have some satisfaction in the

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thought that the Nelson project has not been carried out. I want to see the road kept in shipshape as far as Kettle rapids, and I want to see the question settled for all time as to which port will be developed. It is not for me to go further on that point than I have gone; the Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham) will discuss this question among others in his annual statement on the railways. If we reach the resolution of the hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Knox) the Minister of Railways (Mr. Graham) will probably have something to say with regard to it.
I came back from Hudson bay and went to Fort William for the purpose of coming east by the St. Lawrence route. There was great congestion at that time, about the beginning of September, the wheat was going up; there was no demand for it from the British market, and it was accumulating rapidly at Montreal1 and backing up to Port Colbome. We could not get a wheat boat to Port Colborne, so we had to take an ordinary passenger boat. When we got there we found six or seven large upper lake vessels with a capacity of from three to five hundred thousand bushels apiece, which were unable to discharge their cargoes into the elevators. Our eastern route has become obsolete; it is ten or fifteen years behind the requirements of the country. When we get the Welland canal1 completed, however, you will have the upper lake boats passing right through to Brockville or Kingston or Prescott, wherever the terminus may be, and they will be able to carry grain more cheaply than they are doing now under present conditions. You will also have the railway facilities with only one divisional point to cover and it will be possible to avoid congestion at Prescott or wherever the terminus is. We have only half the storage space in Montreal that is available at Buffalo. People are wondering why the Saskatchewan Co-operative elevator people are building an elevator at Buffalo, but it is because they have so much more space there. They have abandoned practically all these obsolete canals and are getting the grain through to New York fast enough to prevent congestion. If a vessel has to wait three weeks at Port Colbome before the cargo can be discharged, sometimes even before the crew can be discharged, freight can never be drawn cheaply. We cannot expect cheap transportation on our inland waters until the Welland canal is completed. Some of the larger boats may not be able to go through the canal, but most of them will. Those that cannot go through will discharge at Port Colbome, and those that can go 
through will proceed to the terminal point and
by that means nearly all the benefits of the deepened St. Lawrence can be secured without the large cost of additional improvements from Prescott to Montreal; because you have the Canadian National, you have the Canadian Pacific and the canal boats available to keep the grain moving. When we have more population to pay for it, the Welland canal project will one day be completed and I am satisfied that we Should get a reduction of two or three cents in the cost of the carrying of grain to Montreal. It costs four times as much per mile to haul grain from Port Colborne to Montreal as it does to haul it from Fort William to Port Colbome. It took us nineteen hours to go through the Welland canal, and we were stopped for two hours by fog. If that occurred on the Hudson bay you would have heard about it all over the country, but you do not hear about it when it is on the Welland canal. All honour, I say, to the men of a hundred years ago who started the canal system. Some of our grandparents came up the rapids from Montreal by any means they could employ- paddled, poled or walked; and I cannot pay too high a tribute to the Canadians of that day who conceived and carried out the canal systems on the St. Lawrence. But they are inadequate to meet the greater needs of the present day. It took sixty-eight hours to go from Port Colborne to Montreal, a distance of 320 miles, which is at the rate of 4i miles an hour. You cannot draw grain cheaply that way; it is only one and a half times faster than a relay of horses could do it. In the 64 miles of canal the rate was less than two miles an hour. Let us not look for cheap freight rates under these mediaeval conditions; they were fine in their time but they cannot meet the needs of to-day. It will take six years to finish the canal, and when it is completed I should say that three-quarters of the benefits of the deepened St. Lawrence system would not be any better than the facilities provided by the Welland canal when the upper lake boats can discharge at Prescott or the terminal point in that part of the St. Lawrence system.
We have discussed lake rates in this House, sometimes rather heatedly, and I had almost persuaded myself that the remedy was to remove the coastal laws. It sounds good; it is getting a crack at somebody. But when the conditions at Port Colborne, for instance, are such as I have described, six or seven big vessels finding it impossible to discharge cargo-and prices were not up at that time, because the carriers were under contract early in the season; some of the grain was being taken to Montreal at six cents a bushel-[DOT]

The Budget-Mr. Motherwell
would not the removal of the coastal laws and the operation of twice as many boats simply make the congestion worse? Unless you have actually seen the condition it is hard to grasp its significance, but let me illustrate it in this way: An elevator is receiving grain very rapidly; ten wagons are waiting to unload. Would it cure the situation to bring on ten more, or would it not make the congestion worse? Do not misunderstand me: at a time when there is no congestion at Montreal or Port Colborne and cargoes can be discharged with despatch, then if there is imposition, if there are excessive rates as there were two years ago, the admission of more tonnage would provide a measure of competition and possibly afford some relief. But only under those conditions should it be done.
It seems to me there is no justification for the upper lake boats charging more to haul grain to the bay ports or Port Colborne than is being charged to take it to Buffalo, just a little bit further. It is only when there is congestion that 'there is any justification for high charges. Consequently, when there is no congestion, the control that is provided for in the act should be exercised in some way to see that advantage is not taken and the freight rates put up and more charged for the shorter distance than for the long haul. I can imagine Port McNicoll and other ports being in the very same position that Port Colborne was, and not being able to unload, because a lot of. our grain goes from these bay ports to Montreal. The year before last 26,000.000 bushels went by rail, and if there was congestion at the bay elevators the boats iwould have the same difficulty, idling around there for several days, not being able to get rid of their cargo, and not being able to haul as cheaply as if the grain went right through to Buffalo. You cannot have a crew doing nothing and getting their board and pay, and draw grain cheaply. So I have come to the conclusion that what we need is more storage at Montreal, quick despatch at Port Colborne, the Welland canal finished at least as far as Prescott, and then we will have cheap rates on our inland waters. In the meantime we have had some control. I do not want to go into any of the controversial phases of that question, but the fact that we have had no complaints for the last two years is the best evidence that there is not the situation to-day that there was two years ago, and it is 'attributable 'to our legislation and our control, and to the possible further use of that control. Two years ago, was not every newspaper in the west
and every Progressive member in this House from the west shouting from the housetops of the exactions on the lakes? You have restored the Crowsnest rates, they said, but what you gave with one hand you took away with the other by these lake rates. You could not get that out of their heads, because they knew the pinch was there. Do you mean to say there is a pinch now, and1 that somebody has come along with an anaesthetic so that they do not feel the pinch? Can you find one newspaper in the west complaining about rates on the lakes to-day? So, Mr. Speaker, I say that if we can give as satisfactory control on the ocean as we are getting to-day on the inland waters of Canada, and with as little discontent on the ocean as we have to-day on the lakes, we will certainly have done a great work. I say, Mr. Speaker, that there cannot foe exactions such as we heard described two years ago when the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Low) was putting through his bill, there cannot be these exactions and alleged losses by the farmers without them knowing it; and if they do know it, they have certainly been wonderfully quiet about it. No, Mr. Speaker, conditions are not the same to-day. We have not had occasion to use all the power we took in that bill. I admit frankly there were phases of that legislation that were not workable in the beginning, but where is the bill that has not some weakness in it? For two months it was unworkable; for two months the rates were admittedly higher while the negotiations were going on, but as soon as that was ironed out the whole matter was adjusted, and has stayed adjusted! until this day. Will anybody tell me where there is a legislative body in the world to-day that can frame legislation which it never needs to change? I will admit we made mistakes, but we corrected the weaknesses, and we met the situation, and that is what we are going to do on the Atlantic and on the Pacific.


Mr. LADNER:: Does the minister consider that the freight rates question in western Canada is in a satisfactory condition to-dav with the Crowsnest agreement in operation?


William Richard Motherwell: I was speaking of water-borne transportation.


Leon Johnson Ladner: But you referred to the other rates.


