PRIVATE BILLS-FEES REMITTED

[Stage Direction]
Hon. H. B. McGIVERIN (Ottawa) presented the sixth report of the select standing committee on Miscellaneous Private Bills.
Mr. R. B. HANSON (York-Sunbury) moved!:
That in accordance with the recommendation contained in the sixth report of the select standing committee on Miscellaneous Private Bills the additional charge paid on Bill No. 123, letter H3 of the Senate, intituled An Act for Relief of Ruth Dorothy Ruten-berg, be refunded.
Hon. J. A. ROBB (Acting Minister of Finance):: Before that resolution passes, I
should like to direct the attention of the House and the committees to the procedure we have followed for some years in regard to remitting certain charges. It seems to me that the committee now having under consideration the rules of the House might very well consider whether or not it is in the public interest, when parties come before parliament and take up the time of the House and incur expenses, that we should remit the charges. It seems to me these parties should be compelled to pay, as others do. '


Right Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Leader of the Opposition):: The question is very
important, and I do not doubt that by this time it involves a large amount of money. It would not occur to me to be a question for

the consideration of the committee on Rules, but rather a question for the House proper, aside altogether from the committee on Rules. It is not a question of the rules of the House.


James Alexander Robb: It is internal economy.


Mr. McGIVERIN:: As chairman of the
committee winch unanimously passed this report, I desire to say a word. This is in regard to a fine for not having presented the petition for divorce in proper form. The member of the House presented the petition for a bill, but the Christian name of the petitioner was spelled incorrectly, it had to be sent back to be corrected, and in the meantime it was too late to present it to the House. The committee did not think it was fair that a mistake of that kind should bar the application. There are twio other questions which are somewhat similar-a mistake on the part of counsel and a mistake on the part of the member presenting the petition. I state these facts by way of explaining the attitude of the committee.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Mr. S. W. JACOBS (George Etienne
Cartier) moved:
That, in accordance with the recommendation contained in the sixth report of the select standing committee on Miscellaneous Private Bills, the additional charge paid on Bill No. 126, for the reflief of Mollie Weiner, be refunded.
James Alexander Robb: I desire again to direct to the
attention of the House and more particularly the Internal Economy committee the same objection to this remission as I have just offered to the previous one. I think the time has come when we should determine how long parliament is going to spend attempting to put through legislation and then refund the costs.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. ERNEST LAPOINTE (Minister of Justice) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 147, to amend the Criminal Code.
He said:	This bill contains some amendments in the procedure which have been suggested by the provinces. One of the main provisions of the bill is in regard to the printing, posting and publishing of intelligence on horse races. That is the amendment I stated some time ago the government would introduce this session. Another important section of the bill gives the attorney general the right to appeal. Some years ago amendments were enacted giving the prisoner the

Elections Act
right of appeal which he did not formerly possess, but parliament took away from the crown the right of appeal which it had before that time. This is to restore the right of the crown to appeal.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. A. B. COPP (Secretary of State) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 14S to amend the Dominion Elections Act.
He said:	Hon. gentlemen will remember
that shortly after the last Dominion election the chief electoral officer presented a report to His Honour the Speaker under section 74 of the act, mentioning some of the difficulties encountered in carrying on the election under the act, and it was suggested that a number of amendments should be made. This was given consideration, and the amendments we are presenting to the House to-day contain the suggestions made by the chief electoral officer for the better administration of the act, and to reduce to a minimum the difficulties experienced in the last election. There are some thirty sections in the amended bill. Under the old act registration was granted in all places having a population of 1,000 or upwards. That was amended in 1921, increasing the number from 1,000 to 2,500 before registration could be obtained. That figure was afterwards increased, and made 5,000. Another amendment was that urban voters' lists were required to be printed, and in order to save time it was thought advisable to include mimeographing as well as printing of these lists if thought necessary.
Another amendment is with regard to returning officers. Some returning officers when appointed refuse to act and do not take the initial steps towards appointing their election clerks in order to carry on the election as speedily as possible. This amendment makes it imperative upon the returning officer to take at least the initial steps so as not to delay the conduct of an election. In one or two constituencies there was barely time to carry on the election after the returning officer refused to act. Another provision is to overcome as far as possible the difficulty experienced in preparing voters' lists in some of the provinces, particularly in regard to accepting provincial voters' lists as the basis of the Dominion list. The explanation is somewhat lengthy; it will all be found in the report of the chief electoral officer.
Another change is to provide a more simple method of removing the names of dead and disqualified voters from preliminary lists in urban polling divisions. Another provides for earlier delivery of lists to candidates; another that where the urban registrar makes up the index books containing lists of voters, he shall make an extra copy for the printer so as to save time in that regard.
Another change is in regard to cases where it is necessary to substitute a returning officer at the last moment on account of illness or otherwise. Formerly it was required that the oath of office must be taken before a judge of a court of record. It was found necessary in some instances to go a considerable distance in order to do this. This has been changed so that the oath can be taken before a magistrate, a justice of the peace or a notary public to overcome that difficulty. There are a number of just such amendments as that in the bill. We are anxious to get as complete, accurate and ideal an election act as is possible, and on second reading we intend to refer the bill to the committee on Privileges and Elections. The Chief Electoral Officer who had the experience of conducting the last election will be able to go before that committee and explain the changes, and the committee can study the bill better than can be done here.
Mr. IRVINE:: Has the minister in these
amendments made a provision which will permit trade unions to make contributions to election funds?


Mr. COPP:: I do not think there is any
change suggested in that respect.


William Irvine: Has the minister any intention of inserting such a provision?


Arthur Meighen: Are a'll the amendments
suggested by the Chief Electoral Officer included in the bill?


Arthur Bliss Copp: I do not think quite all. The majority of them are. One other amendment to which I intended to refer is not in the recommendations; it is to reduce the time between nomination and polling from fourteen days to seven days.


Arthur Meighen: Are there some amendments not recommended by the Chief Electoral Officer?


Arthur Bliss Copp: Yes. There is one section in
regard to advertisements, and so on, as fellows:
Every advertisement, article, notice, illustration or cartoon appearing in a newspaper, magazine, pamphlet, leaflet or other publication (and having reference to an ejection) if printed at the expense of any individual,
Bankruptcy Act

firm, committee, association, society, or corporation [DOT]other than the individual, firm, committee, association, society or corporation which is the printer or publisher thereof, shall disclose that such advertisement, article, notice, illustration or cartoon has been or is being paid for by such individual, firm, committee, association, society or corporation and shall bear the name and address of the person or persons paying, or agreeing to pay, for the publication thereof.
The provision as regards reducing the time between nomination and polling day from fourteen days to seven days was not recommended by the Chief Electoral Officer, but he was consulted about it and he was quite agreeable to it.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.




[Stage Direction]
Hon. ERNEST LAPOINTE (Minister of Justice) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 149, to amend the Dominion Elections Act -single alternative vote.
Some hon. MEMBERS:: Explain.


Mr. LAPOINTE:: The purpose of this bill
is to make in the Dominion Elections Act the necessary amendments to provide for the single alternative vote in single member constituencies where three or more candidates have been nominated.


Arthur Meighen: Why is this amendment
to the Dominion Elections Act separate from the other amendments?


Ernest Lapointe: I do not know of any
special reason except that last year I was entrusted with the duty of introducing this bill and the government, perhaps, thought I would not take it well if it was taken away from me.


William Irvine: Does the minister make
provision for proportional representation in this bill?


Ernest Lapointe: No.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



BANKRUPTCY ACT AMENDMENT

[Stage Direction]
Hon. ERNEST LAPOINTE (Minister of Justice) moved the first reading of Bill No. 146, from the Senate, to amend the Bankruptcy Act.
He said:	The main purpose of this bill,
which has already passed the Senate, is to carry out the recommendation of the Banking and Commerce committee last year by inserting an amendment which has been
[Mr. Copp.l
strongly urged, especially by my hon. friends from Saskatchewan and Alberta, to provide for the administration of estates of insolvent farmers by a government officer who shall be paid by the province rather than out of the estate; also that insolvent farmers shall be able to obtain their discharge notwithstanding the fact that they have not kept books or that they have carried on farming after they knew themselves to be insolvent. The other amendments are on mere questions of procedure and changes have been suggested by judges and officers dealing with the Bankruptcy Act.
Arthur Meighen: Will the minister explain how this parliament can enable a province to do anything?


Ernest Lapointe: This question was considered last year by the Banking and Commerce committee, and if my right hon. friend will read the amendments I think he will find that we have the power.
(1)	Notwithstanding anything contained in this act, if the Lieutenant Governor in Council of any province authorizes any officer of the provincial government to act as custodian and trustee under this act, the official receiver shall, in the case of any assignment by a person engaged solely in farming or the tillage of the soil, appoint such officer as custodian.
(2)	Any officer so appointed to the office of custodian by the official receiver shall thereupon, in addition to such office, be and be deemed to be the authorized trustee as if appointed under subsection (1) of section 15 of this act, and shall continue to be the authorized trustee until properly removed under subsection (2) of the said section 15.
(3)	In case any such provincial officer is appointed custodian and trustee, he shall not be entitled under this act to be paid any remuneration as custodian or trustee nor any of the costs enumerated as costs of custodian in part III of the general rules.
This is really a special provision but I do not think that this parliament is relinquishing any one of its powers; we are merely empowering the official receiver to appoint the provincial officer designated1 by the provincial government.


Mr. GARLAND (Bow River):: Does this
bill stand now in the same form as when it was introduced in t'he Senate in the first instance?


Ernest Lapointe: I think so.


Edward Joseph Garland: Were any
amendments moved to the original bill in the Senate?


Ernest Lapointe: I do not know; I received the bill from the Senate only to-day. So far as I can see however there is no material change although there may be some difference somewhere in the phraseology.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.

Railway Act ,



INQUIRIES FOR RETURNS


[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
William Irvine: On March 30 a number of questions asked regarding the Soldier Settlement Board were passed as orders for returns. So far these returns have not been brought down. Is there any possibility of their being submitted shortly?


James Alexander Robb: I shall have the
matter looked into.
ST. IGNACE POSTMASTER; MR. ALBERT E.



ROBICHAUD

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. ALEXANDRE J. DOUCET (Kent, N.B.):	On April 27 last two orders of this
House were passed asking, respectively, for correspondence and documents relating to the appointment of the new postmaster at St. Ignace, electoral district of Kent, New Brunswick, and for a copy of all correspondence and other documents received by the Post Office department relating to the dismissal of Albert E. Robichaud, as postmaster of Lameque, Gloucester county, New Brunswick. I should be glad to have these documents brought down as speedily as possible.
Hon. CHARLES MURPHY (Postmaster General) :: My impression is that these returns 'have been brought down, but if not I will make inquiries and see that they are brought down at once.
PRIVILEGE-Mr. JACOBS On the Orders of the Day:


Mr. S. W. JACOBS (George Etienne Cartier) :: When the estimate was under consideration last night for the construction of an elevator at Prince Rupert the leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen), as I see by to-day's Hansard, credited me with having given an interview while in Winnipeg to the effect that the election of the Liberal candidate in Prince Rupert would cost the exact amount of this elevator, or some SI,331,000. I wish to say that I never gave any such interview, and if such an interview was published it wras fabricated from whole cloth. I may say that the last time I gave an interview in Winnipeg was in 1922, about three years ago, long I fancy before this question of the elevator at Prince Rupert was mooted; and although I claim descent from a race of prophets I must disclaim the gift of foretelling an incident three years before it occurs. That gift has
not been bestowed upon me, and in that respect I must admit being in the same position as the Philistines and other lesser breeds by whom I am surrounded.


Arthur Meighen: I cannot recall my exact words; they niay not have been accurate. What I meant to say was that the standard exemplified in the vote was the standlard lauded by the hon. member for George Etienne Cartier (Mr. Jacobs) in an interview in Winnipeg in which he referred to the grounds, causes and principles underlying appointments to the National Railways.


Samuel William Jacobs: I have declared myself
opposed to public ownership, and I am still.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. W. G. McQUARRIE (New Westminster) :: I would direct the attention of
the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) to a resolution standing in my name on page 24 of the order paper, relating to oriental immigration. May I ask the right hon. gentleman if he will facilitate the discussion of this resolution so that the matter may be considered during the present session? I need not refer to the importance of the subject. In 1922-


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER:: The hon. member has stated his question; he may not go further.


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: The request is one that
is similar to othera which at least a dozen hon. gentlemen have made. I do not think it will be possible to make an exception in my horn, friend's case, much as I should like to accommodate him.



RAILWAY ACT AMENDMENT

[Stage Direction]
Hon, GEORGE P. GRAHAM (Minister of Railways and Canals) moved the second reading of Bill No. 142, to amend the Railway Act, 1919.
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, and the House went into committee thereon, Mr. Gordon in the chair.
On section 1-Obtaining transportation of liquor by false billing, etc.
Mr. CARROLL:: What particular lines of
railway in Canada would this bill apply to?


Mr. GRAHAM:: I imagine it would apply to all railways which are subject to the Dominion Railway Act. The difficulty which
Railway Act

has arisen, particularly during the last two or three years, has grown to such proportions that the customs authorities of the United States have practically notified the Canadian railway companies that unless they take [DOT] drastic steps to prevent false billing it will become necessary to examine every freight car that crosses the border to ascertain whether it contains the goods specified in the bills. Occasionally we read of certain freight cars from Canada being found in Buffalo and elsewhere on the other side of the line containing liquor concealed with a certain quantity of the goods which the car is supposed to contain; but recently a car came from the United States to a certain city in Canada loaded with clay, and by a peculiar coincidence this car was lined up beside another car, a certain amount of the clay was taken out and the space filled with intoxicating liquor, the car then being returned to the point in the States from which it first came. It is a serious matter to the legitimate trade of Canada that it should be threatened! with interference merely because some people, wishing to violate the law, indulge in false billing.


William F. Carroll: Would it be possible, for the purpose of this bill, to declare all railways in Canada to be for the general advantage of Canada?


Arthur Meighen: A railway does not need to be a Dominion railway within the meaning of the clause referred to by the hon. member to have this legislation applied to it. The bill makes a certain thing an offence. It does not matter whether that offence is committed with respect to a Dominion, a provincial or a private road, the offence would be just the same and the provisions of this bill would apply everywhere.


William F. Carroll: I have in mind that in
the Railway Act all railways that are in any way touched by it are declared to be railways for the general advantage of Canada, and so come under the jurisdiction of the railway commission. I should think that only those railways which are so designated would be affected by this bill.


Arthur Meighen: If there is a clause in
the Railway Act which renders all its provisions applicable only to Dominion railways that would be the case. Then the minister would gain his object by making this an amendment to the criminal code, where I dhould think it ought to be.


Samuel William Jacobs: Does it not become part
of the criminal code as soon as it is passed into law, whether it be found in the Railway Act, or not?


Arthur Meighen: A lot of provisions in
other acts are not in the code. I think this bill in the first place should be dealt with as an amendment to the criminal code.


George Perry Graham: This bill of course was
drafted by the solicitors of the railways for presentation by me to the House as an amendment to the Railway Act. I suppose its legal effect will be the same whether we pass it in this form or as an amendment to the criminal code.


Arthur Meighen: It will be the same unless the hon. member (Mr. Carroll) is right in supposing that the Railway Act contains a clause making all its provisions applicable only to Dominion railways.


George Perry Graham: I do not think that is
the case.


Arthur Meighen: I am not so sure.


William F. Carroll: I think there is a clause
in the Railway Act making it applicable only to _ such railways as are subject to the jurisdiction of the railway commission. There are certain local railways not under the jurisdiction of that commission.


Mr. BOYS:: I think the provision of this
bill should be made applicable to boat companies as well as to railway companies, for I understand the former are the greatest offenders. The law ought to be extended to cover shipments by water as well as by rail.


George Perry Graham: Going into the matter
in a broader way, perhaps that might be the case, but the object of this bill is merely to maJce it very difficult for railway employees or other persons to falsely bill railway traffic. It is this false billing to which the United States customs authorities have so strongly objected, and the two larger railways to which I have referred are anxious to meet the requirements of those authorities so that legitimate international traffic will not be interfered with.


Arthur Meighen: The point raised by the hon. member for Cape Breton South and Richmond (Mr. Carroll) is a very important one. I fancy he is right, at least to this extent, that the Dominion Railway Act would not apply, say, to the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario railway.


George Perry Graham: No.


Arthur Meighen: There would be a
general clause excepting it. Consequently if the minister's legislation goes through as it is we will have one rule as to Dominion railways and another rule as to the

Toronto Terminals Act
Temiskaming and Northern Ontario and other lines outside the jurisdiction of the railway commission, and on the latter you could ship anything you wanted to even including "4.4." So it would be an anomalous state of the law which we should not be 'guilty of creating. Besides, as intimated by the hon. member to my left (Mr. Caldwell), while it is true the authority of the railway commission extends to the Intercolonial railway, yet it is very doubtful if the provisions of the Railway Act are such as would bring this clause into operation as applied to the Intercolonial; it certainly would not bring it into operation as applied to the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario. I think that is a sufficient objection to condemn the measure, and I would advise the minister to have the committee rise in order that he may take up with the Justice department the wisdom of re-introducing this measure as an amendment to the criminal code.


George Perry Graham: I have no Objection to
that. Unless it wrere an amendment to the criminal code I quite see the weakness of attempting by this means to reach a pro-vincially-owned road. An amendment to the criminal code would, I presume, apply to all railways, no matter under what jurisdiction they may be. Therefore I move that the committee rise and report progress. In the meantime I will consult 'the Justice department.	.
Progress reported.



TORONTO TERMINALS RAILWAY COMPANY ACT

[Stage Direction]
Hon. GEORGE P. GRAHAM (Minister of Railways and Canals) moved the second reading of Bill No. 143, respecting the Toronto Terminals Railway Company.
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, and the House went into committee thereon, Mr. Gordon in the chair.
On section 1-Canadian Pacific Railway Company may guarantee principal and interest of one-half of bonds and securities, or issue stock to acquire bonds, etc.
George Perry Graham: The object of this bi'l was placed before the House on a previous occasion. I think the explanatory note gives all the information required. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company, who join with the Canadian National Railway Company in what is known as the Toronto Terminals Railway Company, want a change made for the extension of their borrowing powers in connection with the Toronto viaduct. The bill is
drawn by the solicitor of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. The explanatory note reads as follows:
The purpose of this Bill is to make the procedure for the issue of consolidated debenture stock uniform with the procedure prescribed by previous specials acts relating to the company, and to enable the vote of the shareholders to be taken at an annual meeting.
That, perhaps, is the chief amendment. Subsection two is amended by striking out the words "in lieu of such guarantee" in the fourth line thereof, and substituting therefor the underlined words.
The words "in lieu of such guarantee" are struck out as being superfluous, and to make the sentence simpler. Their omission has no other significance.


Arthur Meighen: The part underlined
seems to be an addition.


George Perry Graham: Yes, that is new.


Arthur Meighen: It refers to the bonds
issued by the Toronto Terminals Railway Company, one-half of which are to be guaranteed by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. Would the minister tell us whar would have been the procedure of the Canadian Pacific to provide that guarantee had they not applied for this amendment? What is the difference between this procedure and the old?


George Perry Graham: If I remember correctly, under the old act they had to call a special meeting of the shareholders for the purpose. This enab'es them to take the voice of the shareholders at the regular annual meeting.


Arthur Meighen: Could it be that they have already done that? I think the annual meeting was held not long ago. If they have, there should be a clause ratifying what is done. The minister may know; I do not.


George Perry Graham: I have not that information. The solicitor of the Canadian Pacific presented this amendment to me, carefully drawn, as meeting the requirements of the situation from' ,the point of view of the Canadian Pacific.


Arthur Meighen: My point is covered by the last sentence, which provides that this subsection shall be deemed to have come into force on December 1, 1924,


George Perry Graham: That covers it.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. A. ROBB (Acting Minister of Finance) moved the second reading of Bill No. 144, to amend the Loan Companies Act, 1914.
Loan Companies Act
[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to and bill read the second time.
James Alexander Robb: If the House prefers, we might refer the bill to the committee on Banking and Commerce.


Arthur Meighen: I would like to go over the bill before it goes to any committee. The way it reads to me-I have not had a chance to read it very carefully-it looks as if it was another step in the long process of putting the government in charge of everybody. It seems to me it should be reviewed by the House now while we have time rather than be referred to a committee and landed in on us when we have not time.
The House went into committee on the bill, Mr. Gordon in the chair.
On section 1-Companies heretofore incorporated by act of parliament.


James Alexander Robb: If my right hon. friend desires some time to consider the bill, I will move that the committee report progress.


Arthur Meighen: I would like the minister to give us an explanation of each clause now, so that we can get the full purport of it.


James Alexander Robb: Section 1. The effect of this section is to make applicable to companies incorporated before 1914 the section of the act requiring the company to forward to the shareholders, at least ten days before the date of the annual general meeting, a copy of the annual statement t6 be presented at the meeting. It has been brought to the attention of the department that at least one company operating under the act has failed to follow this practice.
Section 2. The department has had difficulty in obtaining from some companies certified copies of their iby-laws, and there is no obligation upon the companies to file amendments to the by-laws with the department. Complaints have also been made by shareholders of some companies that they have been unable to obtain from the management copies of the companies' bydaws with all amendments thereto. It is obvious that the directors of a company have it in their power to amend the by-laws of the company, which amendments may be withheld from the shareholders of the company for any period up to a year, a very effective instrument in resisting legitimate demands of shareholders for information and remedy of abuses. The section proposed will require the company to file a certified copy of its by-laws with the superintendent on request and to 
similarly file all amendments within one month after the same become effective.
Section 3. This section is designed to require all companies operating under the act to hold a license from the minister, such license being renewable from year to year on the 31st day of March.


Arthur Meighen: I see the main purpose:
it is to bring another list of companies under the supervision of the Department of Finance. What is the minister's general attitude toward this whole policy? With the amendments he put through in 1922, and especially with these if they become law, does the minister think that in case of the failure of a loan company this parliament can ever avoid now making good any losses? Just to the degree to which we get our fingers into the pie, to that degree we render liable the taxpayers of Canada for anything that may happen to any concern that we exercise supervision over. Especially as respects these loan companies, insurance companies and the like, we have been under pressure of officials who always want to extend the scope of their own authority, and particularly the personnel and organization under their control. We have been intruding here, intruding there; getting up upon a pedestal and telling everybody what he has to do; watching the interests of this person, that person and the other; exercising a sort of paternal solicitude over Scotch bondholders, and so on. I do not know where we are going to land. We might just about as well run the companies; in fact, we are. At all events, we are getting into this position: While others may have posts from which emolument may come, while others may have investments from which returns and profits may come, in case of loss the whole thing is back on us. All we are doing is taking responsibility, and I do not think we are getting much thanks for the alleged supervision that we are exercising. I am quite aware that a great many of the companies like this because it always harasses the intruder, the new concern that comes in to compete, and consequently the old concern does not frown upon the legislation at all; but I have seen instances of the operation of this act that struck me as grossly, I almost said impudently, intrusive, and that could gain no good at all; the whole consequence of which would be that if failure comes we will have to pay the piper, we will be held responsible by others who look to us for protection when really they ought look to themselves.
I would ask the minister what his general attitude is, because if it is represented by

Animal Contagious Diseases
this act, and if I have the correct interpretation of it, illuminated to some extent by his own statement, he is only extending its scope again; he is just going another step. If the minister yields to the pressure of his officials, he will keep on going, for I never yet knew a sphere of influence that an official was not ready to step into, and I have rarely met an official who did not feel he was capable of* a far bigger job and of earning a far higher salary than he was getting. Is it not really this influence the minister is yielding to?


James Alexander Robb: The observations of my right
bon. friend have confirmed my belief that the better method of dealing with this bill would be to send it to the committee of Banking and Commerce-


Arthur Meighen: Where I shall not be
present.


