Hon. JOHN COSTIGAN (Victoria, N.B.) moved:

That that portion of the 49th rule which limits the time for receiving petitions for Private Bills be suspended in reference to the petition of the Grand Falls Water Power and Boom Company, presented this day ; praying for an Act to extend the time for the completion of their works, in accordance with the recommendation contained in the seventh report of the Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders.

Mr. N. A. BELCOURT (Ottawa) moved :

That the petition of John Mather and others for an Act of incorporation under the name of the Alaskan and North-west Railway Company, be referred back to the Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders for further consideration.

Mr. URIAH WILSON (Lennox).

I wish to know for what reason this motion is made. When this Bill was before the Committee on Standing Orders we had no evidence that it was properly advertised, or that the promoters had in any way complied with the rules of the committee or of the House. Unless there is some good reason this Bill should not be sent back.

Mr. BELCOURT.

The reason is a very good one. The gentleman who had charge

16G3

of tlie Bill before the committee had not in his possession the newspapers containing the advertisement, and my hon. friend (Mr. Wilson) was the means of having the Bill rejected on that account. The publication was made in a Dawson paper and every one knows the difficulty of getting Dawson papers here at this time of the year. Since then the papers containing the advertisement have arrived, and we are ready to show that the publication has been made.

Mr. WILSON.

The hon. gentleman (Mr. Belcourt) should be able to show that the advertisement was published during the

Mr. B. RUSSELL (Hants).

Mr. Speaker, for the statement which I am about to make, I have probably tbe same kind of authority as my hon. friend (Mr. Wallace), who last addressed the House, had for a number of statements which he made in the course of his speech. My statement is that I have received confidential communications in regard to a conference that took place between the hon. leader of the opposition and the advisory board that assists him in conducting the affairs of this House-

Mr. HENDERSON.

Oh, how clever.

Mr. RUSSELL-and that it was arranged among them that my hon. friend who addressed the House last night should visit North Bruce in the capacity of a peacemaker, for the purpose of setting at rest all racial, religious and discordant cries and all disturbing controversies which would otherwise have agitated that community. It was represented to him that the subject of the preferential tariff would come up for more or less discussion in the course of this debate ; and as he had given utterance to some equivocal expressions on that subject on the occasion of its first intro-

Mr. BELCOURT.

duetion into this House-expressions which might be represented as an approval of it, if divested as it is at present of those features connected with tbe Belgian and German treaties, it was not desirable that he should interpose in the present discussion of the subject; moreover, that bis presence as a peacemaker in the county in which an election is now being run would be of infinite value to this country ; and, in view of that circumstance, and in view of those negotiations and advices, my hon. friend had prepared a discourse marked by those characteristics of mildness, and breathing that spirit of sweet reasonableness with which he so frequently delights this House; containing those very amiable references to his antagonists, those complimentary allusions to tbe lion. Minister of Public Works (Hon. Mr. Tarte), and those pleasant remarks as to the right hon. gentleman who leads this House, so free from anything in the nature of innuendo ; those kindly observations with reference to tbe Minister of Finance; and all suffused iu that tone of Christian charity of which he is so admirable an exponent in this House. These things were not intended for this Chamber at all, but were intended for North Bruce; but, in some way that has not been explained, but probably will be later on, the hon. gentleman's connections failed, and so lie did not get to North Bruce, whether on account of the snowstorm or for other reasons which may be supposed, and he was thrust upon this House, and was obliged to turn on the tap. He had no speech on the budget or on the preferential resolutions ; he had not prepared himself to discuss any of the questions which might legitimately come before the House; and, therefore, he was obliged to give us, very inappropriately, tbe speech which was intended for the electors of North Bruce. That is the only explanation I cau suggest for at least one of the features of the address he has given us-for the fact that in the main he steered entirely clear of the subject under discussion ; and it also illustrates the exceptionable reasonableness and sweetness of tlie discourse he gave us. I rejoice, and this House must rejoice, that we have in the public life of this country a gentleman who brings that tone into our discussions. The hon. member for Bona-venture (Mr. Marcil) desired that this should be a parliament of peacemakers. We have one of those peacemakers present ; we have had from him an illustration and an assurance of what is to come : and I trust the hon. member for Bonaventure will fold the hon. gentleman to his bosom. I must confess. Mr. Speaker, that I am very largely dependent upon tbe assurances which the hon. gentleman has himself given to ns in the course of his speech, for taking that view of his remarks ; otherwise. I would have been inclined to recall n story which was told by the late Wendell Phillips, in