William Richard Motherwell: I have been having an entirely new experience to-night, on the water. I have always been on the water wagon, you know, and I am trying how it goes on the ocean.

The Budget-Mr. Motherwell


Leon Johnson Ladner: We were trying to find out which way the minister's sails were set.


William Richard Motherwell: Oh, bless your heart, you should not have much difficulty about that. I did not think anybody was in doubt about that. (Sails were set for what?


Arthur Meighen: Both ways.


William Richard Motherwell: For what?


Arthur Meighen: For everything.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Many of us are interested in the Hudson bay question. I have listened for quite a long time to the merits and demerits of the two locations. May I ask if the minister's statement on the question can be taken as a declaration by the government that they will not bring down legislation on the Hudson Bay railway this year?


William Richard Motherwell: No.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Is that a declaration that they will?


William Richard Motherwell: I had a talk with the Minister of Railways before he left, and he will make whatever official statement is to be made by the government on the Hudson Bay railway when he makes his annual statement. I am simply giving the House the result of my own researches up there, which were incomplete, it is true. I am afraid my hon. friend is putting his questions second hand just now. He is getting his bad ear next his prompter. Maybe the right hon. gentleman would like to have a chance to ask his questions direct.


Arthur Meighen: I was just thinking from the speech of the minister on the Hudson bay that he probably expects to run for a seat in northern Saskatchewan.


William Richard Motherwell: I may say I have had an offer from there, but it is not the seat of my hon. friend from Nelson (Mr. Bird).


Leon Johnson Ladner: Has the minister given an answer?


William Richard Motherwell: I do not think it lies with the right hon. gentleman to twit me on that. What happened in Portage la Prairie in 1921? Lots of better men than either of us have got licked in an election, although I am a great admirer of my right hon. friend, but he was a little unhappy in his choice that time. I think he had better let the hon. gentleman on his right (Mr. Ladner) ask his own questions.


Leon Johnson Ladner: The right hon. gentleman
has not inspired my . question. I am waiting for the minister to reply to one of my questions, as to whether his statement as to the Hudson Bay railway in any way indicates the attitude of the government, or whether he is forestalling the refusal of the government to bring down legislation.


William Richard Motherwell: None whatever. I am simply giving the results of my own investigations from my own standpoint. I discussed this question from the point of view of agriculture and mining when the estimates were up, and I did not want to repeat what I said then. But the hon. member for Springfield reported that as he went through that district with Premier Bracken he found a small crop of land cultivated at Port Nelson, and suggested that we use that as a basis for some experiments. I have taken the necessary steps to do that. I recited all that on the estimates, and I am now giving the results of my further investigations not only with respect to the Hudson bay, but also the St. Lawrence route. No one can go over that country without being wiser than when he started. I do not mean to say that I have found out everything, but I have found out a lot more than I knew before. I have already indicated that the Minister of Railways will declare the government's policy on all these matters when he makes his annual statement. I am not forestalling or supplementing what he will say in any way.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Has the minister come to
a conclusion as to the location he thinks should be selected?


William Richard Motherwell: All the evidence
indicates Fort Churchill. I have not been there, but I have given you my evidence, and I ha've given you the facts of history for 250 years, and all the evidence points to Fort Churchill as the natural port.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Has the minister convinced the government that that would be the best selection?


William Richard Motherwell: No, I have not
tried to yet. One at a time is good fishing. The budget came off first; that comes on later. We will just deal with things as they come. I think there are one or two more questions the right hon. leader of the opposition wants to put, and I may say that I never felt more accommodating in my life.


Arthur Meighen: I am still waiting, I have waited two and a half hours now, to hear about that higher duty on coal.

The Budget-Mr. Motherwell


William Richard Motherwell: I am getting to it
rapidly. I think I have now got to that point.


Thomas William Bird: Before the minister passes from that point, does he think the evidence he has quoted is sufficient to warrant the government in going ahead and building to Churchill without further investigation?


William Richard Motherwell: I am not sure that I caught my hon. friend's question exactly. But does he think that-


Thomas William Bird: I am just asking if the minister considered the evidence-


William Richard Motherwell: No, the evidence
is not yet sufficiently strong to justify going ahead and building to Churchill. We must be sure of our ground before we take final steps. This muskeg that is spoken of must be investigated. As I understand it, there is really no muskeg in that country, but there is quagmire.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Richard Motherwell: I will await the
pleasure of my hon. friends. If there is any joke in the matter, I want to hear it, because I want to take them all in.


Thomas William Bird: My question was asked in all
sincerity because I thought the minister had expressed himself in that regard. I know that what he has said to-night will cause a flutter of public opinion in the west. I was at a meeting which was held in the board of trade building in Winnipeg the other night. It was a crowded and very enthusiastic meeting, and they were all in favour of Nelson. The minister's declaration to-night will cause considerable disturbance in the west and therefore I wondered if he had anything further to say.


William Richard Motherwell: Even doctors will
disagree; engineers also will disagree. I remember hearing a report at an annual meeting of engineers east of here; they had the most hilarious time in the world over it. I pin my faith, in what I said, on practical men who are doing things every day, and I have found such men to be reliable all through life, both on land and on water. I am quite aware of what will be said on the prairies. I know it will be said that I am trying to raise some objection to this project going forward. I know that. I have been long enough in public life to know the danger spots, but I am going to take a chance because I feel in my heart that I am right.
Now, I do not want to keep my right hon. friend the leader of the opposition any longer
in a condition of suspense about the Maritime situation. All our opinions regarding these rate matters-those of us especially who do not live in the Maritimes-have to be given with some qualifications. I never visited the Maritimes but once in my life, and that was a year ago last summer. I spent three and a half weeks there, and I was certainly charmed with that country. I heard the grievances of the people at first hand, and they put me in mind very much of our own grievances in the west. As a result, my heart went out to the Maritime provinces. People who suffer similar adversity will be drawn together; adversity always draws men together better than prosperity-a common difficulty, a common danger, if you like, common troubles. I tried to analyze their difficulties to see if, in my own department, I could contribute anything towards alleviating those troubles; and do you know, Mr. Speaker, that after searching fore and aft, after searching all over the country and looking into rate troubles for a possible solution, I found that those troubles were not as numerous as we were told.
Now the freight question was a great difficulty; it has existed for years in connection with the mines. I am not a miner at all, but with my companions I went down into the Glace Bay mines. In fact, I visited the whole mining area there. I talked to the miners, I was in their homes, and I ate with them. As I say, I went down in the Glace Bay shaft for 900 feet where the mine goes under Sydhey harbour, and I wondered to myself how much farther they were going to burrow there before they would, for economic reasons, have to quit? It was all very new and very wonderful to me. I noticed also that many of the miners lived in better houses, notwithstanding all that has been said, than I had lived in for twenty years. I saw beautiful shower baths there; you did not meet with many of those on the prairies in the first twenty years of its history. There was hardship, there always is hardship; the miners had a great many idle days, and there were a great many difficulties to be overcome. There is bound to be distress. There is distress there now, but I am not going to enter into that side of the question. What I want to point out is that the difficulties that could be remedied were few in number. The coal situation seemed to be one of them. The freight situation seemed to be another; the building up of the ports in the Maritime provinces seemed to be another. I could not help feeling that there was another difficulty there that nobody has said much about, and that is