James Alexander Robb: I am prepared to concede
my place on the committee to my right hon. friend if he wants to be present. I think it is well that the merhbers should have the opportunity of bringing before them the Superintendent of Insurance, and I a.m satisfied he will be able to give them good reason.


Arthur Meighen: He is an artist at that.


James Alexander Robb: He is an excellent officer. He was appointed by the government of which my right hon. friend was a supporter.


Arthur Meighen: I know that. I do not
doubt his ability at all.


James Alexander Robb: But my right hon. friend is
right to a degree in his observations. The Superintendent of Insurance, however, is only carrying out the representations made to him by shareholders who have their money in some of these companies and are unable to get the reports which they desire. I think it would be fairest to refer this to the Banking and Commerce committee, which can go fully into the question.


Mr. GOOD:: I join with the Acting Minister of Finance in suggesting that this should go to the Banking and Commerce committee. It has only come before us now', and I have not had an opportunity of reading the bill, and I do not suppose any other hon. member has. While there may be a good deal of weight in the remarks of my right hon. friend the leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen:), they may not be applicable to the particular situation dealt with in this bill.
4 p.m. I notice in the explanatory note which I have had time to read * that the amendment is to make applicable to companies incorporated prior to a certain
date certain provisions that are applicable to companies incorporated after that date. It may be that on looking into this matter, we shall find real need for some amendment to the Loan Companies' Act, and I would suggest that we might have the superintendent, the official who has charge of this matter, before the committee, and find out what it is about. Then we can report to the House, and if there is any further discussion it will be more intelligent than any discussion we can have at the present moment. Very few of us have had an opportunity of reading the bill.


William F. Carroll: I do not belong to the
committee on Banking and Commerce, but I would suggest to that committee that there are ways of shareholders making corporations produce information without coming to this parliament to force them to do so.


William Alves Boys: I would like to ascertain from the Acting Minister of Finance if this applies to trust companies as well. I really think it does, but I am not certain. If it does not, and this is wise legislation, one would think there should be similar legislation in regard to trust companies.


Arthur Meighen: If it does not, I can
assure the hon. member that there will be another one very soon to do it.


James Alexander Robb: I cannot say at the moment.
Progress reported.



ANIMAL CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ACT AMENDMENT

[Stage Direction]
Hon. W. R. MOTHERWELL (Minister of Agriculture) moved that the House go into committee to consider the following proposed resolution:
Resolved, that it is expedient to repeal subsection one of section six of the Animal Contagious Diseases Act, as enacted by chapter seven of the statutes of
1922,	and amended by chapter three of the statutes of
1923,	by which it was provided that the minister may order compensation to be paid to the owners of animals slaughtered under the provisions of the Act at the rates of valuation therein prescribed, and subject to the limitation that the said subsection should only remain in operation for three years from the first day of July 1922; and in lieu thereof to re-enact the said subsection with the same rates of valuation for compensation but without the said limitation as to operation.
Motion agreed to, and the House went into committee, Mr. Gordon in the chair.
Arthur Meighen: Would the minister not consider simply repealing at once all the legislation that he has passed, instead of doing it in instalments?


Mr. MOTHERWELL:: That, I presume is a matter for the pleasure of the House. This
Animal Contagious Diseases

resolution, Mr. Chairman, is rendered necessary by the fact that section 6 of the act expires on the 1st of July, and therefore it must be re-enacted if we are to continue the policy of compensating the owner for animals slaughtered under the provisions of this act. The House will probably remember that three years ago an amendment to the act was brought down providing for the lowering of the appraisement of cattle for which compensation was given; and again in 1923, the compensation was lowered in the case of pure breds to 1300 for each horse, $150 for each head of pure bred cattle, and $50 for each pig or sheep. A number of the members of the committee thought we were going too rapidly in lowering the valuation, and I-or somebody else, I forget just whose suggestion it was at * the moment-suggested that we make this terminable at the end of three years, so that the whole question might be brought up at the end of that period, and if the valuation was thought too low we could then give the House an opportunity to raise it. That opportunity is now here if we want to exercise it. Unless we pass this, compensation to owners of cattle that are slaughtered for tuberculosis, cholera or any other disease, will terminate on the 1st of July next. Therefore we re-enact this section without any change as to valuation, and with no provision for terminating it on a certain day.


Mr. LADNER:: On what basis is the valuation to be made? Is it a certain proportion of the market value?


William Richard Motherwell: We are not making any change in the valuation whatever.


Leon Johnson Ladner: But how is the valuation
which now exists arrived at? Is it on the market value, or a certain percentage of it?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes. There was
a basis fixed in the years before the war, and the value gradually went up. After the war it came down with the deflation of live stock prices. Pure breds were placed at $250 before the war and they are $150 now.


Leon Johnson Ladner: There is some basis or
principle?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Is it the market value of
the animal?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes, the pure bred is more valuable.


Mr. CRERAR:: I do not understand that
that is the principle. Is the full value of the animal paid in compensation?


William Richard Motherwell: No, just two-thirds.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: That is the point my hon. friend asked about.


William Richard Motherwell: There is no change. The last three lines of the resolution explain the provision:
-and in lieu thereof to re-enact the said subsection with the same rates of valuation for compensation but without the said limitation as to operation.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Are those fixed valuations
or percentages in the act? Does the act specify so much for one kind of animal?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes.


Leon Johnson Ladner: That it shall be two-thirds of the market value of that animal?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes: Horses, sheep, cattle and swine.


Leon Johnson Ladner: But does the legislation
now continued specify the exact price in dollars and cents given for a certain animal or class of animal?


William Richard Motherwell: No.


Leon Johnson Ladner: Or a certain percentage?


William Richard Motherwell: The act provides
for a maximum for each animal, and whether it gets the maximum dependis upon the animal. The top-notch animals will get the maximum and others in proportion.


Arthur Meighen: If I have it correctly,
the old act provided two-thirds valuation, and it provided a maximum for a thoroughbred and a maximum for the non-thoroughbred, and those were $250 and $150, were they not?


William Richard Motherwell: It was $150 for pure bred and $60 for grade.


Arthur Meighen: But under the old act?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes, $250 and $80.


Arthur Meighen: The amendment, which
was a temporary amendment for three years, changed the $250 and $80 maximum to $150 and $60 respectively.


William Richard Motherwell: It was changed
twice.


Arthur Meighen: I am surprised it was not. changed oftener. The purpose of this amendment is to maintain the $150 and $60 maximum?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes.


Arthur Meighen: But to make the legislation permanent?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes.

Animal Contagious Diseases


Arthur Meighen: How does the new maximum work out? Has it been satisfactory?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes. A few people will think it too high, and a few people consider it too low; therefore we conclude it is just about right.


Mr. COOTE:: How much was paid last year under this provision?


William Richard Motherwell: I think we paid
between $600,000 and $700,000. I have not the figures here.


Mr. LEADER:: I think it was $500,000
odd.


Mr. SUTHERLAND:: Will the minister
explain how the line is drawn between animals which eventually go to slaughter? Although pure bred their usefulness is at an end; in any event they would be slaughtered for beef or some such purpose. Is the value fixed on the basis of their value as breeding animals? Animals might be pure bred and not good breeders, consequently would not be of any greater value than grade animals.


William Richard Motherwell: It is just exactly
the same as we would value it if we were going down to buy it. We have an age limit in males, we take the quality of pedigree and the conformation of the animal. All these things enter into the value. The very best will bring the maximum and the others will bring a value in proportion.


Arthur Meighen: Does that apply only to cattle?


William Richard Motherwell: Horses, sheep and
swine also.


Arthur Meighen: But those figures applv
only to cattle and not to other animals. I have never been able to get the principle of this thing. As I understand the legislation it applies to cattle, horses, sheep and swine, but not to all cattle.


William Richard Motherwell: No.


Arthur Meighen: Then it is not based
on the principle of compensation at all. I do not know what it is based on; apparently it is only applied to such cattle as will breed. If there is a principle behind it, I do not know what it is.


William Richard Motherwell: I will explain it.


Arthur Meighen: And will the minister
give us the explanation with regard to the other clauses?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes. Take the
city of Ottawa: all herds supplying milk to the city of Ottawa come under the municipal test clause and are tested, and in the case of any animals that go down for tuberculosis the owners are compensated. Then we have the accredited herd system. We have something like two or three thousand and they are all pure bred. This provides for a class of pure bred animals, so that when they are sold about the country they will not scatter disease. Another class we call the restricted area. We have one of these areas in Manitoba, and we took it up at the request of two-thirds of the live stock men of that district. We took all animals, no matter of what kind, pure bred or whatever they were, and cleaned up the tuberculosis entirely in what we called the restricted area. We have one of these areas in Carman, Manitoba, one in Huntingdon, Quebec, and we are starting one in Prince Edward Island. In addition to that we have another system of supervising, where no compensation is given, but simply inspection. The schedule is contained in clause 6 of the old act, and this is re-enacted as follows:
The minister may order a compensation to be paid to the owners of animals Slaughtered under the provisions of this act; and in all cases the value of the animal for which compensation is ordered shall be determined by the minister or by some person appointed by him, but, except as hereinafter provided, such value shall not exceed, in the case of gratae animals, one hundred and fifty dolllars for each horse, sixty dollars for each head of cattle, and fifteen dollars for each pig or sheep; and in the case of pure bred animals, three hundred dollars for each horse, one hundred and fifty dollars for each head of cattle, and fifty dollars for each pig or sheep.
Those are the maxima for the several classes of animal.


Arthur Meighen: Those are different
figures from what the minister gave us; they are much larger. The minister read $300 for horses and $200 for cattle, but he told us the maximum for cattle was $150.


William Richard Motherwell: This is the same
section, No. 22. The amendment to that for pure bred is $150.


Arthur Meighen: That is the old act?


William Richard Motherwell: Yes.
Resolution reported, read the second time and concurred in. Mr. Motherwell thereupon moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 150, to amend the Animal Contagious Diseases Act.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



Soldier Settlement Act



SOLDIER SETTLEMENT ACT, 1919, AMENDMENT

[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. A. ROBB (Minister of Immigration and Colonization) moved that the House go into committee to consider the following proposed resolution:
That it is expedient to amend the Soldier Settlement Act, 1919, and amending Acts, and to provide that notwithstanding anything in the acts, in the case of any settler who has not repaid his indebtedness to the Board, or who has not abandoned his land, or whose agreement with the Board has not been terminated or rescinded, the Board shall credit his account with an amount, in reduction of his indebtedness to the Board, determined as follows:-
Forty per centum of the purchase price of all live stock advanced to the settler and purchased prior to the first day of October, 1920;
Twenty per centum of the purchase price of all live stock advanced to the settler and purchased on or after
dal Tn	0{ °atober' 1920- and P™r '° the first
day of October, 1921; and
nrJilf	acc°unt sha11 be credited with the total
"n 1925?™"	" aforesaid' a3 «* 'he standard
Motion agreed to and the House went into committee, Mr. Gordon in the chair.
Mr. BLACK (Yukon):: What is to be done as regards the man who has paid up' Is the department going to keep the money?


James Alexander Robb: Hon. members will recall that this question was studied last year by a special committee which went into it very carefully and submitted a report. There has been from time to time a difference of opinion expressed. It has been represented to us, for instance, that there should be a revaluation of land as well as of stock. There are two sides to this as to every question. The Ralston commission, who made a very exhaustive study of this question, indicated that while there was some justification for a revaluation of stock and equipment the real value of the land, whether it was a good or a bad purchase, could be determined only at the end of the period. The country advanced the money for twenty-five years. I am prepared to admit at once that there may be some places where the land was not well purchased, but, generally speaking, the land was fairly well bought. There is this to be said of all the land, whether it was well bought or whether they paid too much, the soldier himself saw this land, accepted it and, in some cases I am told, was prepared to pay even more than it was thought he should at the time. The bill which we propose to present based on this resolution will provide that forty per cent reduction shall be allowed on the purchase price of all live stock purchased prior to 1st October, 1920, and twenty per cent on live stock purchased on or after 1st October, 1920, and prior to 1st October, 
1921. In the annual report of the Soldier Settlement board dated December, 1924, in dealing with the deflation in values, this is stated1 on page 8:
The greater number of soldier settlers in Canada bought at the peak of war-time prices. Those who sold to them reaped the benefit of the inflated prices and they now find the property to be worth less than the government charged them for it; that is, they have become the victims of a deflation caused by the aftermath of the war they had won.
That referred particularly to live stock. They go on to say:
For instance, soldier settlers bought in Canada before the slump in values livestock to the extent of approximately $13,500,000. To-day that livestock is worth less than half that amount.
I am quoting that as the words of the soldier settler. If We bear in mind the bill that has just been introduced, amending the Animal Contagious Diseases Act, it will be observed that the valuation of stock has been considerably reduced. The committee will, perhaps, be interested to know at this stage that loans were granted to 24,224. The total capital advanced on loan account was $103 -894,073.56.	'


Arthur Meighen: That is, land and stock.


James Alexander Robb: Yes. The total capital outstanding on loan account at the present time is $88,393,376.17. There has been paid on loan account, on principal, $15,540,733.49 and, in interest, $5,220,781.71.


Mr. MANION:: What should have been
paid?


James Alexander Robb: I will1 come to that in a few
moments. I said a moment ago that the land, generally speaking, had been fairly well bought. I will admit that there are, perhaps, some places where too much was paid for the land, but when you take the whole business throughout the various provinces the amount that was over-paid was very small. Resales are made from time to time owing to the fact that for one reason or another the soldiers find it necessary to give up their properties. I have a statement here showing that the gain in respect of these resales was $714,015.85.


Mr. CALDWELL:: Does that include the
ten per cent which the soldier paid down on the land as well as subsequent payments made on it? If I remember rightly, those payments would not be included in that amount.


James Alexander Robb: No, I do not think so.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: So that, in order to
make the statement complete, we should know how much the land actually cost, apart from

Soldier Settlement Act
any question, of how much the government had against it.


Mr. MORRISON:: That resale I think, includes all improvements which the soldier put on the land.


James Alexander Robb: Possibly it does. Now, while the gain was, as I have said, $714,015.85, the loss on stock and equipment amounted to $799,552.88, resulting in a net loss on land, stock and equipment of $85,537.03.


Mr. LEWIS:: Is it not a fact that only the very best portions of these lands are being resold? A great number of farms in my own district owe the Soldier Settlement Board between $5,000 and $7,000 a quarter, and they could not be sold to-day at $2,500. For that reason these lands are not being sold; they are being held, rented rather than put upon a forced market at reduced prices.


James Alexander Robb: I shall come to that in a moment. In considering this matter I think it is well for us to be fair to the country generally, to the tax-payers who are advancing the money, as well as to the thousands of soldiers who came back and entered upon their work as citizens without receiving any advances from the government. I submit that of all the countries that were in the war not one has dealt more generously with its soldiers than Canada has done. Both the government of Canada and1 the people were unanimous in extending generous treatment to the returned men, and I want to put on record for the information of the House just what this country has done in the matter of soldier settlement, leaving aside altogether the gratuities that were given to the men when they returned. I am dealing now particularly with the scheme of settling soldiers on the land. In the first place, no interest on stock and equipment purchased was charged for two years, and this consideration represented a saving to the soldiers who settled on the land of approximately $1,500,000. There was also pay and allowance to the soldiers while in training, and to their dependents, amounting to $224,418.04. By the 1922 amendment to the Soldier Settlement Act, those soldiers who had been established up to 1921 were granted interest exemptions amounting, it is estimated, to $10,269,108.87. Adding all these concessions together we find that the total contribution to the returned soldiers in this direction was $11,993,526.91. But there was another contribution to the soldier settlers who took advantage of the government plan of the day and went on the land; I refer to the matter of low interest. They were charged interest on their advances at five
per cent, while at that time, as every hon. member knows, money was worth considerably more; many of their civilian neighbours were paying from 6i to 8 per cent. I have here a record of the losses on reverted lands. In 1,571 cases where land, equipment and stock have been completely resold, the deficit on stock and equipment amounted to $779,660. Then we paid taxes, insurance and sundry charges to an additional amount of $431,646. That made a total loss to the department of $1,211,306.


Arthur Meighen: What taxes were those?


James Alexander Robb: When any land was resold we had to pay arrears of taxes on the property. As against this loss there was a surplus on land of $592,735, leaving a net deficit of .$618,571 on that transaction. Another concession to the soldiers was the opportunity-given them to settle on a cash-down payment of only ten per cent of the land value. This meant financial assistance without a business margin of security, and the assuming of a risk which no other agency would have undertaken. Reference was made a moment ago to the value of the land as resold. Let me quote from the Ralston report:
The position, however, as it appears to the commission, is that the handicap is more contingent than actual. The value of the farm is not to be taken as of this or any arbitrary date for the purpose of measuring the loss or profit of the soldier farmer. The farm is bought to be worked and paid for gradually. The only definite date for testing the improvidence or otherwise of the bargain is the date on which the purchase was made. At that time the settler himself, who was assumed to have some knowledge of the value of farm lands, decided that the farm was worth the price and in this the best available judgment of the settlement board officials concurred. If the subsequent fluctuations in value are to be looked at to see whether the bargain was a good one, then the date which is at least as important as any other is the date when the farm is to be actually and finally paid for, twenty-five years hence.
The commission then dea's with the concessions granted in 1922, providing for interest exemption, and states on page 57:
This exemption was not an inconsequential concession. It represented in many cases a complete cancellation of interest amounting to about 16 per cent of the principal sum, or in other words by spreading it over the twenty-five years, it meant that the interest-bearing principal was reduced by 16 per cent.
They go on to say:
It is only fair to remember that the effect of the proposed revaluation is to ask the country to agree to forego its claim under the terms of a solemn contract admittedly much more liberal than would be entered into by any private interest, and that the settler was himself satisfied as to the value of the land which was the basis of the contract and the security for the loan.
In concluding, the commission declined to make any definite recommendation and merely
Soldier Settlement Act


Mr. LUCAS:: farms sold?
On what terms were those


James Alexander Robb: I suppose on the same terms
as to the soldier settlers.


Edward Joseph Garland: Is it not
true, just as was pointed out a few moments ago by a member from New Brunswick (Mr. Caldwell) that most of this land that is being resold has been improved by the toil and the personal expenditure of the soldiers themselves, and that the price obtained does not represent the actual deflation in raw land value?


James Alexander Robb: The Soldiers Settlement Board does not admit there is a deflation in raw land 
value. In fact, if the land was resold at a profit the settler would get that profit.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: Does that include the
10 per cent paid1 by the settler? My recollection is that this was simply the money the settler still owed the government, and in no ease has the settler received anything back for the 10 per cent he had paid initially.


Arthur Meighen: In most cases would not the accrued interest exceed that 10 per cent?


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: That is charged up in another place.


Arthur Meighen: No, that would be included.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: That accounts, too, for the great difference between the deflation price of stock and the deflation price of land, because in the case of the stock the settler did not pay anything down and the price indicated that what the government paid for it was the full price; while in the case of the land the price is only 90 per cent of the actual price in the first place. So there would be a discrepancy there.


John Morrison: The big discrepancy is
in the improved land, which that report has very carefully avoided taking into account. The soldiers working on the farms for three or four years wore out the implements which they had bought, and I venture the statement that several thousand dollars' worth of improvements in the way of labour and material which those soldiers put on the land is unaccounted for in this report which the minister has read.


Arthur Meighen: I have no brief for the
minister, but I would not think that very likely. I do not doubt there would be cases of improvement Where the land intrinsically was bettered by the soldier.


Mr. HOEY:: There were cases where the
raw land was cleared.


Arthur Meighen: Yes. I have dealt with
land myself, and I do not think I speak altogether as an ignoramus on this question. Where you have men abandon their land, I venture to say that the proportion of cases where they left the land better than when they got it would be very, very small. If you sell a man land, and after three or four years he quits, I should like to ask the hon. member for Weybum (Mr. Morrisor), who knows this question just as well as I do, how often he would expect to take that land back in better shape than when he Sold. The man who improves his land is the man who stays on it.

Soldier Settlement Act


John Morrison: I would remind the
right hon. gentleman that most of those lands were raw lands, therefore buildings 'had to be put up, wells dug, stones removed and ditches made-all improvements which the soldier cannot carry away with him.


Arthur Meighen: That is true. There
might be cases where those things being considered would mean that the government got the land back in better shape; but even where the land was sold in the raw-and I do not think we ever bought raw land for the soldiers -as one who has dealt somewhat in land, give me the raw land every time in preference to the land abandoned, especially in this age of sow thistle., mustard and wild oats. I give this as my judgment, whatever it may be worth, that if you go over the whole sweep of the lands that were returned, I think you will find that their intrinsic value as they came back to the government ini the aggregate would be more probably less than greater.


James Alexander Robb: Mr. Chairman, as a tribute
to out soldier settlers, and in reply to the statement of those who say that these men are not making their payments and are in dire distress, I should like to put on Hansard this record of the payments by soldier settlers:
Seven hundred and fifty-four have repaid their entire indebtedness. This year, of the seventeen thousand settlers with payments due, approximately seven thousand have met their payments in full, more than seven thousand more have made substantial payments on account, and altogether approximately 70 per cent of the money due this year has been repaid.


Mr. HARRIS:: The bill in its piecemeal
form covers the situation perhaps so far as the price of the live stock of the settler is concerned when he bought his land, but there seems to be no explanation from the minister respecting the policy of the government with regard to t'he cost of the chattels originally. No doubt these soldier settlers in 1919 and 1920 paid very dearly for some of the chattels they then took over. I have in my hand an inventory of a dilapidated farm in the township of Reach, Ontario county, and I find that this particular soldier settler paid as much as $70 for a secondhand wagon, $75 for a secondhand top buggy, $20 for a roll of wire fencing, No. 9, $25 for a secondhand set of harness, and so on all through the list. These articles were of very poor quality and cost him $585 on October 10, 1919. As I read this bill, it contains no provision to take care of that excessive cost of chattels to the soldier settler. Before we proceed any further I would like to ask the minister what is the policy of the government with regard to giving the soldier settler some relief in respect 227
to the cost of his chattels. Just to voice my sentiment with regard to the 40 per cent clause I will give a few of the items of live stock this particular man bought and the
prices he paid:
1 bay mare, 10 years old	 $250
1 Holstein cow, 6 ye^rs old	 150
1	Holstein	cow, 5 years	old	
1458	sheep	
2001	Yorkshire	sow and	litter	
17525 hens	
35
And so on. Anyone who knows anything about farming in the last ten years will realize that tha* is pretty expensive live stock for a settler to have to pay for. I feel that this 40 per cent clause is going to afford some relief, but I would like to know what the policy of the government is to be in regard to the chattels.


James Alexander Robb: If my hon. friend will give
me the name and address and location of the soldier, I will have the matter looked into.


Joseph Henry Harris: I will put it on record; I
have his permission to do so. It is the case of Henry Cox, Port Perry, Ontario; 81 acres, part of lot 8, concession 2, township Reach, Ontario county; file No. 5644; district loan No. 524; regimental number 3032549.


Arthur Meighen: Is the hon. member sure that these were paid for by government moneys? While it is some years back, I am very sure from memory that a maximum was fixed on each animal at an amount considerably below what he has given, and there was no case in which anybody was allowed to pay that. I fancy these are some of the soldiers who indulged in a bit of luxury.


Joseph Henry Harris: No; this is the original communication from the Soldier Settlement Board. The inventory is in accordance with requisition No. 12093 covering chattels turned over to this particular soldier with the property purchased from a Mr. Dodsworth.


Mr. HUGHES:: That man should have had a guardian.


Joseph Henry Harris: I take issue with my hon.
friend. A good many more of us might have had a guardian at that particular time. The men came back here, thousands of them; what were they to do? We did not want them in the bread lines in the cities; we were glad to see them get back on the land. Indeed, we all encouraged them to go on the land, and now to say that this man needed a guardian is not expressing very noble sentiments, in my opinion.