connection with the anti-slavery agitation. Mr. Phillips was under the impression that the southern slaveholders, when crying out against those who were continually disturbing the peace of the country, were themselves the principal disturbers of the country's peace ; and by way of illustrating and clarifying his views, he was fond of telling a story of an old court crier who, when engaged in liis official capacity in one of the courts at Massachusetts, used to fall asleep. When the voices of the counsel who were addressing the court rose to a louder tone than usual, the crier was aroused from his slumbers, and cried out at once, ' Silence iu the court,' and immediately resumed his slumbers. This had occurred a few times, when the judge got tired of this interruption of the proceedings, and burst out in a somewhat indignant way, ' Crier, you are the only one disturbing the court, and if you will only stay asleep, there will be no more disturbance.' Iu the same way, if by some providential means, the hon. member for West York could be put into one of these slumbers which a gentleman down on Sparks street produces, I do think there would not be quite so much discord or trouble, noise, clamour and controversy as there happens to be from time to time in this community.

I endeavoured to follow the hon. gentleman in the course of his remarks last night, and I shall endeavour more or less to-day to follow them, but I am bound to say that his route was altogether too circuitous, it covered too wide a field to allow the possibility of my doing so. The discussion of all, or even one-half, of the topics the hon. gentleman saw fit to introduce in the course of his oration last night would occupy all the time at my disposal, or at the disposal of this House, from now probably until the end of the session, because there has been no subject under discussion in this parliament ever since it opened on the Gtli February last, that my hon. friend did not import into this debate. I shall therefore endeavour, not to follow him all the way round, but to confine myself as much as I possibly can to the subject immediately under discussion. My hon. friend threw absolutely no light on this subject, although he imported a great deal of heat. It was heat without light. It was certainly of no purpose for him to repeat over and over again, as he did, and as he also did last year, the platitude that it would be an excellent thing for us if we could secure free admission to Great Britain of our grain and the imposition of a hostile tariff against the grain of other countries. If we could secure admission for our grain products into the markets of the old country free of duty and have all others excluded or subjected to a discriminating, and if possible prohibitory tariff, that would be a capital thing for us. I am sure it never needed any dis-53 '

cussion or elaboration whatever to make good this contention and when the hon. gentleman repeated that platitude for the twentieth time he did not throw any light whatever on the question which this House is called upon now to consider, under the amendment of the leader of the opposition.

The hon. gentleman was asked how we could get that concession from the mother country-and that was the real point, surely, of any discussion that could be made on the subject. He was asked : How are you

going to secure that concession ? and he answered at once : We can secure it because Mr. Chamberlain said that he was willing we should have it. Then he read-I wonder if the House will believe it without my verifying it-he actually read, in support of his statement, a paragraph from the very speech from which the right hon. leader of the House quoted the other day for the purpose of proving-as he did prove beyond all shadow of doubt-that Mr. Chamberlain had not expressed any such willingness and was entirely convinced of the impossibility of any concession of the kind being given. These were the words which my hon. friend from West York read :

Let the offer

My hon. friend did not tell us what offer it was to which Mr. Chamberlain was referring.

Let the offer, said Mr. Chamberlain, come voluntarily from them, and I believe It will be considered in this country, not in any huckstering spirit, but will be entertained as part of a greater policy intended to unite in the closest bonds of affection and interest all the communities under the British flag and all the subjects of Her Majesty throughout the empire.