The Budget-Mr. Motherwell
the difficulty of getting a market for the potatoes of the Maritime provinces, not so grievous a situation at the time I speak of as it is now. The potato question was a difficult one for many years, but this year it was largely overcome by the system of certifying to the potatoes, which certification was so valuable that those products entered the United States, in spite of the duty, and good money was realized by the shippers. The difficulty in regard to the Maritime province ports was solved two years ago by the Minister of Finance through the medium of the preferential tariff. I am right in saying that difficulty is solved because now over 99 per cent of dutiable goods coming to Canada enter by our own ports. These are two difficulties out of the four that have been removed.
What is going to be done with regard to the mining difficulty? We have discussed the mining situation in this House every year since I came 'here. Two difficulties out of three have been solved, but the most acute one still exists. The Minister of the Interior has announced once or twice this session his plan with regard to the coking of bituminous coal from the Maritime provinces. Last year he announced a plan of subventions to permit of the transportation of Canadian coal much farther into the interior, and as a result of the increased demand to enable the miners to produce that much more coal. What more could we do? We could not keep on giving subventions. The Premier of Nova Scotia came up here at the head of a large delegation and interviewed the government. One of the most pressing requests he made was that the duty should be increased on slack coal. He pointed out that a great deal of fraud was being committed and I found out later that his argument in this connection was well founded. He charged that slack coal was being imported under the fourteen cent rate of duty and being mixed with run-of-mine under the 53 cent rate. He, therefore, asked that the duty on slack coal be raised to encourage the mining of that fuel. The Premier of Nova Scotia, accompanied as he was by a number of representatives of Cape Breton, presented a petition to the government on the question asking for that and other things. There was a very large delegation that entirely filled the railway committee room. They found that two or three of their grievances had been remedied before they had time to ask for their solution. However, the coal difficulty still remains. I do not take the ground that a national solution should always have to be discovered for a local difficulty, not at all.

We were in the midst of working out some of the Maritime difficulties capable of solution when the present strike, or lockout, or whatever you choose to call it, occurred in these mines. The Besco people in the first place took the ground that they could not afford to pay the wages then prevailing. They had cut down the days of labour. There was not enough profit in it to be able to pay the wages the miners wanted, they got at loggerheads, and the whole thing was shut down, to the loss of all. What were we to do? The local authorities began to solve the distress question at the other end, and while this budget is a Canadian budget, it is essentially one designed to assist the Maritime provinces, not only in regard to coal but in regard to fishing industries and such like. We have adopted the policy of dropping the item of slack coal and lowering the duty on run-of-mine coal three cents; and otherwise we adjust the tariff, put it up on slack coal if you like, which represents about three million tons, and put it down on run-of-mine which represents about eleven million tons. Already in this House the hon. member for Kent, New Brunswick (Mr. Doucet) has reprimanded us for reducing the duty on run-of-mine coal. We have reduced the duty on run-of-mine coal and run up the duty on slack coal, removed it altogether from the tariff schedule, and put a straight fifty cents on the run-of-mine coal. Someone asks on what percentage would that be on the slack coal? There is no percentage in it. I do not know the price of coal, but it is not levied on the price. Hon. members can soon figure it out. It is a comparatively easy matter. It is a duty of fifty cents per ton. That is done with a two or threefold purpose. One is to encourage the Maritime province miners in the desire to reach further out into the markets of Ontario and Quebec. That was the original conception of confederation; and after violating the spirit of that contract at confederation, by taking away from them those special freight rates that they had all those years, and putting them into the consolidated system, then, if you are going to carry out the policy I have mentioned, of taking care of the smaller provinces, you must do something to compensate them for the thing that they had at confederation and which they lost.


Leon Johnson Ladner: May I ask the minister a question?


William Richard Motherwell: Has the hon. member received another radio message?


Leon Johnson Ladner: From the way the minister was speaking I thought perhaps he had re-

The Budget-Mr. Motherwell
ceived a message. I wanted to ask him if the granting of higher protection on coal to aid the Maritime provinces had his personal approval. We understand that from his remarks.


William Richard Motherwell: Most decidedly. The tariff was made for man. and not man for the tariff. What is the tariff? Taxation. We will put it the other way. Taxation unfortunately is made for man and man is not made for taxation.


Arthur Meighen: How does the minister
hope to help the Maritimes by more taxation.


William Richard Motherwell: It will not be taxing the Maritimes.


Arthur Meighen: Oh.


William Richard Motherwell: The manufacturers of Ontario and other parts of central Canada who insist upon their pound of flesh in the way of protection will have to pass some of it over to the coal mines. What is sauce for the goose cannot be too horribly bad for the gander. And so we deal with the Maritime provinces. As far as I can understand, we restore to them the protection they had when the fourteen cent rate was put on. That was put on what was then seventy cent coal and *was equal to a twenty per cent ad valorem. We cannot tell, there is no item there, but I do not know what slack coal is worth now. Have we not restored it?


An hon. MEMBER:: No, no.


William Richard Motherwell: Have we restored
to the people down there the same ad valorem duty that they had when the fourteen cent rate was put in? By reason of the increase in the value of the commodity that fourteen cent rate was getting less and less on an ad valorem basis. Perhaps I should have gone into it to find out the exact price on which that was levied. I do not know my self to-day whether we are getting more duty. I question very much if we are giving more protection than we were giving when it was fourteen cents when we had seventy cent coal. We have restored what was slipping away from us year by year as a result of the increased value of slack coal. Was that such a whale of a lot to do for them? I am one of those who believes that that is going to bring some redress. If the mines down there can be made more profitable it should benefit the labourer. I have hired too much labour in my time to be told that when an institution is profitable some of that profit will not go to the labourer. I know it will go to the labourer. I have hired labour all my life,
and when I make money some more of it goes to my labourers. When I do not make money I have to make a hard bargain with my labourers if I am going to carry on. Everybody who employs labour knows that.. I do not care who the Besco people are, I would not care if they were twice the steel corporation they claim to be, in their self interest they will keep their mines going if it is humanly possible, and if they are able to secure something better than they have had, if this is increased protection, and if they are enabled to carry on and make more money, part of it will go to the miners, and they will get to work and the trouble will be at an end. I am not accustomed to people going on strike. I am accustomed when a man will not work foi me to have him quit and go somewhere else But that is not the way of organized labour. Now how are you going to improve things for the Besco people or for the miners? I have talked with a lot of miners who are not in favour of the strike. I have been in the mines and know some people there, and I know there is great distress there while they are on strike. Human nature is the same thing the world over. The local authorities are working with us from their own standpoint, and incidentally we are helping them from our standpoint. I would ask the Progressives, particularly those from the west who have been working in co-operation to some extent with the Maritime and eastern provinces during the last two or three years, especially the Maritimes, when the Crowsnest pass question was up, who were standing by the western men back on the prairies stronger than the Maritime province men or stronger than the Island men, and again when we were trying to work out the compulsory wheat board clause after the war was over? They said let the west have it if it is going to do them any good. Last year when nearly all the changes were favourable to the western men did anyone see any one of the Maritime men gag at it? Those from Ontario did some squirming about. They stood up for their rights. But one hon, member stood out- too strongly, the gentleman from St. Antoine, he resigned and he was sorry afterwards. But it shows that we went as far as we could, as far as public sentiment would allow. In fact, we went so far that even one of the Progressive group voted with the Tories. The Maritime men stood to a man behind the west.
Long before I had the honour of coming to this House, I often wondered what evil