Soldier Settlement Act


James Alexander Robb: I will have this ease looked
into and1 give my hon. friend whatever information we have with regard to it. I am not finding fault with the soldier; I just want to say that I think in this case he fell in among Philistines or thieves. But that was not the general policy of the administration at the time, because a special arrangement was made with the agricultural implement people under which the implements were purchased at a discount which amounted to 81,220,572.


Joseph Henry Harris: Was there a rate of discount set?


James Alexander Robb: There must have been.


Joseph Henry Harris: It seems strange that there should be a rate of discount when every item on this inventory happens to end in even money-$5, $10 and so on.


James Alexander Robb: We will have it looked into.


Joseph Henry Harris: What is the minister's policy in regard to these chattels?


James Alexander Robb: This bill provides nothing for
chattels.


Joseph Henry Harris: Has the government any
legislation in view?


James Alexander Robb: No further legislation. When
we have the bill here I will arrange to have a representative of the board present so that he may answer any questions.


Mr. NEILL:: While there may be individual cases of hardship in connection with chattels, as mentioned by my hon. friend (Mr. Harris), I think it will be found on examination that the men themselves do not want a revaluation of chattels because the chattels are worth more to-day than when they were purchased. I think that is the general feeling.


Joseph Henry Harris: Because the duty was taken off.


Alan Webster Neill: There we go, into the tariff
again. We cannot start any discussion without somebody on my right bringing up the question of the tariff. I want to keep away from the tariff. As I say, the men do not want their chattels revalued, for that reason; but they certainly do want their stock and land revalued. I regret very much to see the change from 60 and 40 per cent to 40 and 20 per cent, because it seems to me it was tantamount to a pledge given to the soldiers of this country last year when the present Minister of the Interior moved concurrence in the report of the soldiers' committee. It happened

in this way:	The committee made certain recommendations, one of which was this 60 and 40 per cent provision, and they also recommended some other items in connection, I think, with interest charges. When the matter came up for concurrence the minister moved an amendment to strike out the paragraph referring to the interest charges. His language-I have it here-was: That means the acceptance of the balance of the report. The leader of the opposition then raised the point of order that there could be no recommendation for the expenditure of public money by a committee, and later on the Speaker decided that it was out of order. But we had it on record that a minister of the crown was willing to concur in this 60 and 40 per cent provision. That went out to the country; members went home and told their constituents that that was going to be done-at least, that it was the pledge of the government. I have not heard the explanation of the minister now-whether he looked further into it, or what it is, I do not know. It seems to me there will be some difficulty in offering an explanation of that change of front. What is the policy, may I ask, as regards the revaluation of land?


Mr. STEWART (Argenteuil):: In reference to the incident of last year when the report of the committee was brought down in the House, if my hon. friend will look at Hansard I think he will find I stated on that occasion that as nearly as I could estimate, if the recommendations of the committee were all carried out it would involve a reduction in the collection of funds alone to the soldiers of some $38,000,000. That may have been a rough estimate. So far as the stock valuation was concerned I was prepared to accept the recommendation of the committee, reserving the right during the recess to make an investigation into the whole matter. It is quite true that the report of the committee was to the effect that there would be a 60 per cent reduction on stock purchased in 1920 and a 40 per cent reduction on stock purchased in 1921.


Arthur Meighen: What is the meaning of accepting a recommendation with the reservation of a right to review?


Charles A. Stewart: Well, I
think I made it perfectly clear on that occasion, I refused at that time to sanction the recommendation of the committee with respect to the land values.


Edward Joseph Garland: No, the interest.

Soldier Settlement Act


Charles A. Stewart: Yes, with
respect to the interest; and there was a reservation that the matter would be thoroughly looked in: o by the government and legislation brought down at this session. If hon. members will look at Hansard they will see that that was the statement made on that occasion.


Arthur Meighen: There is no such thing
as accepting a recommendation for a specific reduction and then reserving the right to review it; the two are absolutely inconsistent. The minister would be quite correct, of course, in saying that the government would think it over during the summer, but he cannot put that statement alongside of another statement to the effect that the recommendation was accepted.


Alan Webster Neill: I have Hansard here and I
will quote what the minister said. His reservation referred entirely to the interest charges. Here is his language:
It is pointed out to me that the evidence all goes to establish that in so far as the live stock is concerned-purchased and given to the soldiers within the period mentioned-there is an actual reduction of 60 per cent over the prices prevailing as against those established in 1921. That being the fact I am not disposed to take serious objection to that adjustment. I believe, however, from what I have been able to gather-and I must confess that it has only been from the committee and the Soldiers' Settlement Board itself, with whom I have not been associated for over a year-that a serious state of affairs seems to exist with respect to the extension of the interest payment period.
That is all that is said about the sixty per cent, which is a total acceptance of the statement.


James Alexander Robb: With all due respect to my hon. friend, the minister did not say that he accepted it, but that he did not take serious objection to it.


Alan Webster Neill: The minister said:
It all goes to establish the fact that there is an actual reduction of sixty per cent.
That is plain enough-he ends up:
For that reason I move that the following words be added to the motion: "with the exception of paragraph 2 thereof".
Then he uses these words himself:
That means the acceptance of the balance of the report.


Edward Joseph Garland: I myself
have a very vivid recollection of the episode of last session, I was equally convinced with the member for Comox-Alberni (Mr. Neill), and indeed I have on occasion actually presumed to use the words of the minister himself in order to satisfy the soldier settlers 227i
that they were about to receive at least this meed of relief.
Of the general proposal of the bill before us I have no serious criticism to make, except that it does appear to me to be a breach of faith. There should not have been a reduction of from sixty to forty, and from forty to twenty, in the respective years. I urge that the minister might be well advised to consider the restoration of the original figures reported by the committee favourably to this House, and, as has been stated, recommended by the minister himself. But after aP, Mr. Chairman, how far are we going to get with this government and with these ministers? I am quite sure that they act sincerely, and perhaps say things unthinkingly, but if so they are open to censure because their words are regarded with considerable weight and looked upon as being important by the people of the country.


Arthur Meighen: Some people.


Edward Joseph Garland: Some
people. On May 14th last I asked this question in the House:
I9 the government prepared to bring in any legislation respecting the revaluation of soldier settlers' land, live stock and equipment?
Hon. J. A. Robb (Minister of Immigration): Yes.
I at once sent word out to my people that the happy moment had come, that the government was about to introduce legislation looking towards the revaluation of soldier settlers' land, and it is going to be a bitter blow to some of them when they find the minister rising in his place, just a few days afterwards-not an uncommon occurrence- and flatly contradicting what he had promised a few days ago. It may be that the minister-did not take into consideration the importance of his answer nor the nature of the-question, but I submit that he should have, and that he stands pilloried before the unfortunate soldier settlers of western Canada to-day as a man who just does not know his mind from one moment to another.
With regard to this question of land revaluation, I would be the last in this House to urge a general policy of land revaluation. I do not think it is necessary. I think what the minister has stated as a result 5 p.m. of the reports in his" department in connection with this matter is largely true; at least the evidence has convinced me that no general policy of revaluation is advisable. But I submit with ail the earnestness I have, that there are sections in this country in which revaluation is not only urgent but imperative if any of these
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men are to be salvaged. I will take the minister to the Soldier Settlement Board myself if he cares to accompany me and get the board to demonstrate to him as they have done to me that there are sections, such as the Slade lease and the district running along the Goose lake line and south of there, and all that district around Hanna and south of Hanna on the Canadian National, where revaluation is imperative. I say to the minister, if he earnestly desires to advance the prosperity of western Canada, to justify his immigration propaganda, and to give any hope to these unfortunate men who fought for him overseas, and who have come back and are trying to make a living in this country on the land, 'he will have to submit a measure of revaluation in order to take care of these people.
The method I have in mind would be quite a simple one. It would be a matter merely of amending your regulations in order to allow the board to say to any man who had a complaint: File your complaint; file what you think should be the value of your land, and if any deflation of land values has taken place, support your complaint by affidavit from the secretary-treasurer of your municipality or with such other proof as would be accepted by us, such evidence as the sales of land in that vicinity, and so forth. If the evidence sent in with the application of the soldier was such as to justify an examination, then I urge that the board should send an investigator out there to examine that man's claim and revalue the land on its merits. If that policy be adopted, I venture to say that seventy per cent of the present claims for revaluation could be settled without the necessity of any additional board, permanent or otherwise, being established.
I was somewhat amazed at the statement of the right hon. leader of the opposition. I took his words down: "The man who improves the land is the one who stays on it." Yes, there is no doubt about it; the man who improves the land is the one who stays on it. But it is ridiculous to suggest, as he unquestionably did suggest, that the man who leaves the land has not improved it. That would be an entirely incorrect inference for anyone to draw, and I trust that that was not the inference the right hon. gentleman wished the House to draw. As a matter of fact, many of these men who have been forced off the land by climatic conditions and other circumstances outside their control altogether did undoubtedly heavily improve their land-put up buildings, fencing, break the virgin soil, and make many other investments out of

their own pockets, in addition to loans from the board. It is a crime that these people should have to suffer in this way, especially when we find this very organization, the Soldier Settlement Board itself, now being turned into a colonization scheme, and revaluing the soldiers' abandoned lands or salvaged lands for fresh immigrants brought in here from the Hebrides and other places. That is a scandal. Why not revalue the land for the man who is on the land and is willing to stay there if he can get a revaluation? But only if a revaluation is justified. I do not ask anything unfair. I ask revaluation if the evidence adduced shows it is justified; that is all. Is the minister going to object to that? Surely that would be an extraordinary attitude for the minister of a Liberal government which made such wild promises to the soldiers in 1921 and subsequently to take.
I have in my hand here just one letter; I have files of them, 'and nothing would give me greater pleasure, if I were challenged, than to read every one to the House. Nothing would be more effective than if I were to do it, but I will read just one passage from the last letter I received:
One aspect of the case of the soldier settler is the fact that several of the farms in this locality have been revalued after the soldier has had to quit, and the same farms have been sold to fresh Hebridean and Irish settlers who will take years to become as efficient as the men they have replaced, and who have risked their lives for the good of the country and never boast about it. It looks as though the government are after "initial payments in cash" and are prepared to sell and resell the same places an indefinite number of times, as the C.P.R. are doing here near Lougheed with their burnt out clay lands, some of which are occupied by the third "purchaser" in four years.
I would be glad if you will do your little bit toward this matter.
Yours respectfully,
J. Bubkinshaw.


Mr. POWER:: Does the hon. member disapprove of the government using ordinary business methods and selling the land when it comes back to them?


Edward Joseph Garland: Not at all.


Charles Gavan Power: That seems to be the burden of the letter.


Edward Joseph Garland: Not at all. I am urging that the necessity for abandonment should be obviated so far as it is possible, and I am urging business methods to prevent this land getting back to the hands of the board, and in order to leave the land in the hands of the soldiers. That is all I am trying to do.


Charles Gavan Power: As I understand the tenor
of the letter, it is to this effect. That the

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government should revalue the land in order that it be not abandoned. If it has been abandoned, they must not have a resale to Hebrideans or anybody else, nor must they act in the way in which the Canadian Pacific Railway has carried on business so successfully in the west for many years.


Edward Joseph Garland: So successfully?


Charles Gavan Power: Judging from the dividends
paid.


Edward Joseph Garland: My hon.
friend has not consulted any of the land people up there who are endeavouring to operate in the five million acre irrigation tract or in the burnt out clay lands. Their experience has not been such as to create tremendous congratulations on the part of the shareholders. Let me quote again the passage in the letter to which I referred:
One aspect of the case of the soldier settler is the fact that several of the farms in this locality have been revalued after the soldier has had to quit.


Charles Gavan Power: Why not?


Edward Joseph Garland: No
objection whatever. The only objection is that it was not revalued before the soldier did quit. That is the point I am trying to demonstrate to the minister: that the revaluation where it is justified should take place before the soldier has left the land, and it can be done if the minister is open to receive the suggestion.


Charles Gavan Power: Is it not a fact that all
the soldier settlers were supposed to know something about agriculture when they went on the land?


Edward Joseph Garland: Yes.


Charles Gavan Power: Then why do they come
back and say they paid too much?


Edward Joseph Garland: I have
been farming in western Canada for sixteen years. It is not a very long time as years go, but it seems to me sixteen centuries. Let me inform the hon. member that the soldier settlers in my district have been driven to such conditions through causes absolutely beyond their control that I have been making appeals to the minister himself this session, with favourable results, for the granting of seed grain to them, which the board refused.


Charles Gavan Power: But most of them received
seven or eight thousand dollar loans, did they not?


Edward Joseph Garland: Any man
who can measure a soldier's sacrifice in
dollars and cents is doing something which I could not do.


Charles Gavan Power: I am not measuring it in
dollars and cents, and I do not want the hon. gentlemen to put words in my mouth. But they got very fair treatment-in fact too fair treatment. The soldier agriculturist got far better treatment than any other class of soldier, and I do not think he has a right to come back and complain that the country does not treat him well.


Mr. GOULD:: He mortgaged his whole life.


Charles Gavan Power: He was a farmer and had no business to mortgage his life.


Edward Joseph Garland: The hon.
member has an excellent speech on tap, and I would hate to have him spill it in putting questions to me. I do not wish to prevent him asking me questions, but I do not want him to raise arguments just now.


Charles Gavan Power: My hon. friend raised the argument when he tried to put in my mouth words I did not utter.


Edward Joseph Garland: If the hon. member leaves himself open he must take his medicine.


Charles Gavan Power: No objection.


Edward Joseph Garland: When this case was under consideration last year I took the matter up with the present Minister of the Interior-the minister who was in charge was on the ocean, I believe on his way to England-in regard to these areas, and I mentioned one in particular, the Slade lease. The minister promised if I would send him a statement covering the case he would have it fully investigated and would try to see what could be done in the matter. I sent him the memorandum and I went home, and I heard nothing about it till October 1-in fact I heard nothing about it on October 1. Some time previous to that I wrote to the minister and subsequent^ received a letter informing me that Mr. Robb, who was in charge of the Soldier Settlement Board, had just returned to his office and he was taking the liberty of referring that letter to him. I hold in my hand now the letter I received from Mr. Robb, which reads:
My colleague, Hon. Charles Stewart has transferred to me for attention your letter of September 26, concerning the Slade lease.
I have discussed the matter with the chairman of the Soldier Settlement Board, who has just received a report from our district superintendent at Calgary, who personally visited the settlement on our instrue-tions-
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Note, on our instructions.
-with a view to looking into the situation. He that 1923 was the first year when any acreage to speak of was put down to crop in this district, and he is informed that the average yield for the district was twenty-five to thirty bushels per acre for that year. This year, however, there was a poor crop so far as soldier settlers are concerned, but it will probably average from five to eight bushels per acre. The summer-fallowed rand in the vicinity shows a fairly good crop. Mr. Waymark, for example, adjoining this settlement, threshed the other day fifteen hundred ibushels off forty acres of summer-fallow. All the opinions canvassed in the district both as to soldier settlers and civilians were agreed that when our settlers get down to a system of summer-fallowing they can expect reasonable crops year in and year out. Their crop this year, although poor, is sufficient to enable them to carry on.
I wish the hon. minister had been down there when this letter was read:
The district superintendent, who interviewed every soldier settler in the community, with the exception of A. J. Tompkins, who is absent in British Columbia, talked with them all and not one of them, except E. E. Day, mentioned the price of the land or evinced any desire for reduction in price or to be moved elsewhere. As a matter of fact, the district superintendent had not been in the district for more than three hours when he received two offers for Tompkins' property at the price Tompkins paid for it, plus the cost of improvements put on it.
While some of the settlers on this lease possibly paid too much in comparison with the price paid by others and in other districts, in the light of such reports as we have before us on the situation, it does not appear that any action can be taken until the whole question of revaluation has been considered.
Hon. gentlemen will notice the sentence "until the whole question of revaluation has been considered." I took the liberty of sending a copy of that letter into that district, and I particularly called the attention of the people responsible for the organization of the soldiers there to the sentence:
The district superintendent, who interviewed every soldier settler in the community, with the exception of A. J. Tompkins, who is absent in British Columbia, talked with them all and not one of them, except E. E. Day, mentioned the price of the land or evinced any desire for reduction in price.
I received a letier at once to this effect: There is something very funny about this information sent to Mr. Robb. However. I am sending your correspondence to Mr. M. Bradshaw, our president. My daughter will take it to him to-morrow, Tuesday, and he will call a meeting. I know for sure that the acreage Mr. Waymark had in on summer fallow was double forty if not more, and I am very anxious to know whose opinions were agreed. I have just one idea, I do not know for sure, but I think that Mr. Arnold, Mr. Spreeman and Mr. Bayliff are all left their farms to seek work for the winter. Mr. Besant is working for Mr. Campbell (rancher) of Dorothy. I will communicate with you later.
I then had further communication with this district, and finally on February 3, I received the following letter from Mr. Bayliff, the man who is particularly mentioned in the report: fMr. E. J. Garland.]
I received the enclosed communication together with a questionnaire-
The enclosed communication was a letter from the district superintendent of the Soldier Settlement Board of Calgary asking that the questions on the attached sheet be answered and mailed to the office.
The letter continues:
-with questions (1) and (2) this last mail and in order to keep you posted fully of any movement from this end I am enclosing the letter and exact copy of the completed questionnaire, the original of which I am sending in to Calgary office this mail.
You can take it for granted the other settlers will fill in their form along similar lines, placing their estimate of value at five dollars per acre.
I have met the most of the settlers within the last week end and the general idea was to ask you if possible to instruct your colleague who was on the inquiry committee appointed by the House to press for an absolute distinction to be made as between a soldier settler who was fortunate enough to acquire an up-to-date, fully improved property with land ready for crop, as some did in 1919 and 1920, realizing $2 per bushel and over for wheat and one settler was able to pay for his holding outright from his first crop. This particular instance is freely quoted by the officials of the Calgary office.
Then when you figure the great difference of position between those fortunate settlers and we who had to take on raw prairie entailing a number of years and so much more hard work before the land is under cultivation, there is a vast difference between the two propositions calling for ail together separate consideration. The one secured an up-to-date, proved property in an established district. The other took a pioneer's chance in new country and we were unfortunate enough to settle on "poverty flats" as this country is known for miles around.
It may be too late now to have this distinction made but we honestly think a distinction should be made as between a settler who secured land fully improved, ready for crop and the settlers who were game to pioneer. The one was on velvet, the other is on the rocks and we have sent out our S.O.S. call.
Accompanying this letter I have a statement filled in by every settler on the Slade lease, every one of them urging on this government- and on myself to use my influence with the government-to have a revaluation in that locality proceeded with if they are to keep the men there. I have been down to that district ;
I went there during the recess; I had a meeting with the men, and I found their condition to be as they stated in their communications to me. The statement made to the minister upon which he based that letter certainly does not cover the whole of the facts.


William F. Carroll: Did the hon. member investigate the statement of the officer that respecting Mr. Tompkins' farm an offer was made for more than he originally paid plus the cost of improvement?


Edward Joseph Garland: I am not
sure. I will read what is said in reply to the investigation I tried to have with regard to

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Mr. Woods' visit to that locality. Mr. Woods is superintendent of the Soldier Settlement Board at Calgary. This is from a letter written to the Minister of Immigration and Colonization (Mr. Robb:
That Mr. Woods' visit was misunderstood we are well aware, as he did all in his power to make it so in his report to your department, and had we allowed his misrepresentations to pass unchallenged, it would have added to the injustice to the soldier settlers as well as being misleading to your department. Furthermore, in permitting a report to be circulated that all soldiers were satisfied would have prohibited any complaint registered with respect to revaluation or any dissatisfaction. And again we wish to make it clear to you that we did not take this matter uip with any intention of asking or expecting any special favour /for the soldiers in this locality, but merely to ask that as an 'injustice had been wrought the same be righted. For it is preposterous to charge soldiers eight times the amount paid by the Soldier Settlement Board and which land would ordinarily have gone to the homesteader regardless of his citizenship or nationality for ten dollars per quarter.
In this instance we consider the question of the soldiers in this district quite apart from the question of a general revaluation or any question of a reduction in stock and equipment.
I cannot find any statement with regard to the particular point; but aside from that altogether, I have consulted the board in connection with this matter. I have had a talk with both Mr. Woods of Calgary and the officials of the board here. They all agree with ' me that in localities of this particular kind revaluation is justified and they are prepared to proceed with revaluation. I venture to say that if the minister is sufficiently interested and would so request, the board could present him within a few days with legislation that would fully meet the requirements of the west in this connection and keep hundreds of our soldier settlers on the land. I appeal earnestly to him to refer the matter to the board and take their advice and recommendation.


Charles A. Stewart: What was
the original price paid for the Slade lease by the so'diers? I notice the hon. member says they value it at $5 an acre now.


Edward Joseph Garland: I do not
know. I will look that up.


Charles A. Stewart: It was purchased by the board, was it not, complete for settlement?


James Alexander Robb: The hon. member for Bow
River has read to the House and put on Hansard a copy of a letter that was sent to the department by an officer of the department who was instructed to visit this particular locality, look carefully into the situation and report. The officer reported that revaluation was not desired. I am not going too far in making this statement. The member for the district from his place in the House has made a statement which cannot be understood other than to mean that he contends that the officer has misrepresented the situation and has made a report that is not in accordance with the facts. I think I had better give the hon. gentleman an opportunity if he has any charges to make against this officer. If this officer is not doing his duty, he is of no use to the department. I will have the hon. member's remarks carefully referred to the department and will request them to make another report on that situation.


Edward Joseph Garland: I shall be
glad if the minister will do that.


Mr. SPEARMAN:: I think the minister
and the committee will agree that I am not in the habit of making rash or unconsidered statements in this regard. I have given this question some amount of study, in my work here in the various committees of the House and at home where I have made a point of meeting some hundreds of the returned men on the land. I think in my district, which is, perhaps, one of the better districts in the west, certainly in Alberta, I have more men under this act than in any other district in Canada. I have made it a point to visit them, to go through their accounts, to examine their methods of farming and as far as possible to put my valuation on the work done and the properi." which they hold. I do not pretend to be an expert valuator of land, but I have lived in that district for nearly thirty-five years on the farm and, to some extent, at least, I understand the productive value of the farms there. Last year when the committee went into this question fully and, I think, giving it careful consideration from the standpoint not only of the soldier settlers, but of the country's finances, they came to some very definite opinions. There was some disagreement as to the methods by which the desired end should be carried out, but as to the necessity of the case and what should be done I found almost unanimity of opinion throughout that committee. The main recommendations of that committee were three in number. The one with which the minister deals in part in his resolution to-day is that live stock should be revalued to the extent of sixty per cent and forty per cent in the years indicated. This recommendation was arrived at after very careful consultation with the officers of the board and, on my part at least after writing to a number of the stockyards and to those in charge of sales held throughout Canada, particularly western Can-
Soldier Settlement Act

ada as to the result of those sales. We found that although the reduction in value varied in one district from another the average reduction was at least sixty per cent and forty per cent in the years indicated, and we so reported. I found no difference of opinion as to that. The officers of the board who were present agreed with that consideration. I found no one in that committee who suggested that the valuation reset upon live stock at that time was too large. It is a matter of great disappointment to me-I will say frankly-to find that this question has been dealt with in what I consider an inadequate manner, a manner which will involve loss to the government without fully performing the function which it was expected to perform, without bringing the relief and establishing the men upon the basis upon which it was hoped they would be established. The second recommendation is one that has not been touched upon.


James Alexander Robb: lias my hon. friend taken into consideration the valuation of stock under the Animal Contagious Diseases Act which we passed a few moments ago, when we provided for a maximum value?


Alfred Speakman: Yes, I have taken all that into consideration but not as a very serious factor inasmuch as those maximum values apply to a very different class of stock from that ordinarily acquired by the soldiers. There are a few animals in regard to which these maximum values are paid.