Those were Mr. Chamberlain's expressions, but in that very speech my hon. friend will see, if he takes the pains to read it, and I hope he has read it-but, no, I hope he has not, because, if he has, it would be extremely disingenuous conduct on his jiart to read the passage he quoted without reading the passages in which Mr. Chamberlain pointed out the impossibility of our having any such concession made to us under the conditions existing to-day. I shall read Mr. Chamberlain's expressions, which I only repeat because it has become necessary to do so in consequence of the turn the discussion has taken and the contentions made by my hon. friend. Mr. Chamberlain was discussing three possible solutions of the question of preferential trade within the empire.

The first proposition he discussed was that the colonies should abandon their duties, which were all in the nature of protective duties more or less. He said this proposition is not a hopeful one because not one of the colonies is prepared-they are certainly not all prepared-to abandon the tariffs they now have and which involve more or less a protectionist element, more or less an element which can be used, incidentally in

some of them, purposely in others, for the protection of colonial industries. That was a proposition therefore which Mr. Chamberlain felt bound to d smiss from practical consideration. He went on to say :

There is another proposition, and that is that the colonies should keep their tariffs as they are to-day, but that the Imperial government should so arrange its tariff that a duty should be placed on foreign wheat and corn coming into the British islands, while the colonial tariffs remain as they were.

Mr. Chamberlain said no, there is no possibility of that ever being adopted. That is a result to which the workingmen of the mother country could never be induced to submit. And therefore the second proposition was dismissed as impracticable and impossible.

He said, there is a third proposition. That is the proposition of a zollverein not exactly like the German zollverein because that was a zollverein between conterminous countries, but a zollverein, with such modifications as might be capable of application to tbe condition of things in our colonies. He said that is a hopeful proposition, hut it involves the colonies abandoning all their tariff imposts which are of a protectionist character. In other words, the colonies would have to abandon all their tariff im. posts which are unlike those of tbe mother country, that is to say which either, directly and purposely, as is the case in some of the colonies, or incidentally ns is the case in * ours, involve protection to colonial industries.

The right lion, gentleman who leads the House (lit. Hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier) has shown us conclusively that it is absolutely impossible for tbe two parts of tbe resolution of my bon. friend the leader of the opposition to hang together at all, under the doctrine laid down by Mr. Chamberlain. My hon. friend insists that we must have a protective tariff applicable to the industries of this country, and in the same breath he undertakes to say that we may have that which, according to Mr. Chamberlain, is absolutely inconsistent and diametrically opposed to it, namely, a preference in the markets o'f the mother country. The right lion, the First Minister has pointed that out so conclusively and luminously that I am not going to further impose on the patience of the House by discussing a point so absolutely clear and which so entirely disposes of the resolution submitted to us by tbe leader of tbe opposition.

But tbe bon. member for West York retorts: that may be all right from our point of view, but bow is it from your point of view ? You profess that you have not a protectionist tariff, but a free trade tariff, and therefore there is no inconsistency in your going to the mother country and asking that which, it is quite evident, we would be entirely estopped from asking from the Imperial government. Well, now I want Mr. RUSSELL, (Hants).

to know who ever said we bad a free trade policy in this country. I want to know who ever said we had a free trade tariff, if I may use that expression, in this country. I do not think that anybody ever said we bad free trade in this country; I am prepared to say we do not have it.

My bon. friend has discussed this matter as if there were only two kinds of tariff, of fiscal policy, a policy of free trade, and a policy of protection. He certainly is altogether at sea when he makes a suggestion like that. We have not free trade in this country, we have not a free trade policy in this country, nor have we a protectionist policy in this country. We have in this country to-day substantially the policy with which we set out in the year 1807; that is to say, that instead of there being two kinds of fiscal policy as my hon. friend suggests, there are really three kinds, clearly and easily distinguishable. There is first of all-if I may take four or five minutes to explain a matter which is so entirely elementary-there is first of all a protectionist tariff, purposely and ostensibly framed with the object of excluding foreign goods coming from other countries, and which does exclude those products in so far as it successfully operates as a protective tariff. It is levied on goods which can be produced and which are produced in the country, and of a kind that are and can be produced in the country, levied upon them for the purpose of compelling the population to use those articles produced in the country, and for the purpose of excluding those which are produced in the foreign and competing country. That is a protectionist tariff. There is opposed to that what I may properly call a free trade tariff, such a tariff as they have in the old country, a tariff which carefully eliminates any elements of that sort, which is carefully designed for the purpose of ensuring that every penny of taxation that is paid, every penny of money taken out of the pockets of the taxpayers, is taken solely for the purpose of going into the treasury of the country. It is a tariff levied upon things, not which can be produced in the country, but which cannot by any possibility be produced in tbe country ; that I call a free trade tariff, the very opposite of the one I spoke of previously.