The Budget-Mr. Motherwell
genius possessed the people of the three prairie provinces and of the three Maritime provinces, whose interests as regards the tariff and many other things are almost identical. I question if there are in this House sounder and more practical men on the tariff than those from the Maritime provinces. Why do we not have some more fellowship and understanding with each other when we have so many interests in common? The same is true of rural Quebec. Indeed, as a matter of fact, you might say that it is practically true now of almost all Quebec and I hope that will continue to be the case. Here is an oportunity for the men on the prairies to reciprocate. They say that they are in favour of reciprocity, but let them not say that they are in favour of it only if it is all their own way. When something is to be done for the Maritimes, let them have their protection. When protection ceases to be in existence in the Dominion of Canada, then they may cast a stone at this in the Maritimes. I do not know whether protection in Canada will ever cease or not; but if the west refuses to accept this budget on the ground of what is claimed to be high protection on coal, but which was agreed to by Premier Greenfield and many others in the west and as regards which the only kick came from protected Ontario, I am afraid our western friends are losing an opportunity of showing a reciprocal feeling for the Maritimes, for what the Maritimes have been prepared to do for the west at every opportunity since we have come down here. Is that a right attitude to cultivate as regards the Maritimes? Should men with common interests not work together in unison? When the delegation from the west went down to the Maritimes, as I read their after dinner speeches and learned of the good times they had, I understand their hearts went out to the Maritimes Did you see, Mr. Speaker, the accounts in regard to the delegation from the Maritime provinces that went to the west? Certain newspaper representatives from the Maritimes went through the western country. All our leading journals held out the right hand to them and were willing to solve their problems in any way humanly possible, because we felt that they were suffering under adverse conditions and we were willing to help them. Personally, I have been here long enough to know that we are all going to vote on this budget to suit our own interests We are all keeping an eye on the folks back home. Sometimes we do not do so but we should. There is another broader vision even than that. Are we going to shirk this first oppor-unity of working out in harmony with the 
eastern provinces, an incidental solution of this difficulty in Glace Bay, or are we going to refuse to reciprocate? I leave that there, feeling assured that possibly the difficulties may be solved. I understand my hon. friends' difficulties. We have all been born and bred, I was going to say, to hate protection, and it is hard to get over our early training. But as long as it is here-and it is here-some of these distressed places are surely justified in saying: Give us a little of what seems good for us, particularly when it saddles itself on to the protected industries of Ontario, and, if you like, Quebec. Is that a satisfactory answer to my hon. friend? Have I been candid enough?


Arthur Meighen: I think the minister has been as amusing as he ever was in his life.


William Richard Motherwell: I am glad to know that I have entertained if I have not instructed nay right hon. friend. A person that has to go into the realms of the valley of dry bones requires some enlightening, and if I have succeeded even in entertaining him, I think I have done pretty well. But getting back to this more serious question, I do not want to refer to the well-intentioned efforts of some members of this House to assist in solving that question. I might refer to la belle re-presentante for Southeast Grey (Miss Mac-phail) and her efforts which were nothing but good. I have only words of approbation for her good intentions, but the matter was one primarily for consideration, by the local authorities. We are doing our part. Are you going to mock at it because you think you scent an element of protection in it when we are surrounded by the same element?


William Irvine: Mr. Speaker, making a speech on the budget at this time of night is naturally enough rather a dry thing to do, and it is certainly deliciously refreshing to have had tihree hours' enjoyment of tlhe kind that we have just been given by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell). I have listened to his speech with some interest and a good deal of amusement. I would say that after having listened to him making a prolonged speech on the Petersen contract and another prolonged speech on the budget, the Liberal party in the Minister of Agriculture has cer-
10 p.m. tainly waked to ecstacies the living lyre. He is certainly a very genial personality. He has the saving grace of humour. I believe he has a very excellent knowledge of agriculture. I believe he is also a very good administrator, but in matters of economics and of polities, he is not

The Budget-Mr. Irvine
seemingly quite so happy. He has likened himself unto a little boy with a Slice of bread with some jam on it. He has played for at least an hour amongst dry bones in a bone yard. I think if he had stayed in the bone yard and not visited the coal mines in Nova Scotia -and if he had kept away from Hudson bay, it would have been better for the party for which he was speaking. He reminds me of a river that, I believe, runs into Hudson bay, a river which is said to be one inch deep and a mile wide at the outflow. I would not like to underbake to navigate the treacherous shallows of that river, nor to launch out upon the bosom of the discussiveness of my hon. friend without the piloting power of the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) armed with the chart of the Liberal party.
There is very great danger of speeches of the character just delivered by the Minister of Agriculture becoming merely words. It may be that what I have to offer myself will be characterized in a similar manner. It may be that I shall add little more to the already disturbed ocean of words, ian ocean 'bestrewn with derelict proposals. I think it was Thomas Hobbes who remarked that "words are wise men's counters; they do but reckon with them, but they are the money of fools." I hope that we shall not inflate the currency overmuch before the debate is through.


An hon. MEMBER:: Hear, hear.


William Irvine: I am glad to notice that
one hon gentleman opposite has taken my counsel to heart. It is something of an ordeal for any one of us to make 'a speech in parliament and perhaps it is a little more so when one speaks on the budget. I have heard gentlemen who have had a long experience in and close connections with parliament deplore the passing of the great orators from Canadian public life. I do not know whether there is anything in that reflection. It may be that the style of oratory peculiar to the days in which we live is so distinctly different as to be considered by men of the older school as not rising to their conception of what real speeches should be. But I am not so sure that there is not a little more in the reflection than that; it is just possible that the suffocating influence of highly developed partyism has some effect upon hon. member's of this House. I believe that an ordinary individual can make a fairly good speech even on the budget if one of two conditions is present: if on the one hand there is a very strong opposition or if on the other there is considerable sympathy. But when we have neither opposition nor sympathy, and 125
when the clammy hand of cold indifference grips an hon. member, even the most ambitious man in the House is stifled. I do not think therefore that, unless an individual member should happen to be a student both by habit and by nature, there is any opportunity afforded in this parliament for encouraging a man to go into any very extended research work or to attempt to do any deep studying even on matters of public importance. This budget is more discouraging in this regard than perhaps any other. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) has been talking a great deal about dry bones. It seems to me that the budget debate is but the rattling of the dry bones of issues long since dead. And that I think has been the character of the speech we have just been listening to. It is true that here and there we have heard a feeble eCho of the great minds of the past; and on occasions the hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster) faintly echoes Cob-den and Bright. But apart from that hon. members opposite have not so far given us any constructive thought, anything which would approach that initiative, that daring conception which ought to be characteristic of the representatives of a new country like Canada, and especially at a time like this when we are supposed to be standing on the threshold of a new era.
I want to comment on what would appear to be the reason for this stultifying, suffocating influence in parliamentary life. It is a well know axiom that a force cannot be destroyed; and the thoughts and feelings of individuals are natural forces. These thoughts seek expression in action and when they do not find such expression, being also indestructible, they are apt to develop political monstrosities; in other words, there is a tendency to develop politicians rather than statesmen. Thoughts and feelings which end only in words debilitate the emotions and overshadow the mind with deadly pessimism. Where is the fine idealism which flamed so warmly at the opening of this parliament? These children of our. dreams are for the most part banished from their rightful parents. Some of them have been chained to political expediency, others of them have been shut up in caves of despair; a few of these ideals still make their unwelcome appearance in debate. I fancy I hear some hon. members say, "Oh yes; that idealism which some of the Progressives as well as some hon. members of the other groups tried to give expression to when they first come into parliament! That idealism! No wonder it is dead; it ought to be dead, because