James Alexander Robb: There are two grades; the pure bred was placed at a maximum of $150 and the grade stock at a maximum of $60. And they pay only two-thirds of that, or $40.


Alfred Speakman: That proves our contention, that there has been a considerable reduction in values; but I fail to see what else it proves. Last year everyone connected with the inquiry, not only members of parliament who might be considered particularly sympathetic to the men in their own districts, but the officials of the board who made the purchases and the sales, agreed as to the extent of the reduction in values and as to the recommendation that should therefore be made. There was no disputing that fact; I met no authority at that time who was conversant with the situation who disputed our assertion to that effect.
Now, coming to the next point which has not been touched upon, with regard to a general revaluation. I appreciate the minister's arguments as showing, so far as they showed anything, that no definite depreciation in value had taken place since the time of 
purchase. But there was one factor which apparently had not been called to the minister's attention and which to my mind is of great importance. It is true that in the resale of land there was shown in the aggregate a slight appreciation in value as compared with the price paid by the buyer at the time of purchase. It has already been pointed out however that in many districts only the better parcels of land have been sold, while the parcels of land of less value and not so easily saleable are still lying there unsold. That may be considered as a matter of opinion; I know that it is a matter of fact in many districts. The point has been brought forward that the appreciation of price as shown is above the amount of indebtedness owed by the settler and does not take into account any moneys which have been paid, or improvements placed on the land by the settler himself. In other words, he has lost that. And the third point, which is a fact so obvious that I am surprised it escaped the minister's attention, is that at the time of the purchase of these farms cash was paid for every farm that was acquired. Now, any man who has been accustomed to buy land knows that if you go into a district and offer cash down for a farm you can get it at a fair value; and if you sell it again, as is done by the board, on a twenty-five year term at a maximum of 6 per cent interest, it will show a great appreciation.


James Alexander Robb: It was sold to the soldier on
the same terms.


Alfred Speakman: But that is not the
point. The point is that the price paid by the board, on which the appreciation was based, was a cash price; and the price at which the board sold it at the resale was spread over a term of twenty-five years at a low rate of interest. And as I say, anyone who is familiar with transactions of this sort must know that if you buy for cash and sell on a long term at a low rate of interest you are bound to show an appreciation, and a considerable appreciation, unless values have gone completely down.


James Alexander Robb: The soldier had all the
advantages of the appreciation in value; the property was sold him on the twenty-five year term.


Arthur Meighen: I see the point which
the minister misses. But is there not this consideration as against what the hon. member (Mr. Speakman) is arguing, that the purchase was made under more or less involuntary conditions? We had to buy; the farmer knew well enough that we were obliged to.

Soldier Settlement Act
He knew that we might have a choice as regards some lands, but we were bound to buy at that time, and very often we had no choice; the soldier simply took a fancy to some knd and we had to get it. But when you are selling it is different; there is nothing involuntary about the matter, and unless the man actually wants the land he does not buy-


Alfred Speakman: I see the force of that, but I am certain of this, on the strength of my own experience, that considerable choice was exercised in the purchase of land at that time, when a great many men were selling. Indeed, a great many more men were willing to sell for cash than there were those who desired farms. It has been pointed out again and again that the purchases made then were good purchases; in other words, people were able to buy at rock-bottom prices. And that is one reason advanced why a revaluation is now' unnecessary. I would impress upon the minister the obvious fact that, other things being equal, w'hen you buy for cash and sell on a long term of years at a low rate of interest you are bound to show an appreciation; and I emphasize this because evidently it has not been called to his attention.
There is something else to be considered. We have been trying to treat this matter from a business point of view; we have been trying to deal with it in such a manner that two functions may be performed: first, the re-establishment of men who by reason of their services overseas now require and deserve some assistance in once more taking up civilian life. That is the first object which we have in mind. But there was another. At the time the act wTas put into force, particularly, there was a great demand for increased production on the farms throughout the country and a great desire to colonize the vacant lands. In other words, the whole question was of dual significance; our activities were directed to bring about two desired conditions. And now we are faced with the same dual question. I agree with what has been said by the minister, that Canada has dealt generously with our returned men. No one who has worked on any of the committees or has gone through the estimates year after year and studied the whole history of our legislation in this regard and the expenditures involved, can dispute the fact that this country has done generously by the soldiers, whether under this or under the former government. And it was the former government that passed most of these acts. I am not going to labour that fact. I am however stressing the point as it affects the finances
and the future wellbeing of the country; and while I never advance an opinion as a dictum of fact, at the same time I give it as my opinion that any policy which will retain as great a percentage as possible of men on the land, without sacrificing too great a proportion of the money which has been expended in financing them, is a sound policy from the point of view of the country at large. That is the question for us to consider. In 1922 we tried such a policy to a limited degree. Abandonments were becoming alarming and we tried the reduction of the annual payment by the cancellation of interest during those first years. The result was immediately apparent; abandonments were reduced by almost 50 per cent in that particular period, by reducing the annual payment to an amount that could be met fairly under ordinary conditions. Such a policy would serve to retain a great many of the more valuable men, and that was our reason for asking that this measure be continued. We took another thing into consideration. The minister must remember that in dealing with the percentages of payments made during the last few years we are dealing with payments that are far lower than those which will be made from now on. We are dealing with years during which no interest was charged. By the 1922 amendments we reduced the annual payments by a very heavy percentage, and it was then that the comparatively favourable estimates as to repayments were computed. That is one thing which we must always take into consideration.
The question is, how far is it necessary to go in order to keep those men on the land? That brings up another point. We have been accustomed to look upon land value as the mere price of the land itself, we have been so accustomed to think of it in the terms that a thing is worth what you can get for it, that we forget the other point, that in our colonization and in our soldier land settlement-which is simply another form of colonization-the payments of the land must be -made out of production; in other words, it is the productive value of the land which is the final criterion of its worth in any colonization scheme which we hope to be permanent. It is a question whether on land at a given price a man can produce sufficient wealth to pay his ordinary overhead expenses to carry on the farm and his living expenses and have a sufficient surplus left to take care of this indebtedness. That is the question. If the value is put beyond that point, it does not matter whether we can sell the land or not, it is beyond its real value so far as the
Soldier Settlement Act

settler is concerned, and we cannot hope to retain him there. A significant feature in this connection was disclosed in the committee, when it was shown by the officials that as far as possible their policy was to sell abandoned land to men who already held farms in the immediate neighbourhood. Their reason was to spread the security over a larger volume, and they considered that a man who already held an unencumbered farm was better able to meet his payments than the man who was just settling on the land.
Another fact must be taken into consideration. We have discussed rural credits at different times, and it is the consensus of opinion and experience that no rural credit measure is safe unless it is based on at least a 40 or 50 per cent equity ini the property held-an admission at once that you cannot expect a man to meet his payments if the loan covers the full value of the property itself. In other words, it is not a safe loan. Here we have 100 per cent loans based on prices paid at a time when the productive value was much greater than it is at present, and we expect those men to carry on. From my experience, Mr. Chairman, I say it simply cannot be done. The result is an inevitable drift away from the land, and its resale at what I think will eventually prove to be lower rates to incoming settlers or men already established in the neighbourhood. I would point out to the minister that the statement that there has been an appreciation of values is based on the assumption pure and simple that during the twenty-five years every cent of principal and interest will be paid as it becomes due. Judging by the experience of our own land settlement and colonization and by the experience of rural credit associations throughout the world, and bearing in mind the difference between 60 per cent and the total value of the farm, I think no one will venture to say that that assumption is sound, that simply because someone else has taken the title deeds and agreed to pay so much money for twenty-five years a real appreciation of value is shown or an actual loss avoided. I should like to speak further on this subject, but I am so intensely interested in it that I aim in danger of speaking at too great length. Therefore I intend to discuss it in detail when the bill is before the committee, because I realize that there is nothing more we can do than impress our arguments on the minister and perhaps induce him to bring in more generous terms for the revaluation of live stock.
One other recommendation was made by the committee, a very important one. Re-
cognizing the fact, as portrayed by the member for Bow River (Mr. Garland), a fact that is known to many members of this House and is familiar to the board itself, that during the two or three years of excessive moisture land was sold which under normal conditions was found to be useless, we recommended that power be given to the board wherever such a state of affairs existed-a state to which they themselves had contributed, because although the minister is correct in stating that the men so affected asked for such farms they depended to a large extent, especially where they were young men with little experience, on the opinion given by the inspector; in short, the responsibility was dual-for to re-locate the settlers. Realizing that, the board themselves stated that they would gladly accept this power and transfer those men to better farms free of expense, which means that they would be credited on their new holdings with any moneys which they had paid on their old lands, and1 that the loans for seed, feed and subsistence which had been granted to them during the bad years would be cancelled.
I know the minister is sincerely anxious to do the best possible under the circumstances, yet I believe he has failed to grasp, or his officers have failed to impart to him, the serious situation in the country with regard to those men who need our consideration. I am not blaming him, and I am not saying one word against his officers. It is human nature in any organization for the men engaged in it to make the best possible showing in their reports. Have we ever found any public officials who would not say that their department was well conducted, and that any expenditures made would be returned? They all do it. In resuming my seat I would simply state that when the chairman of the board is in his place, and the minister is in a better position to answer questions and to really discuss this intelligently, I shall then say what I should like to say now.


John Morrison: Mr. Chairman, I have
no criticism to make of the Conservative government that was in power when this scheme was put into force. Undoubtedly the government of the day ran up against a situation which was without precedent, and I believe they did their utmost to be just to the soldiers; and I believe the present government are also doing their best along the same lines. Many soldiers do not need or are not entitled to any readjustment of their case, but there are a considerable number to whom a readjustment is due. We have to

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keep in mind the interests of the taxpayers as well. The minister has said that the soldier accepted the valuations as fair. But we know that at the time these lands were valued-and the soldiers did not want to wait any longer; we could not blame them for that; they wanted to get settled on the land -land values were abnormally high. We cannot rest the whole case on the statement that the soldier's judgment was not good, because we can all call to mind cases of scores or hundreds of good farmers who bought lands at too high a valuation.


Edward Joseph Garland: For fear
of any misunderstanding being allowed to arise out of 'his discussion, may I ask if it is not true that in every case of the sale of land to a soldier that was to be purchased from a private owner, officials of the Soldier Settlement Board i self had to pass upon it before the soldier got it?


John Morrison: Yes, I agree to that. We are all very wise to-day about revising our ideas as to the valuations of land, houses and stock of all kinds. But the biggest financiers in Canada made the biggest mistakes, so why should we say particularly that the soldier did not exercise good judgment? How can you expect him to be infallible in his judgment on a question like this when many of us who were at home, engaged in our own line of business all the time, made mistakes by which many of our people were ruined? For the most part those who were valuing the lands, at any rate those who came under my notice, were doing good work. There have been some reports that some of them did not do good work; I do not know about that. But I do say we cannot afford to drive too hard a bargain with those men. 'When the call came for men to serve Canada the boys did not stand back and drive a hard bargain with the country. They did not drive a bargain at all; they enlisted and gave their services, and it is up to us to treat them generously. By this proposal the government is making a readjustment in respect to the live stock purchases, which amounted to 813,500,000 out of a total of $103,000,000 or about one-seventh of this purchase contract. I think the government should revalue the lands of those who find themselves in difficulties. We cannot afford to let good men be crowded off [DOT] their land on a score of this kind. It was an uncontrollable situation that arose; we cannot place the blame on anybody. The judgment of the government of the day has not been sustained by circumstances. The judgment of 1hose who valued the lands, and the judgment of the soldiers was all wrong; that
has been proved by time. But surely it is harsh treatment to crowd men off the farms when they have put their all into them-what little money they had-and when they have given years of hard work upon them. If we crowd them off we have to resell to somebody else, and we have idle and dissatisfied citizens on our hands.


William F. Carroll: Does the hon. member
know how many soldiers were forced to leave their land by foreclosure or otherwise?


John Morrison: No, I have no idea of the number.


William F. Carroll: It would be very small.


John Morrison: A few days ago an item was before the House for defence purposes. Now, the best means of ensuring the defence of Canada is to have the great masses of the people proud of the country, thoroughly satisfied, and prosperous.


Mr. WARD:: I have here the information
the hon. member (Mr. Carroll) asked for. There have been 5,780 abandonments up to date.


William F. Carroll: I was not asking about
abandonments; the majority of those were voluntary. What I wanted was the number of those who were forced by the government or by the board to get off their farms by foreclosure or otherwise.


John Morrison: No men voluntarily left their farms; they were practically forced off by circumstances.


James Alexander Robb: Why does my hon. friend talk such nonsense as that? A man in my county ran away not long ago and left his wife and children stranded and under the care of neighbours.


John Morrison: Well, it is even more
nonsensical to take an exceptional ins' ance and put it forward as an excuse for failure to act in a case like this.


James Alexander Robb: It is simply by way of answering the suggestion that nobody voluntarily left his farm.


John Morrison: It is easy to find one individual case of an exceptional character, and set it up as an excuse for not doing one's duty, but it seems to me that is getting down below the level of what should be the attitude of a minister. If we want these soldiers to be satisfied and to be good citizens, it is up to the country to treat them generously and to revalue the lands of those who are in such a position that they cannot get from under their load of debt.
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Alfred Speakman: I quite realize that the language of the Minister of the Interior was not definite in this respect, although I took it as definite. In fact, I took it as so definite that these provisions of the recommendation would be carried out and some method of dealing with the situation introduced at this session, that I took the responsibility-and I am only one of many who did-of urging scores of men whose books I had gone through and who had proved to me that they could not pay, to stay with it. I gave them what I understood to be the government's assurance that their case would be dealt with. These men have stayed on their land, at considerable loss, in the hope and, as they believed under the assurance, that a satisfactory measure would be brought down this year.


William Irvine: May we take it as the final decision of the government that nothing more will be done with regard to the revaluation of the soldiers' lands?


James Alexander Robb: That is a fair question: There is on record a report of the Ralston commission. The Ralston commission, and they were soldiers, say that the time has not yet arrived when revaluation can be fair'y made, and there are twenty-five years to run from the date of purchase. It will be time enough for a future government to consider this.


Harry Leader: I think the minister lacks considerable information when he states that not so many soldier settlers are leaving after all. I know parts of Manitoba where 60 per cent of the settlers in certain municipalities have already abandoned their farms. Bankers and other reputable men in the district, some of them having been engaged in farming operations there for years, say that much of this land was purchased at 30 or 50 per cent in excess of its actual value and that the soldiers have not an earthly chance to make good under the present conditions. The soldiers have not got one possible chance in the world of making good under the conditions under which they are labouring now.
I will not take up any more time, but I think the minister should be seized of the fact that a great many of these men have already left their farms, and it seems to me a pitiable shame that no attempt was made in the last three or four years to maintain some of these men on the land on which they had settled, and some of them are the finest you cou'd possibly get. I know some of the settlers who possibly did not understand the business of farming, but who meant well. I know two young Englishmen who came over from the Old Country persuaded 
to take up land. These lands were appraised and recommended by some official of the board, and upon that recommendation these two Englishmen took up the land. The result was that they have not only lost their land and all the improvements they had made in two or three years, but $1,200 of their own money as well. I took this case up with the Minister of Justice, and he was kind enough to reply to my letter, and to state that he would like to know some way of retaining these men who are already on the land if we could do something to keep them there, instead of bringing in new settlers.


William Irvine: Is the hon. member sure
they did not leave for the reason the minister mentioned a few moments ago?


Harry Leader: I believe they were
bachelors. That is all I have to say at the present time.


Charles Gavan Power: Just before this resolution
passes, I wish to say a few words with regard to the principle. I agree with some of my hon. friends opposite that perhaps this revaluation has been made too low. If you are going to admit the principle of any revaluation at all, perhaps it is, but I do not believe we should admit that principle. I may say that so far as this whole legislation is concerned, my hands are fairly clean in that I opposed it from the very beginning. Those members who were in the last parliament may remember that on every occasion on which there was any question of soldier land settlement or advances to soldiers for the purpose of land settlement, I opposed it every time as energetically as I possibly could. I do not wish to pose as a prophet; I leave that to my hon. friend from George Etienne Cartier (Mr. Jacobs), but at the time this legislation was brought down I pointed out that the loans were too high, that the settlers were putting a halter around their own necks, that the legislation was discriminatory in that you were loaning money only to a certain class of the soldiers and not advancing it to other classes of the soldiers. I pointed out that it was useless because these men would not remain on the 'land, and that for years to come the soldiers would be coming before this parliament asking us to remit their interest or principal. Each and every one of these prophecies has come true. I simply [DOT] wish to call the minister's attention to that fact.
As to this legislation itself, may I say that it makes discrimination still more discriminatory in that the poor devil who has paid for his land, who has worked 'hard enough

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to pay for it, will now be penalized, whereas the man who has been too lazy to do the work he should have done is now allowed to obtain two or three or four or five thousand dollars, as the case may be, from the government. The man who has worked hard and has been obliged to abandon his land owing to circumstances is also being penalized. I think the whole legislation was bad from the start, and that we are not making it any better by what is proposed now.
At six o'clock the Speaker resumed the chair and the House took recess.
After Recess
The House resumed at eight o'clock.



PRIVATE BILL


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 141, for the relief of James Hooper Robins.-Mr. Clifford.

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the resolution of Hon. Mr. Robb to amend the Soldier Settlement Act, 1919 and amending acts, Mr. Gordon in the chair.
Alan Webster Neill: I have already spoken on the percentage of reduction on stock, and I wish to say a few words with regard to the revaluation of land. The general principle governing that question has been so well stated by hon. members who have preceded me, notably the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Garland) and the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Speakman) that I will not go into that phase of it, except to give a general support to their views. I wish, however, to deal with a matter which they did not cover, and that is a phase of this land question as it arises in British Columbia. As we know, the prairie is comparatively easy farming. In British Columbia, with very few exceptions, it is a question of going into the bush, and as the expression goes, hewing out a home. It sounds very nice and romantic, but it really should be interpreted, grubbing up stumps. The district I more particularly wish to allude to is the settlement in the neighbourhood of Courtenay and Merville. The provincial government undertook to make a settlement there very soon after the return of the men. They undertook to clear so many acres for each man, and the cost ran from $400 to $450 an acre, exclusive of the price of the land, and it was not very well cleared even then. The situation became so acute that the provincial government were compelled, by the force of circumstances and by the fact that the men were utterly incapable of carrying on under the burden which that high cost of clearing imposed upon them, to make a revaluation of the land by which they cut the value down substantially. The Dominion farms lie right alongside that district, and the land and stumps are similar. When the Prime Minister and his party were in British Columbia last summer they gave us the honour of a visit in the Courtenay district, and the Prime Minister was kind enough to receive a deputation of soldier settlers, and also went out and I think the Minister without portfolio, from Ottawa, went with him to see the land. We showed them land with stumps which would run from two and a half to four feet in diameter, and some even five feet. They were so close together in places that you could very nearly walk across the land without treading on the soil. This land was adjacent to Merville. It will take nearly a box of powder to blow out one stump, and the powder will cost about nine dollars and the labour in addition. It will occupy a space of from ten to fifteen square yards. When you have got it out you have a large hole in the ground, and when you have filled it in, then you have a piece of land that will not grow anything for from two to five years, because the sub-soil has been brought to the surface. Until it has the aeration of the air and sun on it, it will not grow anything. That is the sort of land we showed the Prime Minister. If you estimate the stumps from thirty to forty to an acre on the basis I have suggested, it wall cost from $300 to' $400 an acre to clear this land after you have bought it. It is not like prairie land that you can put a plough right into.


Edward Joseph Garland: Is this land within the district that was so eloquently described yesterday by the Minister of Public Works (Mr. King) as being highly productive?


Arthur Meighen: That is worse still.


Alan Webster Neill: The district which the minister was describing yesterday has no connection with this. But if my hon. friend wishes to go into that side line, I may say that the Comox valley is known as the garden of British Columbia, delta lands formed many years ago by rivers and they are covered with a deep loam. What I am describing is bush lands covered by heavy timber, and all British Columbians know that this land is second class land even after it has been ex-
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pensively cleared in the way I have indicated. This delegation that waited on the Prime Minister showed that they paid $45 an acre for that land in its uncleared state. They also showed that the present price of land in a similar condition right alongside was $7.50 an acre. Further than that, they showed that the value of that wild land at the time they bought it was only $7.50 an acre and they are prepared to produce evidence to that effect. It is frankly admitted there was bad management in the purchase of it.
I think the late government and the present government are to be congratulated on the almost entire freedom from any suggestion of graft in the purchase of all these lands. That was a wonderful achievement. It was a big order. There was no experience to guide those who handled the matter, and yet there have been few suggestions of any impropriety in the purchase. The trouble has occurred more in the shape of bad judgment. Men not fit for their jobs got appointed as supervisors and they lent themselves to the purchase of land at too high a price. There was also what I might almost call an . hysterical condition prevailing at the time. There was a great condition of emergency. These men were coming home by the thousands and something had to be done for them. They were exigent in their demands, and that attitude was more or less reflected in the action of the government. Be that as it may, these lands were bought at $45 an acre when they were never worth even at that time more than $7.50 an acre, according to the public Valuation. I have an intimate acquaintance with this class of land, because many yearn ago I took up a quarter section of land of the same character, though not nearly as heavily wooded. I paid $3 an acre for it, just three hundred times too much, because anyone who clears land of that description ought to get it for nothing and be given a bonus for clearing it. I speak from painful and practical experience in the matter.
The minister tells us that there is no need to revalue this land; that where they have salvaged1 lands, they have resold them at a better price. Naturally, if you have a lot of stuff on your hands, whether it is farms or horses or anything else, you sell the best first, because the public will always buy the best first and you cannot make a comparison by taking the picked pieces1 which are sold first. When it is all sold-and it will, be difficult to sell a great deal of it-they will have an idea whether they can salvage it at a better price than they paid for it, and I am satisfied that that will not be the case.
	*
I have looked up the minister's remarks in Hansard, and he said that while he did not admit there was any need for revaluation and he was not prepared to admit that the value of lands had fallen since these men bought their farms, he did admit that in certain cases they had been, I think he said, overpurchased. If that is the case, we will accept it for the moment for the sake of argument, although I cannot accept it from my own experience. We will say it is true that in the great majority of cases the land has not gone down in value. If that is the case, how much easier it is to pass this legislation for which we are asking? In the cases where he does admit there was overpurchase or impropriety or graft, how much more necessary and easier it will be for us to remedy those particular and, as he suggests, more or less isolated) cases. This will make it easy to put the matter right at a comparatively low expenditure. Another suggestion is made that if we go into this it will be too costly. The reasons I have already given would operate against that. If there are not many cases, it will not be costly. But another reason is that it cannot be costing you anything if it is already lost. The value of these properties disappeared six years ago, or whatever the period was when the government supervisors recommended) 'the purchase of the '.land at $45 an acre when it was worth then only $7.50 and is worth only that now. To legislate out a bad debt will not make you any poorer. It is simply a question of paper bookkeeping and of not throwing out men who are now on the land. The hon. member for Quebec South (Mr. Power) said: Is it not right and proper that the Soldier Settlement Board should deal with this matter as a business enterprise? By all means, and if you have an insolvent debtor on your hands, is it not good business methods to make the best you can out of your loss, not to increase it, not to stand by and say: We will demand our pound of flesh, when you know perfectly well it is unobtainable? Nothing can be gained by that. Is it not better to help the debtor if possible so as to retrieve as much as you can reasonably, and let the rest go rather than insist on your pound of flesh and, perhaps, in the long run get a great deal less? There is additional encouragement in this case in that we would be keeping the soldier on the land. Surely that is desirable. He has put his money and so on into dt. If we salvage him, which is a polite way of throwing him out, and sell the land to someone else who is not a soldier, who may be a British subject, but

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who was not a soldier for us, that man will not pay more than the standard value. He will take care to see that he does not pay any more than the actual cash value to-day. What is to be gained by throwing out this soldier who, after all, has some claims, because when he came back from the war he was not familiar with real estate values and with the locality. We sat at home; we knew the values and how to sell to the best advantage. But these men were, perhaps, not locally informed as much as they might be. They came at any rate and located, and it is in our interest, apart from any sentimental regard at all, to see that they stay on the land if that is reasonably possible, vhich will involve no real loss to the general public funds, because you are not going to get the full price out of them in any case. You can force them out if you like and that is all you will do.
As regards the forty per cent and the twenty per cent on stock, I have already dealt with that. While I regret very much to see it, possibly that will be regarded by the men as a half measure that is better than nothing. But this is such a far more important issue that I would beseech the government to reconsider it. I do not think there was an absolute note of finality in the minister's remarks, and I believe if this committee showed a full expression of its views on the matter, he might yet be led to reconsider the question of revaluation. It is of no use to talk about revaluing the land twenty-five years from now. You might as well talk about revaluing it in, the next world. These men will be gone. They cannot wait for twenty-five years paying interest on an absurd valuation with some vague, nebulous hope that twenty-five years from now they may have the land revalued. That is not business. If you are going to give the man relief, give it to him now and let him know exactly what he has to face. In that event he will be encouraged to go ahead. Men who are now hanging fire will say: This is something we can overtake, and they will make an endeavour to meet their obligations if they are brought down to a reasonable basis. I hope the minister will be induced to reconsider this phase of the subject.