Then there is between these two a tariff such as we had in this country in 1867 down to the fiscal revolution of 1878, and which we are endeavouring to work our way back to, and have in a large measure worked our way back to, under tbe reformed tariff introduced by my bon. friend the Minister of Finance, a revenue tariff which is designed to exclude as far as possible the element of protection; because, as Mr. Mackenzie pointed out many years ago, in our tariff there always was an element of incidental protection, and in our tariff today there is an element of incidental

protection. But, as tlie Minister of Customs has often pointed out, that is an incident to the main purpose of the tariff, which is the collection of a revenue, and is not the protection of native industries. Now, then, this is the kind of tariff that we have to-day, and this is the kind of tariff, a revenue tariff with incidental protection, under which Mr. Chamberlain said it would be impossible for us to go to the mother country and ask for anything like a zollverein, or anything like a preference, or anything like such a scheme as is outlined in the resolution of the hon. leader of the opposition. The present tariff does afford incidental protection, that is to say, it does give a certain degree of assistance to native industries, it presents a certain obstacle to the foreign competitor, it does give a certain measure of advantage to the home producer as against the foreign competitor in the same manner as freights, insurances and other charges prevent an obstacle to the foreign competition and an advantage to the native producer. But it has for its chief purpose the collection of a revenue.

As I have said before, Mr. Chamberlain proved it impossible for us to go to the mother country and ask for preferential trade so long as we continue to maintain a tariff like that. We are prepared to stand upon that tariff, we are prepared to adhere to it. Our hon. friends opposite say it is really their own tariff, it is really their own policy, and I suppose therefore that they are also prepared to maintain and adhere to it. We all agree that it is impossible to adopt any other fiscal system or to abandon altogether all duties that could be made operative for the encouragement of native industries, and for that reason, I say again, it is absolutely impossible for my hon. friend to ask that we should accept his resolution, or to ask Mr. Chamberlain or anybody else to give us the benefit of a preferential arrangement in the English market, as matters stand at present. What may happen in the future, what may happen later on under the development of advanced Imperial ideas, what may happen in the course of a number of years, after this matter has been under consideration of the people of England and after it has been under the consideration of the people of Canada, opens up too long a vista, is too far remote for us to consider ; it is too far in the dim and distant future to be a matter of practical politics or command the consideration of practical men in a practical age, and in a businesslike parliament such as 1 understand this to be.

But my hon. friend thinks it is a very easy thing. He can make a budget for the English Chancellor of the Exchequer just as simple as rolling off a log. If you take part of the duty off tea, take a part of the duty which is now paid by the Englishman on his tea, and every penny of which goes 53}