The Budget-Mr. Irvine

idealism has no place in a practical institution of this kind." Parenthetically I would remark in regard to that attitude of mind, which I know is characteristic of very many hon. gentlemen, that the impractical is usually that which a stupid person is afraid to put to the test lest it might be found to work. For some to say that such and such is impractical is often the highest compliment that could be paid a proposal which is thoughtlessly dismissed, and it is at the same time the {severest indictment of those who sit in judgment upon that proposal. The enthusiasm and idealism to which I have just alluded are manifestations of natural forces seeking to express themselves in action.
But the one thing that parliament seems to avoid more than anything else is action. I have been astounded at the repertoire of excuses from which the present government has been able to draw in the last three or four years; I have been astonished when I have compared their manner of receiving resolutions, suggestions and bills in this House with the most democratic and glowing programme which they themselves drew up and expounded in their appeal to the people of Canada in 1921. I say I have been very much surprised at the agility of their movements and their resourcefulness in finding excuses to get away from their own promises. When it comes to labour matters the government has most decidedly ignored every protest and every appeal that has been made. For a long time the Minister of Labour (Mr. Murdock) has thrown the British North America Act at our heads whenever we have made a proposal. When the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) successfully disposed of that excuse during the discussion on the Nova Scotia distress the Minister of Labour, resorting to what we might call political etiquette, declared in the case of the miners of Nova Scotia in particular that it would be bad form for this parliament to do anything imder the circumstances. Other things might be mentioned to show the unconcern of the government with Labour matters such as-I was almost going to say, quibbling in committees over the scope of a reference and so forth; parliament seems to try to do everything but take action. So I say it is not surprising that we find the psychological conditions which I have spoken of in this House. But there is one ambition which is fitted to survive in parliament, and that is the ambition to obtain power. For the present I am not criticizing that ambition; it may, indeed, be a noble one. But I merely comment upon the fact that the de-

sire or the ambition to attain power peeps out of every argument. Perhaps the words of Milton's Satan appraised the situation admirably :
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:
Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven.
Of what member of a party or of what party might it not well be said:
But man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd,-
His glassy essence,-like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,
As make the angels weep.
The hon. member for Brome (Mr. Mc-Master) who I am sorry is not in his seat at the moment; whom I have characterized as the exponent of Cobden and Bright; who in his enthusiasm for the free trade theories of old times has become the most conservative mind perhaps in the House on that subject, has found himself on this occasion in a very difficult position. I use the position of the hon. member for Brome as a means of illustrating what this desire for power on the part of parties sometimes leads an hon. member into. The hon. member for Brome, honoured, I am sure, by every member of this House, whose clearness of thought and integrity of character no hon. member who knows him will question for one minute-what position does he find himself in with regard to the budget that he is asked to vote upon? He finds himself in this position: he is asked to vote on two questions at the same time, and he has only one vote for the two. These two questions are, stating them very briefly: will the hon. member for Brome vote for an increase of the tariff on slack coal, or will he vote against the government? These two things have no connection; they are almost at the opposite poles, but he has to get them settled in some way with the one vote. Now the hon. member for Brome is an ardent free trader by profession. In his speech on the budget of this year he gives us the crystal-clear principles of Cobden and Bright and John Stuart Mill. There is no doubt about the philosophy of free trade so far as the speech of the hon. member for Brome is concerned. But he turns from his principles to criticize this particular item in the budget, the raising of the tariff on coal. He says virtually that he is opposed to raising the tariff on coal, but notwithstanding the fact that he is opposed to raising the tariff on coal; notwithstanding that he is a free trader, he is going to vote for a budget which raises the tariff on coal because he does not want to defeat the government. What does that mean? I do not know of

The Budget

Mr. Irvine
any hon. member who could better illustrate the situation than the hon. member for Brome, for the very reason that I have given, namely, that of his unquestionable integrity of character. Here he is on the horns of a dilemma, and, I say, notwithstanding his devotion to free trade he says he must vote first to save the government and vote for free trade at some other time or at some more convenient season.
Now, the major parties in this House, naming them in turn, are the Liberal party, now the custodians of office; the Conservative party, the official opposition; the Progressive party to my right; then, the other party which awaits the next election to be christened; then the Labour party, of which I am the biggest part-that is, to say, Mr. Speaker, excluding my leader. The Liberal party at present enjoys this power, the opposition party and the Progressive parties both aspire for power. The Labour party does not aspire for power. The obvious answer, I know, in your minds is that even with very keen imaginations, which we have been charged with on some occasions, we could not even visualize that for labour in this country at the present moment. But that is not really the answer. The real answer is that we do not believe that any party or any class or any group should have power; that the power in any country should be co-operatively wielded; so on principle I say we do not look for power even if from our political development we might be justified in expecting it. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I am in this position as representative of labour, neither desiring power nor being within the possibility of reaching it; I have to turn first to one party and then to the other, examine their programme, examine their policies, examine their records, examine their leaderships, to see which of them in my opinion would be most favourable to the people I represent; to see which, by virtue of their leadership and administrative power and policy, would, in my opinion merit the support of the Canadian people. So I begin to examine these parties just before coming to the budget itself, and I want to deal first of all with the government.
I cannot be so gracious with the government as the hon. member for Brome was in his closing remarks. He feelingly quoted the immortal bard of Scotland to the effect that we should gently scan our brother man- I forget the actual quotation; at any rate the suggestion was that we should adopt a sympathetic attitude toward the government. In that connection I want to quote just 1254
another passage from the same great poet that is really more applicable inasmuch as it was actually written for parliamentarians. He says:
Stand forth, an' tell yon Premier youth The honest, open, naked truth: .
The muckle devil blaw ye south,
If ye dissemble!
In gath'rin' votes you were na slack;
Now stand as tightly by your tack;
Ne'er claw your lug, an' fidge your back,
An' hum an' haw;
But raise your arm, an' tell your crack Before them a'.
Seeing that I do not happen to be embarrassed as the hon. member for Brome is, I can tell my crack before them a', and so I ask the government, first, what they have to offer in return for the power which they now enjoy, and which I have no doubt they will be seeking to continue at the next election whenever that may come. I would like to be very gracious in my criticism. The words of an unknown author come to my mind: "I can expect to pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that. I can show to my fellow crea-turesj let me do it now. Let me not defer and neglect it. for I shall not pass this way again." I think that is a fitting quotation before one emerges upon the precarious course of criticizing a government, especially on a budget that may be the last of this parliament.
I desire to affirm, that the government that is now in office is far below the average of Canadian governments. I have not been able to find one outstanding achievement to its credit. I know that the administration has gone on in the ordinary way, except when it was interfered with by some of the ministers perhaps; that is to say, the deputy ministers have been doing the work, as they will do after the next election and after the one after that. But when it comes to any daring legislation that would measure up to the verbose promises of pre-election speeches. I look in vain for anything whatsoever. I think perhaps the government can be described as mediocre. There has been no outstanding thing to put on the credit side of the balance sheet, but there happen to be some very outstanding things to be put on the debit side. I have already had an opportunity of criticizing one of those outstanding proposals which must go on the debit side, and perhaps if it survives the committee, We may have an opportunity of dealing with it again. I refer to the Petersen proposal.
There are some other outstanding things to be put on the debit side of the balance sheet,
The Budget-Mr. Irvine

and that is some of the items in the present budget. Perhaps the raising of the tariff on slack coal, which personally I am very glad to see done, is the best thing that is in the budget, but seeing that is the best thing that is in the budget, I. think the government ought to have the generosity to give credit to the right hon. leader of the opposition and his followers for showing them how to meet the situation in the eastern provinces. There can be no doubt that the leaders of the government have argued that the best thing for the workingman was to reduce the tariff, and that by reducing the tariff they would reduce the cost of living. I am not now questioning their reasoning at all. What I am doing is questioning their sincerity when they say that to the people outside, and then come back to parliament, and when they have a really difficult situation to deal with, the only way out of it they can find is to raise the tariff on coal to 50 cents per ton. Since on a labour matter the government that preaches free trade practises protection as a remedy for labour difficulties, I think the least that the government can do is to give credit to the hon. gentlemen who have the courage to say they stand for protection. That is due to the opposition in common courtesy.
I am reminder of a story in describing this government's policy. A negro woman was taking her child to a circus, and the child had a nickel, which, like most other children, it was very anxious to spend. Seeing a merry-go-round the child proposed to the mother that the nickel should be spent on a ride. But the mother was a little more careful of her nickels, and opposed the idea. Finally, however, for the sake of peace die yielded to the importunity of the child and put him on the merry-go-round. The mother stood there until the circuit had been completed, and when the merry-go-round stopped just where she had put the child on, she lifted him off and said, "Now, yo' am spent your nickel and yo' am had your ride, but where hab yo' been?" The government has had office; it has expended public funds; it has had its innings of power; but what has it done? Where has it been? What has it accomplished? We will have to have another speech from the Minister of Agriculture to tell us what are the achievements of this government. I will have more to say of the government's attitude when I come to consider the budget in detail.
Now I must turn from the government and have a look at the next party that is aspiring for power, the Progressive party which I believe is the next largest party in numbers, and I have to ask, what has the Progressive