Charles A. Stewart: Is that the
only case in the hon. member's constituency or on the island in which there has been an overvaluation? A valuation of $45 would seem to be enormous when the actual value of the land was $7.50. Surely there are not many cases of that kind.


Alan Webster Neill: The deputation that met the Prime Minister and his party consisted of only three or four, but if I remember rightly their association numbered something like forty, although I am speaking only from memory. I have no doubt there were other cases, but this particular settlement would be somewhere about that number.


Charles A. Stewart: That is not generally true of the soldier settlers.


Alan Webster Neill: I speak only of that particular place but I know other places in my district where the same thing is moTe or less true, such as down in the lower portion, in the neighbourhood of Errington and Parks-ville; and in a general way the same thing is true of every section of land where these men were put on what is known as high bush-lands, where the removal of the stumps would cost anywhere from $200 to $400 an acre. And it is well known that after this has been done the land is only what we would call second class; you could not grow roots with any great success. The land is dry and you have to put your crop in early in the season, hoping to take it out before the dTy weather comes. The crop would be limited to oats hay, timothy and produce of that kind.


Mr. SHAW:: I had not the advantage of hearing the discussion this afternoon of this important and long anticipated resolution. I must express regret that the government in the resolution which they have proposed have not adopted the percentage revaluation of live stock which, if I remember rightly, was agreed to by the special parliamentary committee of last year. The percentages had been worked out by that committee with great care, after hearing all the officials from the department, and the proposal was that 60 per cent and 40 per cent would afford reasonable reductions. I join with others who have spoken in regretting that the government has not provided for this 60 per cent and 40 per cent revaluation; and I agree with the hon. member (Mr. Neill) that a far more important matter than the one we have under consideration is the matter which the government has apparently omitted, namely, revaluation of soldier land.
I have not been able in the limited time at my disposal to place my finger on the exact spot in the evidence of last year, but I know that that evidence indicated that some 4,500 soldiers had become adjustment cases, having abandoned the land, and the department was left with the live stock as well as the land of these abandoning settlers. In addition to that, as I believe the evidence will show,
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about 5,000 more soldiers are as it were shivering on the brink. A favourable turn in the tide of fortune would give these men an opportunity to prosper, whereas a recurrence of the conditions' which have persisted through all these latter years will simply result in their cases also passing into the adjustment class. Their farms will be salvaged while those that are not salvaged will perhaps be abandoned because of failure or inability on the part of the soldiers to caTry on successfully.
It is with regard to these 5,000 soldiers that parliament must take some effective action. These men must if possible be preserved on the land, because if these farms revert to the government there can be no question that the government will lose a very large amount of money, a larger amount than would be lost by any revaluation that might be made. It is suggested that a system of revaluation would be altogether too . costly, but it is my view that failure to undertake a revaluation will be much more costly. This was a tremendous colonization scheme which the Dominion adopted, and it seems to me that the government can very well take every possible step to ensure its success. If they do not then they will have more abandoned land on their hands and the soldiers will have to go to other countries to find more favourable opportunities to achieve success. And apart from all that the country will be burdened with a tremendous loss.
Last year this situation was thoroughly considered and the committee had before it two possible steps that might be taken. In the first place there was suggested what might be called mass action; it was proposed to give a remission of interest to every soldier irrespective of whether or not he was successful. It was suggested that the benefits of such interest remission should be shared alike by the deserving and the undeserving. Frankly, I do not approve of that method of handling the situation; it would be only a temporary measure at best and could not be successful. In 1922 the system of interest remission was tried and at that time, although I am not a farmer, I expressed the fear that such a plan would not succeed; and certainly the intervening years have amply demonstrated the correctness of the view I then took. I would point out that this scheme of interest remission is not fair either to the soldiers or to the public at large. It is not fair that the soldier who does not need it should get it, nor is it fair that the public should be called upon to bear the burden of a reduction in interest which is unnecessary

and which advantages many of the undeserving as well as the deserving. The other method of handling the matter is by a system of revaluation of the land-individual action with respect to every parcel of land, having in mind the applicant himself, his efforts in the past, the possibilities of his success in the future, and the probable conditions for the future. Taking all these things into consideration, somebody could determine whether or not a revaluation in any particular case should be undertaken. I believe that a revaluation of the land should be carried out by a competent organized arbitration board in each land settlement district. I do not for a moment suggest any cumbersome machinery; but if the Soldier Settlement Board cannot make an effective and final arrangement with the soldiers themselves, then a simple arbitration board should be constituted *which would make a final award so far as reduction in the capital value of the land is concerned.
I regret that the minister proposes no action in this regard, for I certainly think that action is called for. I had understood all along that something was to be done, and I am quite sure that a large number of soldiers are vitally interested in the proposition. When therefore they hear the minister's decree in this matter they will regard it as to some extent the death knell of their hopes, and a great many of them will join the long list of those who have already abandoned the land. In conclusion, I say that Canada cannot afford now to fail to undertake this task. If we do not undertake it to-day we are bound to undertake it to-morrow; and before we have further tremendous losses on our hands why should we not discharge today the duty which lies before us? I have no doubt that if the government will reconsider this matter carefully they will find that in instituting some system of land revaluation at this session they would merit the confidence and esteem of returned soldiers generally.


Mr. WARNER:: Mr. Chairman, I never
want to let an opportunity go by to urge on parliament the necessity of doing something this session to relieve our returned men. A great many of them in my constituency are making a desperate effort to hold on until they know what is going to be done this session to help them out. They qre up against an impossibility, as we all know, because their land has doubled in value since they bought it; but not in dollars and cents; in this respect its value perhaps has not varied very much; but the value of the products

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they get off that land has been cut in two, and that virtually means doubling the price of their land. And all of the trouble does not lie there even. The cost of the stock and equipment and the land taken together makes their position absolutely untenable. I have discussed with a good many of them how much they thought would have to be cut off from their indebtedness before they would have the courage to carry on until they made good, and their estimate varies all the way from 30 to 50 per cent. I think we can strike between those two marks and get approximately the right percentage. I think most of them are looking to the Ralston commission's report as a guide for parliament, and they would probably be satisfied if its recommendations were carried into effect. I have often wondered whether it would not perhaps be better to cut a certain percentage off each man's indebtedness on his undertaking to carry on and try to make good if this measure of relief is given. I think that would suit the men just as well as a revaluation. In fact I do not know what we could do that would relieve them by revaluing their land on the basis of dollars and cents, because their ability to pay depends on what they can obtain from the produce of their land, and such a revaluation might not be altogether satisfactory as well as being difficult and expensive to carry out. I am so convinced that these men should be kept on the land if it is at all possible that I want to urge on the House that something should be done this session to that end, for if we wait even until another session many of these men will have become discouraged and drift into the towns, where they will be hun'ing for jobs that other people already need very badly, and we cannot afford to have that condition of affairs take place in connection with the returned men. The country is going to lose a certain amount of money, but I do not think we need be so afraid of losing a few dollars, because these men have already lost more than we can repay them in a lifetime. We want to do something that will keep them on the land, for they are better settlers than any other men we may replace them with. These soldier settlers may not all make good, but where will you find any class of people who are uniformly successful? As one hon. member said this afternoon, when these soldier settlers went on the land even men of the soberest and soundest judgment had wild ideas of what could be done, and many of them expanded their business and lost heavily. So we should not blame the soldier settlers if under the advice of the board some of them have 228
made mistakes. Under any circumstances I do not think we can afford to let this session close without doing something to relieve these men so that they may know where they are at. As I said before, I think the better plan would be to cut a certain percentage off each man's indebtedness.-


Alan Webster Neill: Would not a flat reduction
in each man's case result in a great many men getting a small reduction who do not want it and are not entitled to it, while those who are badly in need of help would get a very small reduction which would be no real value to them?


Daniel Webster Warner: Very likely some inequalities would crop up, but I think it would be a fairer way than attempting a revaluation and would be less expensive. As we all know, taxation involves a certain amount of inequality, and we cannot get these matters on an absolutely accurate basis and this is a very similar problem. Many of the men have tried to carry on and they have kept reports from day to day of what they have done. I have looked over some of them and I think they would be a credit to any business man. Most of these reports disclose heavy losses, and unless something is done it is certain that many of the men will lose their own money as well as their soldier settlement money. It is vitally important that we act at once, and I would warn the House of the danger of delay. Twenty-five years from now there will never be any need of a revaluation, because long before that time many of these men will have been forced to give up what already appears to them to be a well-nigh hopeless struggle. I am a practical farmer, and I think I know what they are up against, and if I were in their place I believe I would be just as much discouraged as they are. I like to see young people brought up to understand the necesssity of laying the foundation for a competence that will take care of them in their old age, but if they drift along beyond a certain point they lose the inclination to make the necessary effort to establish themselves on a firm basis. While I am very anxious to see everybody do what he can to take care of himself, I cannot help thinking that the position of these men when they took up land was different from that of the ordinary citizen. It is either a case of their making good or of their becoming a charge on the country. The matter is a serious one, and the appeal on behalf of the men is such that if the hearts of hon. members of the House are right, something will be done this session if at all possible.

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William Garland McQuarrie: I cannot retain my
seat in silence and thereby intimate that I am satisfied with this legislation. I feel that the government are not doing enough in this legislation for the soldier settlers. In my constituency there are quite a number of these settlers, and I have the highest admiration for the manner in which they have conducted themselves, for the work they have done and for their efforts to make good in the face of an almost impossible situation. I am confident that the great majority of them have done the best they could with the properties they have taken hold of, but they have had much to contend with. The class of farming done in New Westminster constituency is more or less mixed farming. After the soldier settlers had taken over their properties certain changes were made in the United States tariff, and those changes have had a very material effect on the soldier settlers. We produce in the Fraser valley such commodities as hay, fruit, potatoes, butter, cheese, eggs, cattle. We find that the United States tariff on hay is $4 a ton, while the Canadian tariff is $2; on fruits, United States, 35 per cent; Canada, 25 per cent.


George Newcombe Gordon: I think the hon. member is getting away from the particular resolution before the committee.


William Garland McQuarrie: I submit not.


George Newcombe Gordon: It strikes me that he
is. The question is whether or not it is expedient to approve this legislation.


William Garland McQuarrie: We have heard a great many suggestions this evening along different lines, and I submit that this is strictly in order. Of course I must bow to your decision if you so rule.


George Newcombe Gordon: I think the hon. gentleman is beside the questioh just at the moment.


William Garland McQuarrie: Then I assume I may proceed along lines which were taken by other hon. members.


George Newcombe Gordon: As to the expediency
of passing the legislation, yes.


William Garland McQuarrie: I think the government should consider this question of the revaluation of the lands. There is no doubt that in my constituency as well as in others, lands were valued at too high a figure; that a revaluation either by a commission or by the department would show that the soldiers paid altogether too much for their land. I join with other

hon. members in demanding that the government should at this session make some provision for a scientific revaluation of these lands. I understood the hon. member for West Calgary (Mr. Shaw) to say that he was not in favour of interest remission. I do not agree with him in that; I think it is a matter which might well be considered. There is a very strong feeling in my constituency among those interested in the soldier settlers, as well as among the soldier settlers themselves, that this would be an effective way of showing consideration to these men. The hon. member who preceded me mentioned the matter of debt reduction. That is another method which might be considered. The hon. member for Comox-Albemi suggested that some men might get reductions who did not want them, but it seems to me that that would be contrary to human nature, because any soldier settler or anybody else would want whatever consideration he could get in that line.


Daniel Webster Warner: And are the soldier
settlers not entitled to all the reduction they
can get?


William Garland McQuarrie: I think they are; I
quite agree with the hon. member. We should treat these men fairly. It should not be a case of a money lender demanding his pound of flesh. The department, I know, has been anxious to get back all the money it can; in fact some of the representatives of the government, I think, have been rather hard on the men, and there have been cases where the men have been badly treated. But there is something more to consider than the business proposition of getting back the money which has been loaned. The original idea of settling soldiers on our lands was a splendid one. It is all right to expect them to pay if they can, but I would urge on the government the necessity of doing something more than is contemplated in this legislation.


Mr. EVANS:: I would like to add my voice to the appeal made to the government for a more generous measure regarding the revaluation of the soldiers' live stock and land. Some time ago I received a letter from the provincial secretary of the Great War Veterans' Association giving an account of a convention that was held at Saskatoon on the 17th, ISth, and 19th of March. If there is one thing noticeable about the resolutions that were passed at that convention, it is their reasonableness and the moderate tone in which the convention put forth their demands.

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Regarding land revaluation the resolution
reads:
Whereas the price agreed to be paid by soldier settlers for land bought from the Soldiers' Settlement Board is too high in most cases and is a burden which will be impossible to carry and unless adjusted will result in the abandoning of the land, the failure of the scheme, the loss of the settler's stake and hardship and suffering,
Therefore be it resolved (a) that the Soldier Settlement Act be so amended as to make provision for the revaluation of all land (particularly raw crown land) purchased by soldier settlers from the Soldiers' Settlement Board, such valuation to be on an arbitration basis, to be optional with the settler and to be based on the condition of the land at the time of purchase, and that the necessary adjustments be made accordingly. (b) That there be a revaluation board in each district consisting of three members, one to be appointed by the Great War Veterans' Association, one to be the District Superintendent, the third to be a disinterested man familiar with land values to be appointed by the two already appointed.
That is moderate in tone, and I think very reasonable. Their resolution regarding the revaluation of stock is based on what we took to be the promise of the government twelve months ago, and reads as follows:
That the act be further amended so that a capital cut be made in the price of stock purchased from the board as follows:
60 per cent reduction of the purchase price where stock purchased prior to December 31, 1920.
40 per cent reduction of the purchase price whore stock purchased prior to December 31, 1921.
20 per cent reduction of the purchase price where stock purchased prior to December 31, 1922.
Speaking as a practical farmer I must say that during the period in which the soldiers have been settled on the land, it has been practically impossible to make ends meet. Between drought and the deflation of prices even the experienced settler could hardly make good. I think the soldier settler who has failed to make good on the land since 1918 certainly has a claim on this country. He was expected to be looked after, I know, but most of these men are very self-reliant, and I do know many cases where hardship has existed on the farms both among the men and the women during the last two or three winters. I say they are deserving of all the help we can give them. They have a claim on the country. Once a. man has faced death for the defence of his own home and of his fellow countrymen he must not be left in a precarious position during the rest of his days; I think it is only reasonable to take that stand.
While it is plain to this House that the members, particularly on this side, are united in their appeal to the government for a more generous measure of revaluation, if the government want a more pronounced verdict from our own group I would ask them to lay this 228i
over for the present as a great many of our members are away to-day attending the funeral of the late Mr. Drummond. I think it would be well for the government to reconsider this resolution, which is to be the basis of legislation to follow, and bring in later a more generous measure both as regards live stock and land. I appeal to the government to do this.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: Mr. Chairman, I must
confess at the outset that I am very greatly disappointed in the measure that is proposed to be brought before the House with reference to the revaluation of soldiers' stock and equipment. I felt assured last year when the committee's report was adopted by this House, with certain reservations by the Minister of the Interior, that we could not expect anything less than the recommendations of the committee as to the revaluation of the stock at least. I also hoped that there would be a substantial reduction in the liability of the soldier with regard to his land.
I was somewhat surprised this afternoon to hear some of the arguments the Acting Minister of Finance put up in defence of his present stand on this legislation. In the first place he said that the soldier settler was satisfied with the price of the land. I think, Mr. Chairman, those of us who were fairly closely connected with the 9 p.m. work at that time, and everybody in this country as well, realized that these soldiers were young men who had spent three or four years in the zone of war, and knew nothing or very little at all events about prices here at that time. There was a boom on then for greater production, and prices were high. I know that in the province from which I come there is a very great difference in prices to-day from what they were in 1919-1920 when this scheme was brought into effect. At that time our farmers were getting $20 a ton for hay and two or three dollars a barrel for potatoes. Potatoes are to our province what wheat is to the west; it is our big crop for export, and during the present season our farmers received only eight dollars a ton for hay and I think on an average of sixty cents a barrel for potatoes during the whole season, and thousands of barrels will not be marketed at all, but will simply be dumped, because there will be no market for them. In fact, in only one year of the last four years has the potato grower got the actual cost of growing the crop, and that was in the year 1923, when he got a little more than the actual cost of growing. But in the other three years he
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made a debt on the cost of his production. So conditions are very different to-day from what they were in 1919-1920. Members say that very much higher prices were being paid in Canada then than were justified, but it is not true of New Brunswick. If the price of farm produce had remained' at the level of 1919-1920 the soldiers could have paid for their farms at the price they bought them for, but due to the very great deflation in the price of our crop for export in the last four years the farmers in New Brunswick who had a reserve, who were out of debt, who owned their farms and owed nothing to anybody, have been compelled to use up their reserves. Therefore the soldier settlers have had absolutely no chance to make good, and the amazing part of it to my mind is that a number of them have been able to make payments as they came due. Others have made partial payments.


Charles A. Stewart: What is the difference between the general interest rate in New Brunswick as against the five per cent the soldiers get?


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: I think a man would
have had no difficulty four years ago in getting interest at six per cent on a mortgage.


Charles A. Stewart: Are they
getting that to-day?


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: I do not think so. I
doubt if you could get a mortgage on a farm at all to-day. I was talking to a man on Friday or Saturday last, when I was home over the week end, who told me he had foreclosed two mortgages in the last two years. One was on a splendid farm on which the buildings were insured for $10,000, a good producing farm, with excellent buildings, and within less than half a mile of a railroad. This man had a mortgage of $5,000 on that farm, and when he foreclosed he could not get a bid at all. He had a mortgage on another farm of a little less value, farm possibly worth $10,000. He had a mortgage of $4,000 on that, and he could not get a bid on it, when he foreclosed last spring. Real estate in the shape of farm land is a drug on the market in New Brunswick at the present time.	There are no sales being
made; nobody wants farm land.
Some members have spoken of urging the soldier settlers in their home constituencies to hang on in the hope that the government was going to carry out the recommendations of last year's committee. This has been done in New Brunswick by numbers of men as well as by myself.	A number of the soldier
settlers have been hanging on, with the pretty

firm belief that the government might put into effect the recommendations of last year's committee. I should like to urge the government to at least extend the remission of interest, if they do not wish to make it absolute. Let them extend it for five years or even three years, and thus give these men some hope that eventually they may be able to make good. If times were to revive and became as good as they were in 1920, there might be a possibility of the men paying for the farms.


Charles A. Stewart: My hon.
friend is not arguing that we should make a general reduction.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: There is a possibility
it would not be necessary. Personally I think it would. I was in favour-and the committee were practically unanimously in favour-of either a revaluation or a remission of interest. I think the large majority of the committee were in favour of the remission of interest, because a physical revaluation would entail a good deal of cost that would not come to the soldier settler. It wou^d be eaten up in overhead expenses in making the revaluation. In the case of a remission of interest the loss to the country would all go to the soldier. There would be no overhead in making that reduction. One of the reasons why I was so strongly in favour of this reduction of the capital indebtedness-you may call it remission of interest or revaluation, or whatever you like-was that it would mean a smaller loss to the country than would be entailed if you maintained the present price with the present interest, because it is my candid belief that there will not be fifty per cent of the soldier settlers on the farms in New Brunswick in a few years unless something is done along this line. I think the government realize what failure to give this relief will mean. These people will drift into the cities, to swell the ranks of the unemployed, or, what is possibly worse, they will drift into the United States, as many of our young men are doing, and it will not be due to the want of high protection, as our good friends to the right would lead us to believe, but because farm produce is not selling for what it will cost to grow it. The drift from this country is not from the industrial centres, but from the farm, I am very sorry to say. I live in a county called the garden of New Brunswick from an agricultural point of view. I can stand in my door and count seven vacant farm houses in sight of where I live, and I live in as good a part of the country as can be found. My

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district is called the garden county of the province and yet our young men are leaving, old folks who cannot afford to hire help at the present price of produce are closing down and going to live with their sons in New Brunswick or in the United States, and the farm houses are being abandoned. It is not an industrial drift from the province, but an exodus from the farms.
Another matter I shall deal with is the report of the Soldier Settlement Board as to the resale of lands for a greater price than they cost. I think this report is very misleading indeed, but I do not want to impute any wrong motives to the Soldier Settlement Board. I think they have been as efficient as it is possible for human beings to be, and have handled the situation as well as could be expected, but the circumstances of the agricultural industry are such that conditions have been brought about over which nobody has any control. I think the report is very misleading. In the first place this supposed surplus price at Which properties are sold over the cost is not really a surplus over cost, it is a surplus over what the government held on the property and did not include the ten per cent paid by the soldier. If that were figured in I think there would be no surplus but a loss.


William F. Carroll: I think the report made
it clear that it did not include the ten per cent.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: I do not think so. I
know it is not clear to the public. We men on the committee know it perfectly well, but to the man on the street it is not clear. When the report was circulated that this land was sold for $700,000 or $800,000 more than it cost-that is the way it was reported in the papers-the man on the street believed that that was actually true. Then these sales, if they were made for cash, would even carry more conviction still; but the fact is that these sales are made on a promise to pay that is possibly not a bit better than the promise the soldier settler made, and just as impossible of being fulfilled. If the board were selling the land for cash the government could well say that they had made a profit on the transaction, but I am afraid they will find eventually that they have made as great a loss on the last sale as was made on the first sale. They will have the lands back on their hands. What will happen if even fifty per cent of the soldier settlers abandon the farms and the lands come back on the government's hands, with the agricultural industry in its present depressed state?
Nobody wants to purchase the land and nobody will want to rent it. I know that in our province farmers to-day individually have more land than they oan work, because it will not pay them to hire help. A man who 'has his own help can make a living if he is not in debt, but he cannot h-ire help at the present prices. The soldier who has moved off the land has lost the ten per cent he paid down on the farm, a matter of four or five or six hundred dollars as the case may be, and he has lost three or four of the best years of his life. He has struggled along under all kinds of hardship and poverty, and at last has been compelled to take his little family and go out on the road without a dollar, hunt for a job, and try to get a house to live in while he earns enough to pay the rent. It is a deplorable picture of the men who marched away from us so gaily ten years ago. I think we all remember the kind of promises that were ringing in their ears when they were told that they and their dependents would be looked after and that they would not have to worry about the future. It is a sorry picture to-day as compared with those promises. This suggestion that the adjustment might be made at the end of twenty-five years is futile, because, as I said, I do not think fifty per cent of the farmer settlers will be on the land at the end of a few years. I have no hesitation in saying that if their present financial obligations are enforced there will be few of them here at the end of ten or fifteen years, and if we are to retain these men the adjustment must be made. While I was very strongly of the opinion last year that the government would be well advised to cut out the repayment of interest entirely, I think if they get the principal back without interest they will suffer a smaller loss than they will sustain it the men abandon the farms.