into the treasury of the country, and put it on the competing grain coming in from the United States, you have the whole thing done in a jiffy, no difficulty about it at all. He says that when you do this the workingman of England will have to pay no more than at present, he will be simply paying the same tax as now, and you will have this brought about by one stroke of the pen, by one item in the tariff propositions in the budget speech of an English minister. Very well, just let us analyse that for a moment. Of course if the discrimination against the foreign wheat was great enough, if the tariff charge was high enough to keep it out of the English market altogether, and if we could produce enough colonial cereals to feed the population of the British isles, then it is obvious there would be no tax collected from wheat at all, no tax collected from corn ; no tax collected from grain, and the consequence would be that the English taxpayer, the English workingman would have to make up that deficit by submitting to the imposition of a direct tax. But if it did not do its perfect work, and it would not do it for it could not possibly keep out the foreign grain altogether, not for years at all events, or until we were able entirely to supply the requirements of the country, then until that tariff which my hon, friend is going to give to the British Chancellor, is imposed and does its perfect work, then there will be a certain amount of corn brought into the British islands, there will be a certain amount of corn from Canada. Well, what would be the effect of that ? The price would be raised to the English consumer. Of course that goes without saying ; and my hon. friend agrees that this duty will be paid by the English consumer. He was somewhat in doubt about that, but I think there can be no doubt about it-the duty will be paid by the English consumer. But my hon. friend says that makes no difference, because he will only be paying on his breadstuffs, the same tax that he is now paying upon tea ; that it is only as broad as it is long to him. it will make no difference to him whatever, so long as he is paying the tax. upon what article or product he is paying it. But my hon. friend forgets that apart from the duty, apart from the increment of the price that would have to be added to the foreign corn on account of the duty payable upon it. there would also be the increased price at which he would have to pay for the corn which was produced in this country. I am certain that if he makes that proposition to any intelligent workingman in the old country, he will get his answer straight from the shoulder, so clear that it will be absolutely impossible for him to misunderstand it.

Mr. Chamberlain every time that he has had occasion to discuss this question, and he has discussed it in numerous speeches- I was going to say in innumerable speeches

in the old country, he 'has discussed it in these foreign and colonial speeches that have been quoted in the debate-has presented this difficulty so straight and clear that I cannot understand how it is that my hon. friend, or any other hon. member on his side of the House who has a practical head upon his shoulders and practical sagacity and wisdom, can over and over again present this proposal which has had the bottom knocked out of it so many times. The hon. gentleman compares this case with the case of Australia. He says that the Postmaster General (Hon. Mr. Mulock) is about to go to Australia in a few days and that if he goes there he will find a country that is about to have a protective tariff imposed on it. I believe that it is likely enough that it will have. All the signs go to show that a moderate protective tariff will probably be the fiscal system of the Australian Commonwealth. He says, notwithstanding all that, are you not going to ask for a reciprocal arrangement between this country and the Commonwealth of Australia. I hope we are, and I hope, more or less confidently, that we will be able to obtain it and that by virtue of the arrangement that may be made by this government with the Australian Commonwealth a growing and profitable business may be built up between the Dominion of Canada and that new Commonwealth. My hon. friend says : If this is possible with Australasia, why not with England ? Why not ? Because there is no analogy whatever between the two cases. If Australasia were a country such as England is, a small country in its extent, or relatively so, with an enormous population, with a population of from forty to fifty millions ot' people, absolutely dependent upon their foreign trade, and upon the extent to *which they can push their manufactured products in foreign countries and obtain payment for them ; the foreign trade of which, as Mr. Chamberlain says, is the very breath of its life, and engaged in a life and death struggle with other and competing countries with enormous resources and enormous capital ; the centre of a vast and delicate financial organism which it would be fatal to disturb-if the Australasian Commonwealth presented such conditions as these, then, he would have a similar proposal to deal with to that which he is presenting to the consideration of the House and which we are asked to commend to the consideration of the British minister. The situations are so entirely different, there is such a failure of analogy between the two things that I am amazed-if I may use a word which has gone out of fashion since the leadership of the opposition has been changed-I am surprised, not to say either amazed or astounded, that either the hon. leader of the opposition, or the hon. member for West York, who has held a position in the cabinet, who has held not

Mr. RUSSELL (Hants).

only a position in the cabinet but one which brought him into close touch with questions of this character, should have presented an analogy of that sort that had no possible bearing on the question which is under deliberation by the House at the present moment.