party to offer from the labour point of view? In making this criticism, Mr. Speaker, I hope it is unnecessary for me to remark that I fully appreciate that the hon. gentlemen who sit to my immediate right are very high-minided and sincere gentlemen, that in very many respects they think as I do. I want to say also that many of them I regard as personal friends. More than that, some of the hon. gentlemen to my right are men of mind and culture and ability, men who some day we will perhaps find holding the highest offices in the land. These things, I hope, my hon. friends to my right will take for granted, notwithstanding the fact that I am going to criticize the Progressive party. When I criticize the Progressive party I do so as I have criticized the party opposite. I criticize it from tire point of view of the aims of the party itself, the policy it seeks to enforce in the House, and what I as a representative of labour may expect from it were it returned to power at the next election. I know that some hon. members have prognosticated that this party is not coming back. I do not feel so sure of that, nor would I feel particularly happy to contemplate it. I am not very sure about coming back myself; I cannot make any prophecy of that character at all. I hope they will all come back so far as that is concerned, that is if they have got anything to give us when they do come back. But for the present I am going to criticize the Progressive party. That party took its place in this parliament on a certain programme which I will refrain, in my generosity to my hon. friends, from reading again. But I may characterize them as tariff haters. They hate the tariff very much on occasions; sometimes they do not hate it quite as bad as at other times. But I would say that Don Quixote tilting at a windmill is not any more ludicrous than the Progressive party tilting at a moderate tariff in the idea that they have found the solution for the economic problems of Canada in 1925. I have noticed that the leader of the Progressive party has registered his disapproval of the present budget.


Mr. KELLNER:: Did not your leader move the Progressive tariff platform as an amendment to the budget last year, and did you not support it?


William Irvine: I am very glad that my hon. friend has called to my mind something I was not likely to forget. I hope before I am through, Mr. Speaker, that I will satisfy my hon. friend on that point. If he will permit me just to postpone his question for a few minutes I will answer it in its proper place

The Budget-Mr. Irvine
in my speech. If I fail, if I should happen to forget the question which I do not think I shall, I hope he will ask it again. I was saying when my hon. friend' asked me the question that the leader of the Progressive party has registered his disapproval of the present budget, and I was wondering why. Why has he disapproved of this 'budget? This budget is just about as good as the last one, in fact I think I might just quote one passage from the speech of the leader of the Progressive party in the House a few days ago to prove this contention. The hon. gentleman said on that occasion:
I think in commencing that I might characterize the budget as I have seen it characterized in the press-as a stand-pat budget, adopting the position "just as you were" and really leaving us in exactly the same position in which we found ourselves at the commencement of the year-no progress, nothing changed, we are left in the exact position we have been in during the last twelve months.
Well, this means that the budget which is now before the House is to all intents and purposes exactly the same budget that the Progressive party voted for last year by the confession of their leader himself. Well, not only did the Progressive party vote for the same budget last year, but they actually voted against a reduction of the tariff as proposed in a resolution which embodied their own programme. Not content with that, I believe that not very long ago the leader of the Progressive party in a speech, I think it was in Hamilton, made a declaration that he was in favour of a moderate tariff. Well, now, Mr. Speaker, that is just exactly what we have in this budget. We have a moderate tariff, and it is because of its moderation that I am opposed to it. If it was moved either down or up it might be a permissible thing; but seeing that it is just a moderate tariff it presents to the people of Canada a fiscal policy which retains all the weaknesses and all the bad points of both free trade and protection. That is the reason why I oppose it now, but why the Progressive party should oppose it I am not quite so clear.


Alfred Speakman: In what respect does this budget differ from the budget the hon. member supported last year?


William Irvine: Again I will have to postpone my answer. I will answer my hon. friend at the same time that I answer the hon member for East Edmonton (Mr. Kellner) and it will be partly the same answer. The one will be negative and the other will be positive, and when we combine a negative and a positive we get something substantial. I
regard the amendment of the Progressive party, therefore, as a gesture which I regret to see coming from the party that I had hoped would abandon the political tactics of party-ism. I say it is a gesture because its supporters know very well it could not even get a hearing. They need not argue that in moving the amendment they would, perhaps, at least register a protest against the rules of the House, because 'that has been done already and we have started the machinery going to amend the rules of the House if they can be amended. So I say I regret that such a gesture should have been made. I regret to find no bright hopes in the Progressive party so far as labour is concerned, and I abandon my hopes of it very reluctantly. Many forward-looking people in Canada to-day see in the Progressive party as it now is a fitting epitaph for the tomb of a lost opportunity. Of that party it may well be said:
There is a tide in the affairs of men Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
That flood time has passed, the ebb has set in, and the Progressive party is now gasping and wriggling like a fish left stranded on the beach before the receding tide. There I will leave them while I deal with the opposition.


Mr. BANCROFT:: You forgot to answer the two questions.


William Irvine: I will come to the two questions at another point, and I promise my hon. friend that I will not forget them.
Turning then to the official opposition, I want to ask what policy they have to offer. I think that all hon. members will agree with me, when I say, to begin with, that the leadership of that party is one of its greatest assets. As to what the policy of that party is I want to ask some very pertinent questions, and I hope that the right hon. leader of the opposition, who I regret to say was unable to place beforfe parliament his policy as indicated in a resolution, will take my questions as seriously as I am offering them, and when he makes his speech in this debate will favour the House with a reply to them. I am not going to put my questions at the moment; I shall do so when I am dealing with that part of the budget speech under which they will more fittingly come. I believe that the opposition party stands for protection. Does it mean that? That ds one of the questions which perhaps I might put now. Does the Conservative party mean to be really a protectionist party? I do
The Budget-Mr. Irvine

not believe that Canada has ever had a real protection policy. On these questions, however, I will be more pointed a little later on.
I come now to the budget itself. I was rather struck with the government's attitude in dealing with the economic conditions of Canada. The government seeks to make out that Canada is good, bad or indifferent, according to the immediate purpose which the government has to serve at the time of making the speech. At the time of the Speech from the Throne Canada had passed through a wonderful year of prosperity. When it came to the Petersen subsidy then Canadian trade was in a terrible shape. When the hon. Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) presented his budget he took occasion to comment upon the very unfavourable condition of trade and commerce that he had had to contend with, as a means of emphasizing how well the government of the day had financed, and so I say that if there was no other evidence as to what the real conditions of Canada are than that which we could obtain by reading the speeches of the ministers of the crown, I do not know what conclusion we would come to at the end of the year. But what are the real conditions? I could not even deal with them as lightly as I am going to deal with them if it had not been for the real enjoyment the House has had this afternoon and evening, and that may enable hon. members to take a very different kind of medicine with good grace.
May I draw attention to the growing national debt, and in this connection I want to quote a very brief financial statement. I know that the House hates figures about as badly as I hate giving them, and so I will not inflict very many figures on it. Dealing with the national debt, we have a gross debt in the Dominion, according to the Canada Gazette, of $2,940,099,008. [DOT]


An hon. MEMBER:: No, it cannot be.