Charles A. Stewart: In view of the statement of my hon. friend from Comox-Alberni this afternoon, the remission of interest will not meet this case?


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: No.


Charles A. Stewart: Nor will it meet the case mentioned by my bon. friend from Dauphin. With all due respect to the statement of my hon. friend from Victoria and Carleton, if I caught the drift of his remarks correctly, he said that the land was purchased reasonably well in New Brunswick-


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: In view of the then price of farm produce.
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Charles A. Stewart: Then in
common with all other lands their values must have been on about an equality. The Strongest argument in my -opinion for a -revaluation- and I think perhaps it can hardly be disputed -is the fact that in some -cases lands were purchased -at a price beyond their value.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: I think so, too.


Charles A. Stewart: You cannot cure that by a reduction in interest. I just want the hon. gentleman to get a correct idea of this situation when it -comes to the question of an equitable adjustment of land values. I was rather struck with the suggestion of -the hon. member for Bow River that you -might leave it entirely to the board; but to leave the -matter, as suggested by the hon. member for -Saskatoon, to a local board in each locality -certainly in my opinion would not tend to an equitable readjustment of this situation. I think the discussion this afternoon has brought out many of the difficulties that have to -be met if this -problem is to be solved correctly.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: I am not married to
any particular method. In my opinion, unless something is done, you are going to have dissatisfaction amongst the soldier settlers in this country.


Charles A. Stewart: The hon.
member's argument is that there should be a general reduction despite special conditions that may prevail,


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: I think so. I stated a few minutes ago that a temporary remission of interest will encourage some men to hold on who will not hold on if something is not done. If something is not done, some farmers . in New Brunswick will leave their farms thi3 summer.


Charles A. Stewart: Remission
of interest has been given.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: Yes, and it has encouraged them. As an hon. member said this afternoon, when the remission of interest was made in 1922 it did encourage the soldiers. Numbers of them hung on in the hope that conditions would -become better. If conditions continue as they are in New Brunswick, it will not matter what is done by the government, because farmers will leave who -do not owe anybody on account of the price of farm produce being so low in comparison with prices of other commodities.


Charles A. Stewart: The point
my hon. friend is making is that the soldier is no worse off in New Brunswick than his farmer neighbour.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: He is much worse off.
Had the price of farm produce remained as it was in 1920, he would have had a hard struggle. Anyone who has farmed knows that a man who is paying interest on ninety per cent of his whole investment has a tremendous handicap as compared with the man who is out of debt.


Charles A. Stewart: When a man undertakes an obligation of that sort, he has a tremendous handicap in any case.
Mr. -CALDWELL: Yes. I had a very close association with this work because I was on the 'board that helped to -buy the farms in New Brunswick the first year the scheme was put into operation. My view was that -the soldier was taking a big chance. I said:	If
the soldier leaves this farm in ten years, he has paid ten per cent down, he has made some subsequent -payments and the government will make something out of it at -all events. But the soldier is taking all the chances. I did not encourage soldiers to take up this scheme. In fact, I h-ad a -pamphlet printed setting forth to the men who applied to us for loans to buy farms in New Brunswick, just what their obligations and their chances of -making good were. Many of them backed up when they realized the whole situation. Last year the committee of which I was a member recommended that the Soldier Settlement Board have authority to resettle men, to remove them from lands that were not suitable for settlers. I think the board might well be given quite wide powers in special cases such as those cited by the -hon. member for Comox-Albemi (Mr. Neill) and in other parts of Canada as well. A portion of Manitoba was cited this afternoon as -being an impossible situation-. These settlers should be moved out of those places if there is an opportunity of settling them on land where they can make good. Last year when this matter was before the committee, I discussed it with a field supervisor in New Brunswick, a man in whose judgment I have unbounded confidence, an excellent man who has seen services overseas and who has made good as field supervisor, and he said that he thought the only possible way to retain these men on the land in New Brunswick was to cut down their capital liability. He agreed that a remission of interest was the simplest, most direct, and least costly way, and that the soldier would get the whole good of it.


Charles A. Stewart: That would be quite all right for New Brunswick on the hon. member's own statement inasmuch as he says that the land was well -bought.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: I think it was.

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Charles A. Stewart: How would
the thing work out in the case described by the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Ward)?


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: I would hesitate to set
down any hard and fast rule for the whole of Canada. The board should be given wide powers of discretion in cases of special conditions.
The present proposal is to grant relief only to those who are now on the land and who have not made their payments. The man who had some funds of his own and has made those payments out of those funds, or in some cases the man who has married a wife with money who has put her money into the land, will eventually lose it. The man who has made his payments under this scheme is to be penalized or, at least, he is to derive no benefit under this revaluation of stock. I do not think that is fair. The legislation is not well considered along that line. For instance, the man who has not made any effort will get a benefit out of this. It is doubtful, of course, if it will do him much good either.


Charles A. Stewart: The proposal of the committee was along that line, that all should participate just as in the remission of interest.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: There is one other
feature which does not come under this legislation, but I should like to speak of it if I might. I refer to taxes on salvaged lands of settlers. I have urged repeatedly on the government in private and public that they should pay the taxes on soldier settler lands that have been salvaged. The argument has been put forward that government land is not taxable. As regards wild lands, that is all right. But when the government comes into territory that is organized into school districts and buys up one-third of the lands, and they become salvaged, it is impossible for the rest of the ratepayers to carry on and educate their children. This is creating an impossible condition in large areas in New Brunswick at the present time, and the government might very well consider the question of paying taxes on these lands.
I want to endorse the suggestion made by the hon. member for Saskatoon (Mr. Evans). Due to the fact that quite a large delegation of the western Progressives have not returned from the Maritimes, and that another quite large delegation are away at a funeral of one of their colleagues, I think the government would be well advised to ask the committee to rise and report progress without
even passing this resolution because a bill will be based on it. The government might well consider the question of bringing down a more generous measure. I would ask them not to pass this resolution to-night, but to allow the committee to rise and report progress and to give the matter further consideration.


Harry Leader: Just before six o'clock I
made a few remarks in which I intimated that certain lands purchased for soldiers in Manitoba, had been bought at an excessive price.
I stated that I had information and proof to that effect. I have at hand many documents that would prove that statement, but I do not intend taking up the time of the committee in reading many of them. I will read just two. This was a survey made by Mr. J. H. Martinson, of Douglas, Manitoba. He sent out a circular letter to different bankers and prominent farmers in Canada, men who would know local conditions in these districts, asking them for their opinion about lands purchased by the Soldier Settlement Board. This is a reply by Mr. J. P. Hemier, Manager of the Royal Bank of Canada at Ste. Rose du Lac, Manitoba:
In reply to your letter of the 22nd instant, we would say that land bought for $4,000 in 1919 and 1920 is worth about fifty per cent of that now.
In additional evidence, I will read a communication which Mr. Martinson received from General Hugh Dyer, of Minnedosa. He says, in part:
I yield to no one in my interest in the establishment of returned men on the farm, and speaking generally they have paid 33 per cent too much for everything.
This, I think, will substantiate the statement I made that soldier settlers in my province have paid too much for the land. The minister, this afternoon, intimated-at least that is the- way I understood his remarks -that there had not been so many abandonments. I believe that the hon. member (Mr. Caldwell) made the statement that so far as New Brunswick was concerned he did not think that the abandonments had been excessive owing to the fact that perhaps the soldiers had not been overcharged for the land.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: I do not want to be
misunderstood. What I said was that if prices had been maintained at the level they had reached in 1920 the soldiers could have paid for the land at the price at which they had bought it. In other words, I do not think that the price was excessive at the time they bought the land.
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Harry Leader: Well, had wheat remained at $2.50 per bushel in western Canada the returned men in that part of the country would also have been able to pay for the land. But unfortunately that is not the case. Now, I have an abundance of material to show the present intolerable position of the returned men. Mr. G. W. Langdon, the reeve of Lake-view municipality of Manitoba, made investigations among the different municipalities of the province to discover how many farms had been abandoned in each municipality. He submitted to each municipality certain questions to which he received replies, and while I will not read them all, there are one or two which I should like to quote. The first municipality in regard to which figures are given is McCreary:
1.	How many soldier settlers located in your municipality? 80.
2.	How may quarter sections did they secure? 85.
3.	How many soldiers have to date abandoned their lands? 41.
This would be over 50 per cent. The next information concerns the municipality of Eriksdale:
1.	How many soldier settlers located in your municipality ? 160.
2.	How many quarter sections did they secure? 175.
3.	How many soldiers have to date abandoned their lands? 135.
In this case the abandonments are more than 70 per cent. Next I take the municipality of Westbourne in my own constituency:
1.	How many soldier settlers located in your municipality? 57.
2.	How many quarter sections did they secure? 63.
3.	How many soldiers have to date abandoned their lands? 23.
That would be almost 50 per cent, I think that the municipality that has been affected to the greatest extent is that of Mr. Langdon himself. These are all statutory declarations that can be vouched for, and this is the information in regard to Lakeview:
1.	How many soldiers located in your municipality? 100.
2.	How many quarter sections did they secure? 151.
3.	How many soldiers have to date abandoned their lands? 61.
4.	How many of these were not former residents of your municipality? 49.
5.	How many quarter sections thus abandoned? 91.
6.	Approximate amount of your taxes lost through abandonments? $12,037.
7.	Amount of outstanding taxes on non-abandoned Soldier Settlement lands? $9,615.
Now, in addition to losing the taxes on these lands the municipality had to make good between $1,000 and $2,000 on account of hospital expenses incurred by the returned men who had no funds with which to pay their bills.

I was speaking about the soldiers who had abandoned their lands, and was referring to the necessity for a revaluation, not only of stock and equipment but of the lands themselves as well. I am fully in sympathy with the resolution before the House but I do not think it goes far enough and I hope the government will reconsider it and take into consideration the advisability of putting into effect some system of revaluing the lands of soldier settlers. I want to offer a word for the returned men who are carrying on, clinging to their farms in the hope of making both ends meet and of eking out an existence for themselves and their families. This matter was referred to by the hon. member for Victoria and Carleton, who pointed out that lands abandoned and reverting to the crown became non-taxable. This is a deplorable situation in the municipalities such as I have mentioned, like Lakeview. Hon. members know that settlers coming into a new district have to open new roads, build schools, and establish other necessary institutions. All these things were done, and the soldiers have now abandoned the land to the extent, of some 60 per cent. All that abandoned land which has now reverted to the crown is exempt from taxation, notwithstanding that the maintenance of all the roads, the schools and so forth must be shouldered by the remaining soldiers and the other settlers in those districts. This entails a considerable hardship on the residents that are now there, and it will spell further abandonments if the government do not reconsider their policy and have these abandoned lands which have reverted to the Dominion taxed as they were before. I believe the government is taking the attitude that it will allow these lands to be taxed provided the provincial governments will undertake to do the same so far as provincial lands are concerned. The Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart, Argenteuil) is now here and I should like him to answer this question: Will the Dominion government undertake to have these lands taxed if the provincial governments will agree to the taxation for municipal purposes of provincial lands?


Charles A. Stewart: There was a delegation from the organized municipalities of Alberta and Saskatchewan, and as hon. gentlemen no doubt know, this matter has been before parliament annually. One of the difficulties in regard to the taxation of these lands that have reverted to the crown would be that such taxation would open the door to the taxation of all crown lands. I can

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only express my own opinion on this matter inasmuch as the subject has not been discussed by the government since the delegation made their representation; but it would seem to me that where land which was formerly owned privately in the municipality was purchased by the board and has now been abandoned, becoming crown land, perhaps some consideration might be given. On the other hand, however, there is so much of this area which was crown land previously and was not taxed prior to the time the soldiers went on it that some distinction would have to be made.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: Does not the minister
think that in view of the fact that the government purchased the land and put soldiers upon it, the land in that way becoming organized into school districts, it should be liable for taxation? What will happen to the people who are left?


Charles A. Stewart: I am not
familiar with the conditions in the east, but in the west one or two million acres of land went into this arrangement which undoubtedly might have been settled but which, until patented, certainly would not be liable for taxation.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: That does not apply to New Brunswick.


Charles A. Stewart: I say therefore that a distinction must be drawn between the two classes of land.


Harry Leader: Does the minister say now that lands that were on the tax roll prior to the Soldier Settlement Board purchasing them should in his opinion be liable for taxation now, even though they have reverted to the crown?


Charles A. Stewart: I want to
be perfectly clear on this question. Hansard has a habit of taking down exactly what is said, and sometimes a meaning is attributed to words other than that which is intended. I want it to be perfectly well understood that this matter has not been discussed by the government, but that so far as I am concerned I think that possibly there is some claim. So far, however, the government has not discussed the point at all and no decision has been arrived at.


Harry Leader: I am glad that the minister shows some sympathy in this regard. There is no doubt that it is eminently unfair that lands which formerly were taxed for municipal purposes and were then sold to soldier settlers, and which are now abandoned,
reverting to the government, should be allowed to go without taxation. After the municipalities have built roads and maintained all the other institutions that go to make up a community, it is unfair that they should be obliged to continue the maintenance of these things while these abandoned lands are untaxed. So far as the municipality of Lakeview is concerned, they have decided to tax all the lands that are rented to the incoming settlers. I have before me a letter in which the complaint is made that the reeve of the municipality had driven out certain settlers who had gone in. The Soldier Settlement Board had gone to the trouble of bringing in new settlers, and when they found out that the municipality expected them to pay taxes they abandoned the land again. It seems to me very unfair to expect any municipality to carry these or any other settlers tax free, and I think the Soldier Settlement Board should come to the rescue and see that the men they put on these lands will be prepared to pay the local taxes.


William Irvine: Mr. Chairman, the ground has already been pretty fully covered, and I do not expect to be able to add anything new to the discussion, but I should like to focus all the goodwill that has been expressed towards our soldier settlers into some definite action. I must confess that it is difficult to know just how we can get action unless the government will offer to reconsider the whole matter. This has been urged by a number of members, and I wish to 'add1 my voice to 'theirs. I think only one bon. member expressed1 the view that the work undertaken for the returned soldiers by the preceding government was a mistake. I believe that the idea itself was a good one. However, in my 'opinion there was an error in its execution in that the land was not conscripted from the large land1 companies of Canada. Of course, I do not blame the preceding government for not then taking this course, neither do I blame the present government for not adopting it now, because the people of Canada generally are not yet prepared for such action, and even the soldiers themselves who are now abandoning their land, being unable to pay their .taxes much less their interest and capital payments, would no doubt be very much opposed even now to conscription of land. Consequently we have to deal with the situation as it is. I believe the preceding government purchased the land at what was the best possible price under the circumstances. It must not be forgotten that conditions at the time of purchase were abnormal, and prices were just as abnormal as conditions. No one can justly blame either
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this government or its predecessors in so far as the efficiency of the scheme is concerned. I think the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Speakman) put the matter in a nutshell when he pointed >ouit that the land at that time wa3 valued not upon the value of what could be produced upon it, but rather upon an inflated basis; but, he added, if the soldier settlers are ever to pay for their land, they can only do so by what they raise on it in crops. No one so far has denied that it is impossible for them at present prices to raise sufficient crops to meet the instalments of principal and interest on the inflated value which prevailed at the time of purchase. Roughly speaking, I believe the situation is something like this: one-third of the soldier settlers have been able to make their payments regularly; another third may possibly be able to make their payments in the future if they have good luck, or good crops; and the remaining third will ultimately have to abandon itheir land.
Now, the resolution that is before the House, I am sure is, so far as it goes, welcomed by all hon. members, 'but, as has been pointed out, it is not adequate, it does not go far enough even in the revaluation of Stock. It has been urged, and well urged, by a number of hon. gentlemen that the revaluation of land should also be included in this scheme. I do not know how to get the government to assure the House that they will reconsider the situation and undertake to revalue the land on some basis. Of course, I appreciate that to undertake revaluation is a very difficult task, neither would I be expectant that any government could do it perfectly; no doubt there would be some mistakes; but that does not excuse the government from making an attempt to deal with the difficulty. The last government introduced the scheme, imade the purchases of land, provided the money for 't)he soldier settlers, and carried out the whole undertaking to its present stage in a very efficient manner. It is now the task of their, successors to make a slight accommodation which the general deflation has made necessary. That readjustment is imperative if the scheme is to be completely successful.
Now, Mr. Chairman, in order to focus the sentiment that has been so well expressed by many hon. members on some definite point of action, I am going to move an amendment to the resolution. I would not be at all surprised if in a few minutes this amendment is ruled out of order, but I would rather my effort met this fate than be impotent in suggesting a remedy. Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Garland):

That this resolution be amended by adding to it the following words:
That in the opinon of this committee the provisions of this resolution do not adequately meet the requirements of our soldier settlers, and therefore the committee recommends that the government should increase the stock revaluation to sixty per cent and forty per cent respectively, and that a measure of land revaluation is also essential.


Mr. VTEN:: Mr. Chairman, will you read
the amendment in French, please?


George Newcombe Gordon: (Mr. Carroll):	I assure my hon. friend I can do so.


George Perry Graham: I think the amendment is out of order, Mr. Chairman.


Thomas Vien: Mr. Chairman, would you
kindly have this amendment read in French? I see the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Church) is in his seat; he might read it.


William F. Carroll: In my
opinion a private member cannot move an amendment to a government resolution involving the expenditure of money.


Mr. KELLNER:: Will the chairman quote his authority?


William F. Carroll: I rule
the amendment is out of order.


George Black: Mr. Chairman, at
the very outset of the discussion on this resolution I asked the minister a question, but although he made a very lengthy and informative statement to the committee, he failed to answer my question then or in the course of other statements that he made subsequently. I asked him what he proposed to do for the man who has paid up his indebtedness. Under the terms of this resolution it is proposed1 that:
-in the case of any settler who has not repaid his indebtedness to the board, or who has not abandoned his land, or whose agreement with the board has not been terminated or rescinded, the board shall credit his account with an amount, in reduction of his indebtedness to the board, determined as follows:-
Forty per centum of the purchase price of all live stock advanced to the settler and purchased prior to the first day of October, 1920;
Twenty per centum of the purchase price of all live stock advanced to the settler and purchased on or after the first day of October, 1920, and prior to the first day of October, 1921; and
The settler's account shall be credited with the total amount, determined as aforesaid.
I submit that the soldier settler who has paid up, who has kept his agreement and met his indebtedness by hard work, in many cases even by privation, should get the same generous treatment as those who have not yet paid up. If those who have not paid up are

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to get credit, the man who has paid up, I submit, should get a rebate, and a resolution which omits to take care of the man who has paid up is an unfair discrimination against him. This resolution anticipates legis-. lation which is a measure of relief, and so far as it goes in that direction it has my support. But considering the people it is designed to relieve, and considering the duty this country owes to those people, the proposed legislation is inadequate, insufficient and niggardly. When th6 men whom it affects were called by their country, they did not hesitate. They did not haggle over percentage; they went, and they gave a hundred per cent. Our treatment of them now should be of the same order. WThen the call comes again, which it. probably will whether we want it to come or not, and whether we are prepared or not

and the less prepared we are the worse it will be for us-I think the Canadian people will do exactly as they did before, that is, any Canadian with a drop of red blood in his veins will do so. But I hope that when the time comes the government of that day will see to it that the willing ones are not left alone to man the first line of defence. I hope that the government of the day, to borrow the words of the hon. member for Bow River, will see to it that every citizen and that all money and all industries and all property are made to do their duty. But that is by the way, perhaps, in discussing this resolution. It has been said by some hon. members that this government and its predecessors have been generous in their treatment of the returned soldier. While they may be so, they have not been too generous. Indeed, they could not be too generous. What they have done for the returned soldiers has been done with public money, not with the private money of any government, and what they have done has been with the consent of and to meet the wishes of the taxpayers of this country, who are the people who pay the bills. Now, the subject that is dealt with by this resolution was referred to a special committee well qualified to consider the matter and to advise the House, and after very careful and complete consideration it made certain recommendations. There was every expectation that the government would respond to these recommendations and do what it could to carry them out. Among other things the committee recommended that a 60 per cent and a 40 per cent rebate be given on amounts owing on stock by soldier settlers, and that there be a revaluation of land. As to the
latter, the government say there will be no revaluation for twenty-five years. It will not be very good news to the struggling soldier settler that there will be no revaluation for twenty-five years, so far as this government is concerned, of the land he is trying to farm on the basis of a valuation which puts success out of his reach. More than that, instead of carrying out the recommendation of the committee as to 60 and 40 per cent, thej' are now offering 40 and 20 per cent, a cut in the first place of one-third of the committee's recommendation and in the second place of one-half. Of all the heartless replies that the government have made to this committee's recommendation the worst is the reply that there will be no revaluation of the land for a period of twenty-five years, thus putting it beyond relief to any of the present settlers on that land. It means that many of them will be forced to leave, will have to give up the unequal struggle and join the exodus that has been going on for the past three or four years to the United States, simply because this government turn a deaf ear not only to their appeals but to the recommendation of the special committee appointed to deal with this very matter, a committee in which, I submit, the government should have confidence. I say this government have failed to do what the country would have them do, failed,I believe, to do what this House of Commons would have them do. The government would be well advised to consider carefully the suggestions made by some hon. members on this side, to withdraw the resolution and replace it by a mor( adequate resolution dealing with the subject: as it should be dealt with by this parliament.


James Alexander Robb: I hope my hon. friend is not
going to attempt to make politics out of this issue. So far it has been comparatively free from that. I pointed out early in the afternoon when t'he resolution was first introduced that the government had before them the report of the Ralston commission. That commission was composed very largely of soldiers. There was no more briLliant soldier in the war than Colonel Ralston himself, and he was sympathetic to the soldiers. The Ralston commission pointed out that the loans had twenty-five years to run and that there was that length of time to establish whether a purchase was a good one or a bad one. I did not say that this government would make no revaluation for twenty-five years. I simply quoted the report of the Ralston commission.
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George Black: For what purpose
did the minister quote the Ralston commission if it was not to create the impression that there would be no revaluation for twenty-five years?


James Alexander Robb: I quoted the Ralston commission for the information of parliament. I agree with my hon. friend at once that there may be discrimination; that is one of the problems we had before us. A number of these soldier settlers have already paid in full; I think I quoted the figures a while ago. Out of the 500,000 soldiers, roughly speaking, who went to the front, about 24.000 come in under this provision, and the other
475,000	must contribute their share to whatever loss there is by the reduction that we propose under this measure. We must be fair to these men as well as to those who obtained the land.


Edward Joseph Garland: Does the
minister mean to say that any of them will object?


Charles Gavan Power: Possibly some will. I will, for one.


Edward Joseph Garland: The hon.
member is a politician as well as a Tetumed soldier.


Charles Gavan Power: I am a returned soldier first. The hon. gentleman would not say that if he had been in the last parliament.


Mr. ARTHURS:: Does the minister mean
to say it is fair to tax the man who has already paid to help these other men out?


James Alexander Robb: I say that he along with
the rest of us will have to bear his share, and I imagine he will bear it willingly.


James Arthurs: Many of these men
have borrowed money for the purpose of paying the government.


James Alexander Robb: I might put on record the
following from the special committee's report:
From a returned soldier point of view, land revaluation would not be warranted, because the soldier settlers under the board who would be affected represent only a portion of the returned soldiers who have gone on the land since the close of the war. The board and the government have been in receipt of many letters from returned soldiers, pointing out that they have had neither cheap money from "the government, freedom from interest, nor any of the advantages that soldier settlers under the board have received. Nevertheless they are returned soldiers who served Canada during the Great War.


George Black: What is the object of that quotation?


William John Ward: I had hoped that before this hour the government would have seen fit to withdraw this resolution, reconsider it and put it through the mill again. I hope they will do so yet. In fact, I beg of them, I plead with them, I coax them, I will get down on my knees to them, I will do anything on earth if they will do that.