Well, Sir, there is one other subject to which the hon. member for West York referred, and with which I will deal very briefly, the subject of bounties. He discussed the iron and steel bounties as if these bounties were being given, not for the benefit of this whole country at large, but from some partiality for the capitalists, for the individuals, and for the corporations that are engaged in the work of producing iron and steel. Was there ever a greater mistake made ? Was there ever a greater sophistry presented to the House for its consideration than that ? The hon. member the other night referred to the bounties as if there was something inconsistent between the maintenance of bounties and opposition to a protectionist system. I have always thought, and I have always said, that if there is any way at all in which it is proper for the government to grant encouragement to one industry at the expense of the general public, the peculiarly and pre-eminently proper way to do it is by means of bounties. Why ? If you pick out any particular industry and say that it is desirable and in the interest of the country at large that that industry should be established and if you set yourself to the task of establishing it and do so by means of the imposition of a protective duty, what are you doing ? You are admitting that it is a matter of consequence to the country as a whole, you are admitting that it is a matter of public interest, that it is a matter in which the whole public are concerned, or else, you have no business to be dealing with it at all. and. making that admission, you are, nevertheless, taxing the cost of establishing that industry only upon a narrowly limited circle of people who are to bear the burden of the tariff imposition which you have imposed. Is not that so ? I say it is very obvious, and af we come to the conclusion, as this country came to the conclusion years ago, that it is to the advantage of the whole Dominion that the iron and steel industry should be established, not for the benefit of the dealers in iron and steel at all, but for the benefit of the people at large, then, I say, that the peculiarly and pre-eminently proper way to do that is not by the imposition of a tariff which will be borne by a particular class, or a narrowly limited circle of people, but which will be borne by the people of the country at large and in common. Therefore, I say that there is all the difference in the world between a bounty and a protective duty for the purpose of establishing an industry, and that much can be said in favour of the granting of a bounty which

would have absolutely no application at all if one were dealing with the question of the imposition of a customs duty. That disposes then of what the hon. member for West York says in regard to lead. It may come to be considered in this country that lead is in the same position as iron and steel, that it is equally in the interest of the country to establish the lead industry, and if the government come to the conclusion that it is there will be no impropriety in granting a bounty on lead smelting, as they have granted a bounty on iron and steel production, provided that the money can he spared, because we are not bound to do two things at once. It may be very true that the lead smelters may be able to make out as perfect a case in favour of a bounty as the iron and steel men have been able to make out, and yet the government of this country may be compelled to say, under the circumstances, that they have exhausted all the surplus at their disposal, that they have pledged the resources of this country to as great an extent as they are able to do for the purpose of encouraging industries of that sort and that the lead men must bide their time. I was glad to hear the hon. Minister of Finance say that the matter had not been finally disposed of ; that it is still under consideration. I am certain that whatever resolution may be come to on the subject will be in line with the suggestions I have made and in accord with the principle to which I have just referred.

Now, I think I will not undertake to follow the hon. member for West York any further in the somewhat, if I may be permitted to say so, rambling and very circuitous route that was mapped out for us in the course of his speech on the tariff. I am certainly not going to follow him in those unamiable, unpleasant and undesirable topics which he thought it necessary to import into this debate. I have not the talent for them, I have not the genius for them, I have no liking for them, I have the most positive disgust for them, and I absolutely decline to enter into any controversies of the kind. I listened to the mover of the amendment (Mr. Borden, Halifax) with a great deal of interest to learn what it was possible for him to say in answer, as I know he must have felt, as a lawyer, it was incumbent upon him to answer, the difficulties that have been suggested from time to time, difficulties that have been so clearly presented by Mr. Chamberlain, who is his greatest friend in this matter, the greatest friend of this country, and the warmest advocate, in any exalted sphere, that has been found of the policy of a preferential tariff in favour of the products of Canada and of the colonies of the empire throughout the world. I say, that I did listen with a great deal of interest and earnestness to my hon. friend to ascertain what new thing the hon. gentleman was going to be able to say that would throw any light whatever upon this