William Irvine: Yes, and there are'some cents to be added-to be specific, thirty-five cents,-an ominious figure for my hon. friend. I received these figures from the Finance department and I will give them to the House now. The figures are as follows:
National Debt
Gross Debt Dominion (Dec. 31/24
Canada Gazette)	 $2,940,099,008 35
Securities guaranteed by Dominion:
As to capital	 $423,161,713 83
As to interest only ..	167,349,218 72

	590,510,932 55

National Debt-Concluded.
Funded and floating debt of provinces including guaranteed securities but excluding sinking funds (Canada
Year Book, 1923, pp. 792-3)	 697,785,627 00
Funded and floating debt of municipalities of 10,000 and over (Can. Year Book, 1923, pp.
796-7)	 $ 622,301,440 00
Funded and floating debt of municipalities of 3,000 to
10.000	(1919) (Can.
Year Book, 1923, p.
803)	 51,642,287 00
Funded and floating debt of municipalities 1,000 to
3.000	(1920) (Can.
Year Book 1923, p.
805)	 32,700,840 00

 706,644,567 00

Or $548 per capita at population 9,000,000 or average capital debt of $2,740 for family of five paid for in taxes annually.
With a financial statement of that kind the balancing of the budget appears almost humorous, placing it alongside of the national debt, which is growing gradually, in spite of the efforts of the government at economy.
Let us take next the stagnation in industry and business depression. The government I notice has been claiming great credit for having reduced the taxation of Canada fifty-two million dollars. That fifty-two million dollar reduction, according to government figures; has all been occasioned by the fact that we have had less business and less industry in Canada this year than we had last year. That fact has been brought out very ably by other hon. members. Then we have unemployment unparalleled, and suffering among workers. We had, for instance, a march on Edmonton recorded in the public press some short time ago. We have the Nova Scotia situation knocking at the doors, of the government for alleviation. So taking into consideration the enormous national debit that is still increasing, the paralysis in the industrial and business life of Canada, the unemployment which perhaps has never been so severe as it is at the present time, and the actual distress from which many people are suffering while I am speaking -that represents the conditions in Canada after four years of the present administration. This will contrast unfavourably with the address of the Prime Minister when dealing with the Speech from the Throne, but will come nearer his description of conditions when defending the Petersen contract. I know the

The Budget-Mr. Irvine
conditions in Nova Scotia have been denied by some hon. members on the government side of the House, and just at this juncture I have a few words to say with regard to the reply the hon. member for Lunenburg (Mr. Duff) made to the speech of the hon. member for Southeast Grey (Miss Macphail). I of course have no apology to make for Nova Scotia in replying to the hon. member for Lunenburg. The industrial situation in Nova Scotia is merely an exaggerated sample of general industrial conditions throughout Canada. It happens at that point that it is a little more apparent than at many other points throughout the west and throughout other parts of eastern Canada. This condition itself is I consider a national disgrace, and if Nova Scotia is as offended as the hon. member for Lunenburg would make her out to be, I hope its offence will stimulate it to immediate action, and that the province will remedy the industrial conditions which are so oppressive to the miners of Nova Scotia at the present time. I do not wish to criticize the hon. member for Lunenburg (Mr. Duff) very much, because I notice that he is not in his seat and, besides, I really think, after the speech he made, he is more an object of sympathy than of criticism. The nemesis which followed him came very speedily. He tried to convince the House that the distress in Nova Scotia was not serious enough to attract the charitable interference of the general public. The greatest credit -which is due to the hon. member for his speech will be found in the fact that not only did he fail to convince the House, but he gave the greatest evidence that he had failed utterly in convincing himself that conditions in Nova Scotia were not as represented by the hon. member for Southeast Grey. I have no first-hand information. I have not been at Glace Bay. I must speak from the knowledge -which I have gathered from the press and from the reports of citizens like the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg (Mr. Woodsworth) and the hon. member for Southeast Grey. But when I am called upon to decide whether' I am to accept as truth the conditions as depicted by those two hon. members or as depicted by the hon. member for Lunenburg, I have no hesitation in deciding that personally I accept the statement of the hon. member for Southeast Grey and that of my leader from Centre Winnipeg. To answer the main contentions of the hon. member for Lunenburg after what has transpired in the last few days would be comparable to the whipping of a dead carcass, because he has received his answer
very thoroughly. It came to him very speedily. In fact, before he had his breakfast next morning, I think he had his answer from representatives of the people in Glace Bay. He had his answer from interested, public-spirited officials throughout the province of Nova Scotia. He had his answer from his own sister whose appeals went out for aid to the suffering multitude of his own province. Lie had his answer from all parts of this country through the press. In fact, I do not know of any statement that the hon. member for Lunenburg made that has not been answered out of court already. Even his statement with regard to the Nova Scotia legislature and its taking action has been answered, for I understand that government has at last decided to give $20,000 for relief.
But there is one more point dealt with by the hon. member for Lunenburg upon which I desire to comment. He tried to place the whole blame for the distress in Glace Bay on the mayor of that town, who happens, I understand, to be a labour man. If hon. members are interested and will look up page 1774 of Hansard of April 1, they will find the statement of the hdn. member for Lunenburg dealing with that phase of the question. He argued that there was a certain law respecting the borrowing powers of municipalities, and that it was not necessary for the municipality concerned to get legislation to enable it to make loans to relieve the starving people. But here is the answer to that. In making the speech, he said that the hon. member for Southeast Grey should get better information. I ask: Who requires to get the better information-the hon. member for Southeast Grey or the hon-. member for Lunenburg? This despatch will give the answer to 'that question. It is a despatch from Glace Bay of April 6:
At a special meeting of the Glace Bay town council it was decided to apply for legislation to empower the town to extend its overdraft at the local banks by $80,000. This step is rendered necessary by the financial condition resulting from the tie-up in the coal mines.
That is the final and crushing answer to the last point of the hon. member for Lunenburg.
Let me recapitulate my summary of the economic conditions in this country. There is the increase in our national debt; a business depression and an industrial paralysis that have become chronic under the attention of this government; and most
11 p.m. alarming of all a wide-spread unemployment, not only in Nova Scotia, but in many other parts of Canada. In view of these facts I must say that the present government has no policy of any real

The Budget-Mr. Irvine
value to labour. But I cannot refrain at this point from turning to the programme of the government with regard to labour. I think, in fairness to the government and also in fairness to labour, that may be asked in the near future to support the government with such a glowing programme as this happens to be, I ought to read the programme. In this Speakers' Handbook, prepared by the Liberal party and decorated on the front page with the picture of the Prime Minister himself I find the programme of the Liberal party and also the sister programme of the Progressive party, both within the bounds of the same volume. I find here what purports to be the Liberal party's programme for labour.


Mr. MARTELL:: That will be Unitarian,
will it? If the Liberals and Progressives were put together, it would be Unitarian almost if you add a third party to it.