Mr. LOGAN:: Come on over here.


William John Ward: This bill is an insult, to use the mildest language I can apply to it, to the returned men who are struggling out on the frontiers of this country trying to make a living. To try and draw an analogy between the soldier settler who has gone out to the frontier sections where most of them are settled with the young fellow who did not see fit to go out and take a part, I do not think is fair. I meet these other fellows who did not become victims of this land settlement scheme, and in saying that I am casting no reflections at all on the late government. I have never done so. I have never doubted their sincerity or honesty in bringing this legislation into effect. I think they introduced it with good motives, but it has been a miserable failure, there is no question about that, and I think it is due to circumstances over which the government probably had no control. I do hope the government will withdraw this measure. I intended to speak at some length to-night, but before going any further I would like to know whether the amendment that has been moved is in order.


George Newcombe Gordon: The amendment is not in order.


William John Ward: I would like to ask further
whether the government have any idea of withdrawing this resolution and putting it through the mill again, whether they cannot see their way to giving at least some measure of land revaluation.


James Alexander Robb: No, Mr. Chairman. I think
it is better to put through a certain measure of relief such as we are proposing here. I want to say very frankly that I appreciate how my hon. friend from Dauphin feels. I think perhaps if I were representing the constituency that he represents I would take exactly the same attitude. I have had the opportunity of going pretty carefully through these land purchases, and I am bound to admit there is no section in Canada that appeals to me more than a certain section represented by my hon. friend. I think the land up there was not as well purchased as it might have

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been.. But I think my hon. friend had better allow this to go through as it is, and see what we can work out later on, but I make no commitments as to what will be done.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: I am sorry the Acting Minister of Finance has not been in the House all evening. The trend of the speeches this evening has been to urge the government to report progress and reconsider this resolution. I think the government should do it; that is my candid opinion. The minister speaks of the loss that will accrue to the country if there is a revaluation or a remission of interest in connection with these soldier settlement lands, but I would like to ask him if he has considered seriously just what the loss will mean to this country if even fifty per cent of the soldiers abandon their farms and they come back on the government's hands. I doubt if the government would be able to dispose of them as advantageously as the few parcels they have sold. I know in New Brunswick they could not dispose of land to-day for anything like the price they could get two or three years ago, because conditions there during the last four years make it impossible. It is my candid opinion that by revaluation or remission of interest, or whatever other method the government thinks best, you will not make as big a loss as you will by maintaining the present indebtedness and by compelling the soldier settler-I do not like to use the word compel, but that is what it will amount to-to abandon his land and throw it back on the government's hands. The loss in that case will be much greater than anything you would lose by revaluation or remission of interest, and I would again urge the minister to move that the committee rise and report progress in order that this resolution may be reconsidered, and something brought down that will better meet the situation.


James Alexander Robb: In reply to my hon. friend I
cannot do better than repeat the statement which I put on Hansard this afternoon, a record of actual sales of land that we have made:
On page 66 of the report of the committee of last year the board showed that it had resold or accepted offers for 1,672 farms, and the price obtained was $600,000 more than the board had invested.
Since that time the board has resold, mostly to civilians-resident farmers in the country-approximately 50,000 acres of soldier settler lands which have been foreclosed and abandoned by the original settlers. This property cost the board, including the original purchase price plus all permanent improvement advances, $856,000, and it was resold for $895,000 leaving an aggregate gain of approximately $39,000. AM of these sales have been made in the last twelve months, and afford a fairly clear indication of present conditions,
because they cover 46 farms in British Columbia, 72 farms in Alberta, 40 farms in Saskatchewan, 20 farms in Manitoba, 27 farms in Ontario, 14 farms in Quebec,
7 farms in New Brunswick, 9 farms in Nova Scotia, and 4 farms in Prince Edward Island.
In all of the provinces we have been selling these lands for more than they cost.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: Would the minister
tell us whether that cost price includes the ten per cent paid by the soldier?


James Alexander Robb: I said this afternoon that
when we are in committee on the bill I will have the chairman of the board here, and will then be able to give the committee all the information it desires.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: I think in view of the
fact that this statement has been put on Hansard twice, we should also have on Hansard the amount the soldier settler paid on this land, which I maintain is not included in the figures the minister gave, and they are therefore misleading. They will be broadcasted to the country to-morrow through the press, and I do not think that is fair. The committee got the same statement from the board last year. It sets forth accurately the financial transactions between the board and the soldier settlers, but does not include the ten per cent paid by the soldier, and it therefore is not a real indication of the actual price of -the land when it was bought.


Mr.   VEIN@: It would represent ninety per
cent of the cost at all events.	-


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: It might not, because in some cases the soldiers made subsequent payments beyond the ten per cent. I know they did in New Brunswick, as well as making improvements to the farm. Many of these f-arms were later abandoned, and in addi-
10 p.m. tion to what the soldier lost financially, he lost three or four of the best years of his life working uphill against adverse conditions, and in many cases they left their farms without a dollar. The condition of that soldier who leaves without a dollar the farm he has worked on for three or four years, compared with his condition when he received his gratuity on leaving the army of perhaps $600 is one of the saddest features of all. The actual financial standing of the government with respect to the transaction does not bring out the 'whole story.


Charles Gavan Power: Is he not better off than the poor soldier who remained in the city and could not get a job? At all events, he has been able to eat and live for three years.
35S0

Soldier Settlement Act


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: The soldier who stayed in the city had his gratuity with which to maintain himself, and if he sat down and ate it up that was his own lookout. But you cannot compare him with the soldier settler who has been on a farm for three or four years, working fourteen to eighteen hours a day, and who finally has to abandon his farm with possibly a child or two more than when he went on the land, and who leaves the place a little more broken down, a little nearer brokenhearted over the prospect of re-establishing himself. The two cases are not comparable at all because I think the man who went to the city in 1919 and 1920' in most cases got pretty good wages. I think he had a much better show than the man who went to the farm and had to abandon it on account of adverse conditions.


Thomas Vien: Does my hon. friend know any soldier who works fourteen hours a day who is not able to keep his farm?


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: Yes, I know them by
the dozen. I would not say he worked fourteen hours every day of the year, but he did it through the rush season and haying and harvesting. No doubt in winter he has some pretty short days, but he works fourteen hours a day on more days than he works less time the year round.


Robert James Manion: What percentage of the
men have failed to carry on and have given up their farms?


James Alexander Robb: I think I gave that information this afternoon, but I will give my hon. friend some information as to the payments which have been made. The position is that 754 have repaid their entire indebtedness. This year, of the 17,000 settlers with payments due approximately 7,000 have made their payments in full. More than 7,000 others have made substantial payments on account, and altogether approximately 70 per cent of the money due this year has been paid. So that, as I pointed out this afternoon, generally speaking, the soldiers are doing fairly well, and the committee forces me to put upon the record a memorandum. I would rather not have given, because it does not represent, generally speaking, the view of the soldier settler. I repeat he has done fairty well on the whole, although some of them have not done so well. The memorandum reads:
The fact that the board has been able to resell nearly 400.000 acres of abandoned soldier settlement lands, at approximately $700,000 more than its investment in them, and at a time when there has been no active market for farm lands, affords no justification whatever to support a general revaluation of soldier settler lands. It must also be remembered that the great majority of fMr. Power.]
the soldier settler lands which have been abandoned have suffered serious depreciation while in the hands of the settler, and in the period of vacancy subsequent to his abandonment. The board finds generally that the farm which was in a fair state of cultivation at the time it was bought in 1919 or 1920 is run down, weedy, and badly cultivated when thrown up by the soldier settler. In many cases the buildings have actually been wrecked. Cases are not by any means infrequent where the original settler tore up flooring, in barns and stables and even in sections of the house, to use as firewood or for other purposes.
That is not my statement. It is the statement of men who are sympathetic with the soldiers, who are administering the act; but in civil life, as in the army, there are those who have not been the success we hoped they would be, and I repeat again that generally speaking the soldier settlers are doing pretty well, but there are one or two cases throughout the country where I am bound to admit that the soldier was imposed upon by those from whom he purchased, who charged him too much.


An hon. MEMBER:: One or two cases?


James Alexander Robb: There are a few cases but
the number is very limited. That is the experience of the board who gave their time to the administration of the act.


Robert James Manion: What percentage have
really thrown up their farms and could be called failures, whether through their fault or the fault of someone else?


James Alexander Robb: The proportion is very small.


Alfred Speakman: May I give the information up to date? A fraction over 20 per cent of the total abandoned their farms at the end of the last fiscal year.


Robert James Manion: March 31, last.


Alfred Speakman: Yes.


Robert James Manion: I have been listening to
the debate all day, and I must confess I have not taken much part in it because of the fact that I have heard very little about this matter. Whether I come from a section of the country where the soldier settlers have all been successful or not I do not know. Although on all occasions throughout my experience in the House I have stood up for the rights of the returned soldiers when I could do so, I have yet to receive from a soldier settler in my section of northern Ontario a complaint as to being unable to carry on on his farm. There have been, it is true, not as large a number of soldier settlers in my district as have settled in the prairie provinces, because most of those going on the land prefer the cleared land in the prairie provinces; but where many have taken up land in my section

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*-and bukh land at that, where they have to clear the land1-I have not had one write to me and tell me that he has been unable to carry on, and I have a number of settlers in mind. Further I have not had any petition or complaint from any of thpse people or any organization of the soldiers-and I have many of them in my section-claiming remission of their interest, or demanding the cutting down of the valuation or anything of that sort. I must confess frankly that I do not know the reason for it, but the fact remains as I have stated. Perhaps they have all been sucessful.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: Might it be because
they thought the government was going to put into effect the recommendation of the committee of last year? That is the case in * New' Brunswick.
Mr. MANIOiN: The soldiers in my district have not been afraid to tell me things; in fact they have been very frank and sometimes even brutal in their statements. I have usually found that the very able and active organizations up in my district have been very ready to fight for the rights of the returned soldiers.
I am pointing this out because I think the Soldier Settlement Act has been abused today more than it deserves to be. I make this statement because anybody listening in the House or in the gallery, or anybody reading Hansard, might draw the conclusion fairly from the remarks which have been made that the soldier settlement legislation has been a complete failure. Certainly, listening to the debate from four o'clock to the present time, one might easily draw that conclusion. I have not drawn any such conclusion, and that is the reason I asked the minister the question,-and the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Speakman) gave me the information- as to the number of complete failures. The hon. member told me twenty per cent up to March 31.


William John Ward: I secured the information from Mr. Barnard a few days ago, and I find that there was little over 25 per cent of abandonments up to date, or 5,780 failures.


Mr ROBB:: I discovered the information just after my hon. friend had risen and given the figures. My figures show 23.9 per cent.


Robert James Manion: I take that to include those who may not necessarily have been failures at all. For example, if a man died and had nobody to whom he could leave the land and nobody to carry on, he would be counted in the 23 per cent?


James Alexander Robb: Yes.


Robert James Manion: And the minister points out that out of that land that was sold for failure to pay debts and other causes, the government received, I think, $700,000-


James Alexander Robb: The amount was $714,015.85.


Robert James Manion: More than the mortgages that were against it.


James Alexander Robb: Yes.


Robert James Manion: So that after all that does not seem to me such a bad record. It is true that when this legislation was put into force valuations were high; nobody disputes that, and I am not arguing against any of the suggestions of my hon. friends that the valuation should be kept down.


Daniel Webster Warner: In this reckoning has the
expense been accounted for, or is this just a gross statement of what the government have received?


Robert James Manion: I presume that it is a
gross statement. Of course the minister can answer that better than I can. I am trying to point out the fairly good sides of the whole question, without any particular reason except that I do not like to think that an act which was praised as it was from one end of the world, I might say, to the other, should be looked upon as a failure because twenty or twenty-five per cent of those who went on that land have given it up from one cause or another.
With regard to the treatment of the soldier, the hon. member for the Yukon (Mr. Black), in that able manner of his which is always for the soldier, pointed out that while the soldiers were treated pretty well, they were not treated too well. I agree entirely with him in that. It would be impossible to treat too well men who offered to give their lives to the country. At the same time we cannot forget that there are limitations beyond which countries or governments .cannot very well go without some danger of wrecking the financial affairs of the country. Therefore, so far as we can, we should endeavour to find out the successes of this act as well as the failures.
When the minister brings in a resolution suggesting, as this resolution does, that forty per cent and twenty per cent be cut off the valuation, that is unfair to the man who has worked day and night and succeeded in making his payments on time. Even the greatest champion of the returned soldier cannot deny that some few of them have been failures through their own fault, and it certainly would appear to me to be rather extraordinary to give a revaluation to such a man who, we will suppose, has been a failure
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through his own fault, or, in. other words, to hand him back some of the debt which he owes to the country, and on the other hand to give nothing to the other man who has worked hard, been industrious and succeeded in paying his debts. That seems to be a method of rewarding vice and punishing virtue.


Alfred Speakman: Might I just interpose there, that I think the hon. member is rather mistaken in the effect of this resolution? It is true that where a soldier has paid his complete indebtedness and made his payments in advance of the due time, he will not be affected by this legislation, but as long as any indebtedness remains, the amount indicated would be applied to that remaining indebtedness, be it much or little.


Robert James Manion: I understand that. Of
course, that does not alter the effect of my remarks at all. I think the minister said that 754 had paid up completely. Those 754 soldiers who have paid up completely for their land, because of the fact that they have worked industriously, perhaps put their children and possibly their wives to work as well, because they have accomplished the miraculous, if you will, are to have their virtue in doing so punished. On the other hand, those few who have in some cases at least been more or less worthless-I do not say all by any means; I do not wish to be misunderstood in that, but some have been worthless and the minister gave an indication to show that-are rewarded. In the case I speak of it would1 be unfair. I rose without any desire to take any particular part in the controversy that is going on, but wishing at the same time to impress upon those who want to get as much as they can and, at least, justice for the returned soldier, that it would be wise here to-day to look a little at the advantageous side of the whole matter, at the successes as well as the failures that have occurred. Out of the large number who went on the land, twenty-five per cent under the conditions does not seem to be a heavy percentage of failures. No doubt the valuations were too high. The motion of to-diay to cut down those valuations is, as far as it goes, advantageous to the soldier, and certainly I support it. But we might hesitate to go too repidly in changing the valuations. We should not take too much upon ourselves until the federal government, whichever government it may be, feels that it can see its way clear to go further. At the same time I repeat that I think some arrangement should be made in this resolution to reward those who have been able to pay up their land values in full as well as those who have not been able to do so.


Arthur John Lewis: In view of the statement
that the minister has made in regard to lands sold and the profit made on them, it would be well for the minister to tell us the percentage of lands sold or resold from lands that have been salvaged, because in my particular district a number of farms have become vacant as a result of soldiers going away from them, but only one or two have been sold or resold and those that have been resold are the very best farms. The great mass of those which have not been abandoned could not be resold at any price. I understand that nearly
6,000	men have left the farms. At an average of 160 acres apiece, that would mean that we have 1,000,000 acres of land to be resold. So far the minister has stated that we have sold only 400,000 acres of that land, and it is on these 400,000 acres of land that we have had a profit of $700,000. If hon. members will look into this situation they will find that the lands that have been sold are the best lands that could have been sold, and that if we were to sell the other 600,000 acres of land that are still on the hands of the Soldier Settlement Board, we would find that instead of a profit of $700,000, we would have a deficit in excess of that amount. That should go out with the statement that has already gone out.


James Alexander Robb: I will try to produce that
information for my hon. friend when we are in committee on the bill.


Mr. ROSS (Kingston):: In view of the fact that some of this land has been sold at a profit, is it the minister's intention now that the soldier should be returned the ten per cent he put up on the land?


James Alexander Robb: Does my hon. friend advocate that?


Arthur Edward Ross: Yes, I would. In
the second place, if I remember correctly, some of this land, because it was so situated as to be of value to certain bootleggers along the border, was sold at a big price. It would not be any great credit to the government to obtain such a price in that way.


James Alexander Robb: I did not hear that.


George Gibson Coote: Are any soldier homestead
lands or soldier grant lands amongst the lands that have been sold? I understand the Soldier Settlement Board has received between 300,000 and 400,000 acres of free land

Soldier Settlement Act
from the government of this country in the shape of soldiers' homesteads and soldiers' grants. It is possible that some of the land which is being sold is land which cost the board nothing. Can the minister tell us?


James Alexander Robb: I will have that information
looked up.


Arthur Meighen: There would not be any of that land for the reason that the government have no authority to sell homestead land.


George Gibson Coote: The title has passed to the Soldier Settlement Board. Would they not have power to sell that land?


Arthur Meighen: I do not think so. This is a comparison between the prices secured and the prices sold at, or rather between the indebtedness against and the price secured. Members have pointed out that in computing the indebtedness against the land, account has to be taken of the ten per cent paid. Ten per cent was paid in the great majority of cases. Therefore account must be taken of it. But I should be very much surprised if the aggregate of the indebtedness against the land was not more than the cost of the land; I should be very much surprised if the argument would not tell against the contention of those who claim that the sale indicates a loss on the land. When a man pays only 10 per cent and then gets into a condition that compels him to abandon, what chance in the world is there that he does not owe at least two years' interest?


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: But no interest ha3
been paid up to date.


Arthur Meighen: Yes, there has been


James Alexander Robb: The exact amount is $5,220,-
781.71.


Arthur Meighen: I have not the exact
figures before me but it would be astonishing if the total indebtedness did not at least equal the cost of the land, in respect of that land which has been taken over and sold. I have no complaints to make of the tenor of the discussion and the fairness of speakers as respects the original plan or as related to the organization and the execution of the work. It was an enormous undertaking and it had to be done at a time when we were rolling on the crest of a great wave of inflation. There was no option as to when we should begin; the pressure from the returned soldiers, and indeed from the entire 229
public of Canada, was very great, and considerable impatience was displayed because we had not sooner gone into the enterprise. I do not think there was a newspaper in Canada of any shade of politics which did not press this undertaking on the government-Land was purchased in every province aggregating a total of some 28,000 farms. An organization to take care of such work is one which it is very difficult to lay down and still more difficult to supervise. The work was evolved of course in the department, the minister having to do mainly with it; but the supervision was largely under Mr. W. J. Black, whose success in choosing his subordinates was really remarkable. It is not needful for me to say now that no political consideration intervened in any part of Canada; nor was any such interference ever charged, I have no doubt at all that the number from one party was about equal to the number from the other so far as the various boards were concerned. I have knowledge of some who proved dishonest, but they were very few; and when I state that the hon. member to my left who represents the constituency of Victoria and Carleton in New Brunswick (Mr. Caldwell) was himself a member of the board in that province, I think it will be seen that we did not select the truest blue Tories for the organization. The same is true even more emphatically of the province of Manitoba. There excellent work was done by Mr. Peter Wright, of the Council of Agriculture, who assisted us in laying out the whole organization.
Mistakes were made, and I think that perhaps the gravest occurred on the west coast of lake Manitoba. There was a territory opening up for farm settlement into which many pioneers had gone. The land was good and it had belonged to the province; municipalities became organized, and the Manitoba board was induced to settle some soldiers there. In this area is the territory referred to by the hon. member (Mr. Leader) and covered by the letters from the reeves of those municipalities. This district in Manitoba has not been very successful. The municipalities have got themselves greatly into deht and no doubt the soldiers have abandoned the land. But I shall not be revealing any secret when I say -that I have myself abandoned six sections up there, and if I had sixty I would abandon them all. The taxes are so high that land simply cannot be held and consequently the district has suffered. I do not know why it has suffered particularly, although I have some conception

Soldier Settlement Act

of the reason; and the soldiers have suffered with the district. Now, because you argue that 23.9 per cent of the men are not now on the land who originally were there, you do not offer a just criticism against either the scheme or its success. The time will come when there will not be one per cent still, there of those who originally took the land; the time will come when they will all have gone. But that will not prove that the scheme was a total failure, for as the years progress the proportion will be greater and greater; it cannot help but be. The scheme can be judged however by the productive enterprise of those who have gone there, by the homes created and the number of years those homes have survived, and by the government's success in recouping to the treasury a large proportion of the money invested. The whole enterprise has of course encountered the very same difficulties that agriculture in Canada generally has had to meet. Farm lands six years ago were certainly higher in western Canada than they are to-day, just as they were in every other province. And the same is true of stock and equipment. The ordinary farmer therefore has lost money in this country in the last six years. I do not know that the 'hon. member for Victoria and Car-lebon has exaggerated the present situation; but I do not think that his words would fall with much welcome on the ears of the prophets of sunshine who occupy the treasury benches. I noticed an anxious look on the face of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Murdock) as he revealed the situation in his own province, and I recalled how I had been castigated when I spoke in language much less pessimistic, being called a prophet of gloom. Now, I never consider it a badge of disloyalty on the part of any man to tell the truth, whatever it may be, and I believe that the hon. member for Victoria and Carleton represented the actual situation. I hope the lesson will fall with good effect upon the ears of hon. gentlemen of the administration.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: The right hon. gentleman bewailed the fact that people were leaving the industrial centres while for my part I gave the other side of the picture; they are drifting to the industrial centres from the farms of New Brunswick.


Arthur Meighen: Yes, and to the industrial centres of the United States; and I would rather have them drift to our own industrial centres. I bewailed the fact that they left the industrial centres and that, because they did so, the farmer abandoned the nearby farm. If these things do anything to enlighten hon.

gentlemen to my left, .then the experience even of these bitter years will not have been in vain.
Now I want to say something about the government's plan, which seems to me to be a pretty Slapdash piece of legislation. I do not know upon what principle it is based. Deflation in farm values is as pronounced as deflation in stock values. Of that there can be no question; indeed, stock values are rising somewhat while farm values are not. Real estate is not rising anywhere in Canada; you cannot sell it. But there has been some improvement in stock values as there has also been in grain. Consequently if there is reason for rebating a measure of the price in relation to stock, there is just the same reason for doing so an relation to land. And besides, why should the man who has invested most in stock and least in land be made the special favourite of the government? There are a great many of these men whose whole investment is in land, virtually none in stock; they get nothing at all. But worse than that, the legislation penalizes the best class of soldiers, it penalizes the man who has applied himself the most vigorously and by one means and the other has succeeded in paying off the government-because of his fidelity to his trust and his contract the government throws him to the wind; but the man who is behind, the man who has not paid, the government takes under its wing and says, 'We will help you to pay, ourselves; we will rebate you." Does the government ever expect 'that those 750 odd men who have paid uip in full are going to rest content? Does not the government know that they are going to be right at the doors of the administration in full force? And I do not think they will' likely rest content until they are accorded the same treatment as the government accords those who are in arrear. It is hard enough to deny an ordinary group of citizens something when they can -make out a plausible, even though not a strong case of discrimination, but if they can prove a strong case of discrimination against themselves the government never can and never does deny them. I never knew a government that could furnish an instance-of so doing. All the more is this likely to be so when that group of citizens is a band of soldiers, and they can establish a clear case of discrimination against .themselves; does the government think it can withstand their appeal? It will have to show a lot more stamina and a lot more stability of purpose 'than it has ever shown before.
But that is not the only discrimination. This legislation says: "If a man has not abandoned.

Soldier Settlement Act
his farm we will relieve him; but if he has, then we will Jet him go." Why do they relieve the man who has not abandoned his farm-why do they relieve anybody? It is on the 'hypothesis that the handicap he was suffering from was too big for him, it was more than he could overcome. Well, what about the fellow who has had to quit altogether, was not his handicap presumably greater still? With respect to the man who is already off the farm the presumption at least is-there will be exceptions-that he suffered some special handicap, his purchase price both of land and chattels owing to deflation in his district was even more than ordinarily great, his discouragement was piled upon him until he had to quit; but because he suffered more than the rest the government lets him go, and' the man who stays on, whose handicaps presumably were not quite so great, the government takes in its lap and feeds at the country's expense. Those discriminations exist, and they cannot be justified.
Would it not be far fairer to treat them all alike and make a general rebate all around? No more than the country could afford, no more than was Considered to be fair, but make it the same for everybody-the same for the cattle man, the same for the farmer man, the same for the fellow that paid, the same for the fellow that abandoned-whatever it is, make it just and equitable, because I warn the government that once they take a certain step with respect to a section, they will not be able to resist those who appeal from other sections on the ground of discrimination. In a word, the standard of rebate they set as respects one lot, that standard they will have to apply to a whole group of men in another lot.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: When the right hon. gentleman was in office and put through the Soldier Land Settlement Act why did he not apply that same principle?