question of the preferential tariff, which I suppose is the central feature of the resolutions which he has presented to the consideration of the House. He is a very industrious man-we all know that. And I was quite sure that if there was anything in the whole compass of literature, ancient or modern, that could be brought forward in support of his resolution, my hon. friend's industry would enable him to find it. And what did he find ? Not a single statement, I undertake to say-not a single one-of an encouraging character from any English statesman of the first rank or even of the second rank. He did not even get as much as our lamented former colleague, Mr. McNeill, who rexiresented North Bruce in the last parliament, used to get. He gave us scraps from newspapers and other periodicals. He quoted an utterance from the Saturday Review. I think one of the most encouraging of all was from a financial organ, admitting that there was a possibility that at some time in the future-twenty years from this, if I caught the phrase correctly-there might he a possibility of some change in the fiscal arrangements as now established between the mother country and the colonies. The hon. gentleman has undertaken to play the role on this question that used to be assumed by Mr. McNeill. That role is entirely unsuited to him. He is too hard-headed and practical a man to fill that role successfully-he has too much common sense and altogether too little imagination. He cannot indulge in those moonlit and mystical dreams with which the former member for North Bruce used to entertain this House. In spite of all his scraps from newspapers and his disjointed clippings from Mr. Chamberlain's speeches, though they were all patched together in a bag, he could not make the bag stand upright as the former member from North Bruce seemed to do. As hon. gentlemen will remember, it was a saying of Poor Richard, that you could not make an empty bag stand upright. This inter-imperial preferential trade bag is absolutely empty and there is not a possibility of making it stand upright. As a former Minister of Railways in this country used to remark. ' there aint nothing to it. Our friend, Mr. McNeill, used to build himself- and rightly-upon Mr. Chamberlain. And the leader of the opposition, if he has anything in this new thesis of his of Imperial preferential trade, must also build himself upon Mr. Chamberlain : because Mr. Chamberlain is the most advanced statesman in the British Empire to-day who has given the slightest encouragement to a proposition of that kind. If you do not find anything in favour of inter-imperial preferential trade in this volume (Foreign and Colonial speeches) you will look for it elsewhere in vain. Mr. Chamberlain has discussed this subject with a wideness of range, and an accuracy of detail unexcelled by any other

statesman, either Imperial or colonial. If with the genius, the ideas and the courage of William Pitt, it is impossible for Mr. Chamberlain to hold out any encouragement but such as he has given- the extent and force of which we now know, as presented by the right hon. premier yesterday-it is idle and purposeless, it is a sheer waste of time to seek for that encouragement in the utterances of any other Imperial statesman. I dismiss, therefore, that proposition, so far as it has been given us by the leader of the opposition and enforced by the hon. member for West York (Mr. Wallace) as one in which there is absolutely no substance, and upon which it is not worth our while to occupy ourselves further under the present circumstances of the country.

But there is another* element in the hon. gentleman's resolution, another article in this new opposition' creed. I believe they are revising their creed, as the hon. member for North Norfolk (Mr. Charlton) said the other night that his church were revising theirs.

Mr. MACLEAN.

Somebody else ought to do the same.

Mr. RUSSELL.

We are always ready to revise our creed when good reasons can be shown for it. I refer now to the last branch of the resolution, the proposal, if I understand it aright, that we should retaliate on all countries that do not treat us fairly :

This House is further of opinion that equivalent or adequate duties should be imposed by Canada upon the products and manufactures of countries not within the empire in all cases where such countries fail to admit Canadian products and manufactures upon fair terms, and that the government should take for this purpose all such available measures as may be found necessary.

We are asked by this resolution to retaliate in all cases. Yet, if I understood the remarks of the leader of the opposition, he was going to except from it our great neighbour, the United States, which certainly does not treat us with that degree of fairness, or generosity, at any rate, in the matter of tariff regulations, which we might reasonably expect. He is going to except the United States and apply the resolution to Germany, and to Germany alone. Now, one word as to retaliation. Of course, the temptation to retaliate when injured is one of the first instincts of our brute nature. We instinctively resort to the lex talionis which demands an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But while the first impulse, the brute instinct of the natural man is to retaliate, the civilized man pauses to reflect. He does not obey his immediate impulse. He first asks himself the question whether he is likely to accomplish by retaliation any useful purpose. Now, I think I can suggest why the hon. leader of the opposition excepted the United States, not in