William Irvine: I hope my hon. friend's
suggestion will turn out to be true in the interest of both parties concerned. The resolution on Labour and Industry, which I find in this volume, constitutes the programme of labour as laid down by the Liberal party in 1921:
Resolved, that the committee recommends that the National Liberal convention accept in their entirety as a part of the Liberal platform, in the spirit they have been framed and so far as the special circumstances of the country will permit-
These I believe, in terms of poker, are called jokers.
-the terms of the Labour convention and general principles associated with the League of Nations and incorporated in the conditions of peace.
These methods and principles for regulating labour conditions so set forth in the treaty are as follows:
1.	The guiding principle that labour should not be regarded merely as a commodity or article of commerce.
I wait for the government to tell me in wrhat way and when during the last four years it has actually taken labour out of the market as a commodity. I think the surplus labour of Nova Scotia at the present time is in about the same position as a factory filled with manufactured goods for which there is no market. There is no alteration, there is no indication of any policy that would alter that condition.
2.	The right of association for all lawful purposes by the employed as well as by the employers.
I think I must stop to make a remark about that plank. Hon. members will recall that last year when the leader of the Labour party moved in the committee on Banking and Commerce and, if I mistake not, on the floor of the House as well, that the bank clerks be

allowed the privilege of organizing and forming a lawful association such as we have set forth in this plank of the Liberal platform, the government rejected the proposal. Did they give these people the right to organize? -a small thing to ask for. Why should they refuse the bank clerks this right? Even in this picayune thing the government refused to meet this class of labour.
3.	The payment to the employed of a wage adequate to maintain a reasonable standard of life as this is understood in their time and country.
Take the government's own figures in regard to this plank; take the cost of living in Canada to-day as estimated by the government itself. Take the average income of the wage earner and then let hon. gentlemen answer for themselves the question I am about to put: How has the government of the day implemented this promise to labour? How has the government brought the earning power of the working people of Canada up to a level with a decent standard of living?
4.	The adoption of an eight-hour day or a forty-eight hour week as the standard to be aimed at where it has not already been attained.
That was very largely established before the government came into office. Certainly I know of no instance where the government has put it into operation.
5.	The adoption of a weekly rest of at least twenty-four hours, which should include Sunday wherever practicable.
On this plank the government has come nearer fulfilment than on any other. It has given not only a twenty-four hour rest but a three hundred and sixty-five day rest to hundreds of people in this country.
6.	The abolition of child labour and the imposition of such limitations on the labour of young persons as shall permit the continuation of their education and assure their proper physical development.
Again I ask the government or someone speaking for them to tell me what they have done m this regard. They have undoubtedly encouraged the bringing in of children from Great Britain and possibly from Europe, but as to what wages they are paying these children and what protection they have afforded them, that is a point on which I am not clear.
7.	The principle that men and women should receive equal remuneration for work of equal value.
Where has that been implemented by the government? Have they put it into operation in connection with their own staffs in the Civil Service? Have they put it into operation in this House? I again must await the reply of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mur-

The Budget-Mr. Irvine
dock), if he can tear himself away long enough from the British North America Act.


James Murdock: Does my hon. friend
not know that neither this government nor the preceding government has had any authority in fixing the wages of civil servants, that authority being entrusted under a specific law to a commission which has exclusive jurisdiction in. the matter?


William Irvine: The reply is such as I anticipated. The minister states that the government has no power to deal with the wages of civil servants. He has also told the House on numerous occasions that the government has no right to interfere with the labour conditions of other provinces. Since, then, the government has no right nor power to interfere in matters of labour I want to ask two questions:	Why have we a Minister of
Labour at all and why does the government put this plank in its platform? It is absurd to put forth such a plank as this as a bait to the working people of the country and then to stand up in this House and say that the government that published it has neither the power nor the inclination to implement it.


James Murdock: We shall be quite
agreeable to having a real labour man discuss that question.


William Irvine: I am very glad that the
hon. member admits, as he feels in his heart, that he himself is not a labour man and suggests that we ought to have one somewhere near to whom a question of this kind might be put. Let me proceed with the next proposition.
8.	The standard set by law in each country with respect to the conditions of labour should have due regard to the equitable economic treatment of all workers lawfully resident therein.
I need not comment on that.
9.	Each state should make provision for a system of inspection in which women should take part, in order to ensure the enforcement of the laws and regulations for the protection of the employed.
But what would be done with the British North America Act while this parliament was arranging for women to make "inspections"? We should have to apply for an amendment to that aot. And note this, Mr. Speaker:
And further resolved:
1.	The introduction into the government of industry or principles of representation whereby labour and the community, as well as capital, may be represented in industrial control, and their interests safeguarded and promoted in the shaping of industrial policies.
That sounds like an excerpt from a volume known as Industry and Humanity; it certainly breathes the same spirit and adumbrates the same fond hopes. But beyond that it means nothing to the labour men of Canada.
2.	That in so far as may be .practicable, having regard for Canada's financial position, an adequate system of insurance against unemployment, sickness, dependence in old age, and other disability, which would include old age pensions, widows' pensions, and maternity benefits, should be' instituted by the federal government in conjunction with the governments of the several provinces.
Now there is a programme which would raise the standard of living to a great many people in this country, a programme which would be of material benefit to labour. But it is a programme; that is all we can say for it-a programme which has become a chart, a chart with the rather uncommon characteristic of being able to change itself whenever the occasion demands, so that when there is a rock ahead it is moved off the chart, so to speak, in the hope that in this way the rock might be avoided. What should be done, however, is to alter the course of the ship of state:
3.	The representation of labour on federal commissions pertaining to labour matters.
I do not know that we have had any of these commissions.
4.	Effective legislation for the conservation of human life and health.
I have not noticed anything of that kind.
5.	The representation of labour on the Board of Directors of the Canadian National Railways.
In this regard I believe the government made good its promise.
6.	That the system of re-training soldiers, unfitted for their past work because of physical injuries, be extended to disabled workers in industry.
I know of no such practical work carried on by the Dominion government.
7.	More effective restriction of Chinese immigration.
I do not know that this has been implemented by the government, although the efforts of the hon. member for Comox-Albemi (Mr. Neill) may have had some effect. But I understand that there are ways of getting Chinese into the country which seem to escape the eyes of the government.
8.	The federal incorporation of co-operative associations.
I hope the Minister of Labour will tell us how many of these have been incorporated.
9.	The acceptance of the principle of proportional rep resen tation.
I have no doubt it has been accepted, but if it has been accepted it has been kept a secret by the government, for it has not been given to the people of Canada.
The Budget-Mr. Irvine

10.	Immediate and drastic action by the government with respect to the high cost of living and profiteering.
Where is that drastic action? Where is that immediate action? What does the government mean by immediate? What does the government mean by drastic? Are these words in English, or in some foreign tongue? Have I got the right, then, to charge the government at this moment with a failure to implement their programme; to say either that they went to labour without sincerity at the time or that they somehow have absolutely failed to carry out these pledges? Which of the two is it? I do not know, but I do know that they have not carried this programme out. I quote further:
11.	Restoration of the control of the executive by parliament and of parliament by the people through a discontinuance of government by order in council and a just franchise and its exercise under free conditions.
I refer to but one thing in that paragraph. I have noticed that this government has put forth orders in council. I have noticed that we have the same domination by cabinet in this government that we have had in other governments. I notice, too, that this government has resorted to a kind of closure which is much more undesirable than that which the present opposition introduced. That is to say, when a difficult resolution comes before this House the government talks until about this time of the night and then moves the adjournment of the debate, so that the closure is applied not only to the debate but to the decision as well, and we hear no more of it. That is the way, especially on labour matters, that this government implements its promise with regard to democracy in the "control of the executive by parliament" and the abandonment of orders in council for democratic legislation.
Now, Mr. Speaker, having made the introduction to my speech,' and seeing that it is ten minutes past eleven I beg to move the adjournment of the debate.


James Alexander Robb: I understood that the whips
had agreed that my hon. friend should complete his speech to-night. Of course, I have no desire to force him along; I am just as anxious to go to bed as he is.
Sir HENRY DRAYTON. Let us go.


James Alexander Robb: How much longer would my
hon. friend take?


William Irvine: I am half way through, Mr. Speaker. I do not think there should be any objection to the adjournment, seeing that the

hon. Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) took three hours to-day.
Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Robb the House adjourned at 11.15 p.m.
Wednesday, April 8, 1925