Arthur Meighen: What in the world is the hon. gentleman talking about? We did establish it.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: No, you did not.


Arthur Meighen: Why, certainly; the time did not come for any rebate while we were in office.


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: I was not referring to rebate at all.


Arthur Meighen: I was.
229i


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: When you were putting the Soldier Land Settlement Act into effect why did you not apply that principle to all those who did not take advantage of the act itself?


Arthur Meighen: What principle? To make them all take land whether they wanted it or not?


Donald Ferdinand Kellner: No, the principle of establishing the same means of reimbursing them.


Arthur Meighen: Oh, I see what the hon. member has in his mind. It is on the assumption that we were doing a special favour for some. But the whole act was not based on that in any way whatever. It was based on the wisdom of inviting and encouraging as large a proportion of the returned men as possible to take up farming in Canada, to-build them into the basic foundation industry of the country. It was for the benefit of the country, it was not to show special favours to any. This was the principle of the act.
Now, those are the objections that appeal to me as against the government's proposal. But I want to say something as to the government's consistency in this whole matter. A year ago the usual plan was followed. A committee of this House was appointed to consider the subject. The committee made an exhaustive inquiry and a report. Then the first thing we heard, the chairman of the-committee was rising in the House and moving the adoption of the report-something that occurred every week last session, at least the last half of the session, something that sometimes occurred daily-the House was asked, without a moment's notice, to declare its opinion on a question of immense magnitude, involving millions of expenditure, and finally to declare its opinion 'on merely one submission. The government accepted the situation, and when that motion was made, the government paid no attention to the protest which I raised. I warned the government of the condition they would get into by that kind of conduct. Indeed, I warned them on several occasions, and other hon. members did so as well. On this occasion I went so far as to appeal to the Chair that the House had no right, by the mere act of accepting the report of a committee, to charge the country on the motion of a private member. Fortunately I was upheld. But before this had taken place the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart) had definitely committed the government to a statement of its policy in language as clear and as un-
35S6
Soldier Settlement Act

equivocal as at least this government ever used. The committee's report was before parliament, the chairman of the committee had moved its acceptance. The minister made some comments upon it so far as they were adverse, all directed against one section. I have no doubt he was taken by surprise. I have no doubt at all that this practice being allowed by the administration the poor Minister of the Interior thought he had to do something, so he cast his eye over the report and saw one section in it that did not look very good to him. Thereupon he made some adverse criticism of that section, and himself moved an amendment, adding that that meant the rest of the report was accepted. In that remainder of the report which the minister accepted, speaking as he did for the government, there was a recommendation that the soldiers be repaid 60 per cent of the price of their stock of one class and 40 per cent of another. The whole country had the right to assume from that moment that this was the government's policy, and hon. members went to their ridings and informed their constituents that this was what the government had bound itself to do. But this session the government comes forward and does not do this at all. It says, "The 60-40 basis is too high; all we will give is a 40-20 basis." This stand they take and embody in a measure in the face of a definite assertion by the Minister of the Interior on behalf of the government, .made less than twelve months ago. It is only a few days ago in this House that the Acting Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb), who has charge of the matter more directly, rose in his place and, in answer to an inquiry, asserted that the government proposed to bring down a measure to provide :tfor revaluation both of land and stock.
I was in the House when the answer was sgiven and I remember feeling at the time isomewhat surprised. I wondered what responsibility the government was launching upon. Now we have the same Acting Minister of Finance coming to the House and saying, "This is our measure and our only measure. We are not prepared to revalue the land at all. We do not propose to do anything of the kind." How does the minister explain himself? He does not try. How does he stand before this committee and justify taking an official position as a member of the government diametrically opposed to his assurance to this House not two weeks ago? I was amused at the question of the hon. member for East Calgary whether this was to be taken as the government's final policy.

Did he ever know of such a thing as finality in this government? Did he ever find that in the dictionary of this administration? Did he ever know them to take any position from which they could not escape? Did he ever know them to take any stand from which they were not ready at the sign of battle to flee? I never did. They do not know what finality is. Why, before the budget came down we were assured by a member of the government that notwithstanding all the importunities which had been advanced to them for an increase in coal duties they could not see their way to take any such step. That was not more than eight days before the budget came down which granted the importunity for an increase in the coal duties. Indeed, the best conclusion and the safest one can draw from any assurance he gets from the administration is that something else is going to be done, what it may be it is hazardous for any man to venture even a guess. Surely hon. members ought to have the right to depend on an assurance given by the administration as to what its policy is. Experience has shown we can do no such thing. But the minister says with reference to this land revaluation:	"We cannot do anything.
We have no proposals. We do not intend to bring down any further legislation. But if .you will just be patient for twenty-five years until the lands are all paid for, then we can reconsider the matter."


James Alexander Robb: I did not say that.


Arthur Meighen: Well, if the minister
would explain what he said about that twenty-five years I am sure it would be just as absurd as that. If he did not say that I do not know what it was he said.


James Alexander Robb: I read the report of the Ralston commission. The Ralston commission pointed out that the question whether land had been well purchased or not could be determined within the twenty-five years.


Arthur Meighen: No, at the end of twenty-five years.


James Alexander Robb: Well, at the end of twentyfive years. It was the report of the Ralston commission.


Arthur Meighen: Yes, but the minister
quoted it with approval and subsequently said that would be time to consider the matter.


James Alexander Robb: I did not say that.


Arthur Meighen: If the human mind can
imagine anything more utterly absurd and grotesque than that-

Soldier Settlement Act
35S7


James Alexander Robb: I said that future governments would have that period within which to consider the matter.


Arthur Meighen: The twenty-five years is fixed because at the end of that time the land will be paid for.


James Alexander Robb: Is my right hon. friend now
arguing that there should foe revaluation?


Arthur Meighen: Not at all, and the minister knows I am not. I argued that a while ago. I stated what I would do; I would do the same with land as with chattels, the same with the man who had paid as with the man who had not paid

make the same rebate everywhere; treat everybody alike.


James Alexander Robb: On land as well?


Arthur Meighen: Certainly; make the
same rebate everywhere, whatever it may be. Whatever you can afford to do, do it for all.


James Alexander Robb: Do I understand my right hon. friend now to say there should be revaluation?


Arthur Meighen: I did not say revaluation. I said that I would make the same percentage of rebate everywhere, applicable to all purchasers and applicable to land as well as to chattels. That does not involve land revaluation. That is very clear. I do not know any other principle that can be followed. I know that objections can be raised to it, but none as formidable as can be raised to this government's proposal. It is at least the most unobjectionable of any course that can be taken. It is the fairest; it is the same for everybody.


Charles A. Stewart: Then my
right hon. friend would argue that the purchases in the first place were all based on equality?


Arthur Meighen: So they were.


Charles A. Stewart: I think we
have ample evidence that that is not true.


Arthur Meighen: I know that. You will always get opinions that one piece was bought cheaply and another at a high rate. It may be that within a certain radius that is the case. But you cannot go on that basis in evolving a principle of remedy; you have got to do the same for the one buyer as for the other. If the government get into that field it will be landed in a morass from which they will never extricate themselves without serious difficulty.


Charles A. Stewart: No government on earth could apply the remedy that would be required, for instance, for the Dauphin situation or that outlined by the member for Comox-Alberni, as my right hon. friend suggests and still meet the acute cases, No government could stand it.


Arthur Meighen: Certainly no government can meet every acute case. It cannot be done, and I say with the utmost frankness-that if the government get into this responsibility; if they go into the original value-and the present value of every piece of land and every horse and every cow, why, they will never get out of it. You cannot perform a great service on that principle. Now I think I have made at least clear what I would propose. It would seem to me to be a great deal fairer, a great deal less objectionable, to proceed as I have suggested. Certainly it would not reach out into every service -and meet every demand, but it is based on a sound principle and that cannot be said of the legislation before us. But what is to be said for the suggestion that the revaluation of land does not come before us now because the Ralston commission says that that can be done at the end of twenty-five years? Actually I think if the minister had thought a little longer he would not have read such an absurd thing to the House. Why, in twenty-five years the man's son will be on the land. The proportion of those now on the land who will be there in twenty-five years will be mighty small; it is the case everywhere. I cannot think of anything more grotesque, anything more laughable, than the suggestion that there might be a revaluation of these lands in the interest of the purchasers at the end of a quarter of a century.


Mr. CHURCH:: I think it is the desire
of every group in this House that some equitable means should be adopted to bring this act up-to-date. When you compare the total expenditure of the country, $400,000,000, with that spent on soldier settlement, $6,000,000, and immigration, $2,000,000, it is no wonder the returned men have not been successful on the land. This legislation does not go far enough. In 1921, $6,000,000 was , provided for this purpose as against $8,400,000 the year before. Last year there were 1,038 new settlers under this scheme. There are now on the land 23,743, as against 27.000 three years ago. The number granted entries without loans was 6,435. I do not see why we should discriminate between various classes of solilie'- : those who do not make good get help and those who are thrifty and are making
Soldier Settlement Act


Robert Alexander Hoey: In view of the fact that
several members of the House who are deeply interested in this question, the hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Knox) the hon. member for Humboldt (Mr. Stewart) andi several others, are absent attending the funeral of our late colleague, I wonder if the minister would consent to report progress and let this matter come up again.


James Alexander Robb: We have spent almost a whole afternoon and evening on the resolution. I think we might very well let the resolution pass and I will promise not to advance the bill to a second1 reading until the hon. members have returned and that will give them ample opportunity of discussing it; indeed they will have the same opportunity they have had to-day and we will have the chairman of the board beside us.
It was only to-day that my attention was directed to the question, asked by my hon. friend from Bow River. I recall that that afternoon many questions were asked on the orders of the day. I admit that I was busy signing my letters, and my desk mate said to me, "He is asking about soldier's revaluation", and I said, "Yes". It is a warning to me after this to have questions repeated, because I sometimes do not hear everything.
I have been looking over the report of the committee of last year, and I notice recommendation No. 4 reads:
Your committee further recommend that the Soldier Settlement Board shall have discretionary power to relocate bona fide settlers that are found to be located on manifestly unsuitable farms, such relocation to be made without financial loss to the settlers.
I am going to send) for the board and go into the matter very carefully, and find out what powers they have under the act. They have had experience -as to the possibility of
Soldier Settlement Act

affording some relief in some instances. I observe from the remarks of the right hon. leader of the opposition that he concurs in my statement that generally speaking the land was well bought. But there are cases-and we seem to agree upon that-in a few odd sections where the land was not wesll bought. I shall consult the Soldier Settlement Board about that.


Leon Johnson Ladner: The nature of the resolution apparently fixes an arbitrary sum, a percentage of reduction. Now at different times since the war prices have been high or they have been low. In some cases chattels were bought at advantageous prices, while in other cases unreasonable prices were paid. Does the minister think -that, as a matter of policy, it is sound to make a set specific reduction, irrespective of the original cost price, or whether they have any relationship to the market value.


Mr. CAHILL:: That is what my hon.
friend's leader suggests.


Leon Johnson Ladner: I do not know anything
about that.


James Alexander Robb: I gather from my hon. friend's remarks that he is not in accord with the sentiments expressed by his leader.


Leon Johnson Ladner: I do not care about that.
We are in committee and I am speaking for myself. I have my own idea. There are isolated cases where ridiculous things have ' been done. You may have purchased a grade cow for $200 four years ago. The cow perhaps at that time was worth $125. It may now be worth only $75. If you make a reduction of 20 per cent which is $40, you then bring your price down to $60, and you have the price so far -above the market value to-day that there is no inducement for a man to stay on the farm and milk that cow and endeavour to produce results. You may apply the argument to the purchase of a whole dairy herd, or to all the stock and machinery a man has on the farm. My point is this: That I think the basis of the whole resolution and policy is unsound, because the reduction should be made having regard to the relationship of the reduction to the market value to-day; so that when a man is faced with what his obligations are, he knows it is in his interests, and it is better for him, to remain there and face those obligations, because he has an asset which will be worth something when he discharges his obligation. If you put the whole thing above the market value he will have no incentive to stay there, and you will have a section of

the men saying to the government, "After you have made the reduction you are far above the market value, and you are not going to hold us to that market value-."


James Alexander Robb: Does the hon. member suggest that we had better drop the whole legislation?


Leon Johnson Ladner: No, my suggestion is that
the reductions should be made in relationship to the actual market value of the goods or chattels to-day; so that when the reductions are completed there will then be left an equity, or an incentive or an inducement to the man to stay there and utilize his machinery, whatever it may be, and carry on with his dairy herd to obtain results. In that way the government would be further ahead than if they let the 'man walk out and sell at the actual market value.


William Charles Good: The minister asked the House to consent to the passing of this resolution. It seems to me under the circumstances he would be very 'well advised to let the matter stand over because the House will be committed to something pretty specific if this resolution is passed to-night, and when the bill appears before the House they will not be at liberty to make any changes.


James Alexander Robb: I say very frankly to hon.
members that if they do not want this resolution I am not going to pursue it much longer.


William John Ward: Just there I would like to
have a word very directly with the minister in charge, in regard to my fear of this matter being passed to-night. The result will be that in a week from now this will go out into the hinterland, where returned men are waiting, day after day to hear what is going to happen. I was one of those who was fool enough to accept the statement of the Minister of the Interior a year ago; I went back to my constituency and I peddled if all over among the returned men that we had a definite assurance by the government-and I did believe it, because I had faith in their sincerity-that they intended to carry that assurance into practice, and I told my people that, and implored scores of them to stick to their bargain. I am safe in saying that I have had at least a hundred appeals from returned men throughout my constituency asking me what they would do. They would say something like this: The situation is such and such; what would you advise me to do? Would you advise me to stay on the farm? I would reply to them, simply: Yes; the government is, I am sure, going to give us a revaluation next year, and I think the percentage will be

Soldier Settlement Act
sufficient to warrant you in remaining on your farm. If it goes out to-night and is spread broadcast as it will be in the papers to-morrow morning that the government has brought down its legislation for this year and that no provision is made for revaluation of soldier lands, I fear the result.
The minister has endeavoured to build up a case to-night based upon the report of the Ralston commission. He has given us certain figures which he has taken from the report of that commission and so on. He has told us of payments made last year and so on. An hon. member speaking in this House last year when the resolution was before the House said this, and we shall see whether what has happened in the last year coincides very closely with what the minister has stated:
After having made a survey of my constituency-


Alan Webster Neill: Who is tlhat?


William John Ward: An Ihon. member.
-and after having secured figures from the various departments, I found that this condition prevailed in my constituency. There had been-I use the term "had", because I do not contend that the same amount is invested now-invested in that constituency through the Soldier Settlement Board, $2,750,000. Of that sum, on the 30th September last, abandonments had taken place to the amount of $600,000, of which the government or the board had been able to salvage only 18 per cent. If abandonments should continue for another two years at the same rate at which they have taken place during the last twelve months, we shall have lost all the returned soldiers but 15 per cent.
I will prove a little later on that this has all come true. I secured from the Soldier Settlement Board a few days ago information as to the number of abandonments that have taken place in the last twelve months, and I find that 1,217 have taken place in that time. Therefore, hon. members will see that what was said then has just about come true. Let me follow that up a little further.
That is the situation in my constituency. Therefore, if the abandonments continue at the same rate for another two years, we shall then be in exactly or almost the same position as we would be if we cancelled the entire account to-day. I am not, however, asking for cancellation of the entire account, I am asking for revaluation. Two years ago when a special committee sat considering these matters, I was one of the few members of this House who strongly advocated revaluation then.
The point I wish to make is that in another twelve moniths from mow, owing to abandonments that have taken place, practically the entire soldier settlement of -that constituency will have disappeared and gone heaven only knows where. Following that up, I should like to read a letter just received from a returned soldier in my constituency revealing some further situations in that constituency:
I am sending along some Soldier Settlement Board sale bills.
I will exhibit these in a minute.
I would like to have got a bill of another sale in Ste. Rose about a month ago. Jake Heesaker of Million was out. He told me there must have been the stuff of ten different settlers sold. So I was thinking if Major Barnett was giving another glowing report on how well the soldier settlers were doing and how much they were able to collect, you might feel inclined to ask him "how come?"
The same settler who sent that in forwarded a number of these bills, and I notice in looking over them there are ten sales advertised on these bills. One is for -March 30, another for March 26 and another for March 17. It will be recalled that a year ago when this question was under discussion, a number of questionnaires were submitted to the House. I think it was the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. 'Garland) and -myself who got together, prepared a questionnaire, and had it submitted to a large number of returned men through-out different -constituencies. In that questionnaire w-e asked what had been paid for the land originally and at what they valued the land at the present time. In neatly every case the land was valued at from one-quarter to lone-third of the 'original price. I have lived in the Dauphin district for almost thirty years. I settled -on a homestead and I know something of what it means to clear uip rough land. I say frankly that the average farm that was bought throughout that -constituency -alt about S3,000 is, from a productive point of view, mot worth m-or-e tio-day than twenty-lfive per cent of that amount. The leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) described in better words than I could use the situation along lake Manitoba which probably is the second largest soldier settlement district in- the Dominion. In view of 'the situation that he pictured there, can the -minister not see tire absolute necessity of bringing about some form -of physical revaluation? I worked out with the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Stewart) on-e day last week -a plan Whereby I think this -could be effe-ctled at little or no cost whatever to the board. We have in every district

and the districts are quite limited

 a local supervisor. In addition we have what is known as a. district supervisor in each -province. I suggested to him -that we ask the Union of Municipalities in, each province to appoint -a third who would be a farmer iof long experience, a -man whose judgment was above question, and who would be made chairman of this revaluation board. The local supervisor knows the situation very well. In each district he knows every road, every settler and the best way to reach that settler, and he can
Soldier Settlement Act

put his finger exactly on ithe spot why that settler has failed. We are paying these men in any case. I am convinced that such a survey could be made of Manitoba in one summer with practically no additional cost except the employment of this chairman. If revaluation does not take place, I am convinced that in another two years we shall have -only about five or ten per cent. The sum of $2,750,000 has already been invested in that one district, and according to the figures secured last year only eighteen per cent has been salvaged from the sales. If this continues as it has in the laslt two years, in another twelve months 'or so we shall have practically lost that amount of $2,750,000.
I should like also to reply to another matter that the minister dealt with in respect to resale of farms. I know the minister is sincere and honest, but I am sure if he had been in possession of the real facts, he would never have made those statements at all. There is an odd good farm here and there in the district, and it is only farms of this kind that are sold. The minister gave us the number of these resales in the last year and they were .about one-fifth of the number of abandonments; which proves .that it is only the odd good farms that are sold. In my own district the few farms that have been sold are just as likely to revert to the government; in fact I think they are more likely to do so. The fact that there is a change in tenants does not assure success.
I a,m sorry to prolong this debate, but I do not think the minister should persist in refusing to withdraw this motion and to reconsider the matter. I again impress upon him that a physical revaluation of the * land is not the problem which be thinks it is. It is a very simple thing and it would be to the advantage of .the government to have this done.


Charles A. Stewart: Surely the
hon. member would not suggest that there should be a reduction in the investment to the extent of 75 per cent.


William John Ward: Absolutely. I have proven
that in my own district-and the same is true throughout the whole Dominion-only 18 per cent was salvaged in the resales. Let me give the result of one sale I attended before leaving for Ottawa. In this case stock and equipment that were valued at $2,500 brought $375.


Charles A. Stewart: This may
be true in one or two districts; it may be true in the hon. member's particular locality.

And for that reason it is difficult to accept the suggestion made by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen), because you cannot approach the matter from that standpoint. But if we are required to make a 75 per cent reduction all round we might as well abandon the whole thing.


Mr. AVARD:: If we continue as we are
doing now the situation will be still worse. We have been able to salvage only 18 per cent from the sale of chattels, and I can assure the minister that he will find in the lake Manitoba section that the lands have not resold for 25 per cent of their original cost. The only salvation for the settlers in such districts is to bring about a physical revaluation, and I have endeavoured to point out how this can be done at a minimum cost, and indeed at practically no cost at all.
There is invested in my constituency about $2,750,000, and we had already lost a year ago $600,000 of that. To-day we can easily add $400,000 to this loss, bringing the total up to about $1,000,000. We are therefore losing in any case. In the municipality of Lawrence, which is in the very heart of the lake Manitoba section, of sixteen schools last fall only four were open. I believe the province has adopted a very progressive policy in the matter of education and has now opened nearly all these schools; nevertheless the reason why all these schools were closed was that the soldiers had moved away leaving no one to maintain them. In districts where before there were between twenty and twenty-five families there are now left only four or five families to carry on; and the burden is becoming more and more oppressive. The situation is so serious in this particular municipality that it has got into the hands of the receiver; and there is a large section between that and the lake which is unorganized and is in a most deplorable condition. I think it was the hon. member to my right (Mr. Manion) who referred to men who had succeeded here and there. Well, in some sections you will find they have succeeded to the extent of 90 or 100 per cent; but when you go into Selkirk, Neepawa and1 Dauphin you find that they have failed almost 100 per cent. The reason is that the potential value is not there; it was not in the farms in the first instance. The minister himself admitted a few minutes ago that the Dauphin section became the victim of inflation to an extent that did not exist in any other part of the Dominion, and this is due to the fact that this was the first section to be settled; it was here that the first application was made.

Northwest Territories Act
A number of more or less unscruplous land companies owning large tracts of land got the ear of the inspectors and were able to unload upon them at handsome prices large sections which were in turn unloaded on the soldiers. Many of these parcels are still held by the soldiers, and I contend again that there is only one hope for these men. Let us write them all and say, "For God's sake get out of there and go where you can make a living"; or else let us do something practical in their behalf. I once more implore the minister to reconsider this matter to see whether we cannot find a means of helping the soldiers in the way I have suggested.


James Alexander Robb: When the report of the committee was submitted last year it was pointed out that the country would sustain a loss of some $38,000,000 under this scheme; and as I pointed out this afternoon we have made remissions to the soldiers amounting to approximately $12,000,000. This afternoon we submitted to the House a resolution based upon which the government would bring in a bill to provide as a further rebate:
Forty per centum of the purchase price of all live stock advanced to the settler and purchased prior to the first day of October, 1920;
Twenty per centum of the purchase price of all live stock advanced to the settler and purchased on or after the first day of October, 1920, and prior to the first day of October, 1921.
We have been considering this resolution all day and it is now approaching midnight, and as we have had some of the officials here in readiness to go on with supply, I move that the committee rise and report progress and ask leave to sit again.


Thomas Wakem Caldwell: When the minister
takes this matter up again will he inform the committee how much has been paid in full on the farms under the 10 per cent initial payment; how much has been salvaged; what the total collections have been in the past year-and the cost of administration.


James Alexander Robb: I shall take a note of the
questions.
Progress reported.

The House in committee of Supply, Mr. Power in the chair.
Civil Government-Indian Affairs-salaries, $149,570; contingencies, $18,000.


Robert James Manion: Have we been in Indian
Affairs before?


Charles A. Stewart: No; we gave
notice to-day.


Edward Joseph Garland: Mr. Chairman, I understood that the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Coote) was very anxious to discuss a certain matter under this vote.


Charles A. Stewart: We are
going to report progress.
Progress reported.
On motion of Mr. Graham the House adjourned at 11.35 p.m.
Wednesday, May 27, 1925