Sir WILLIAM MTJLOCK.

When the tariff reductions were introduced in 1897, Sir Charles Tupper in this House predicted disaster to the manufactures of this country because of these reductions. The hon. member (Mr. Clancy) now says there were practically no reductions. Which view are we to accept ? Is it not a fact that these gentlemen opposite, in their tariff resolutions and in their speeches in this parliament have spent hours and weeks in denouncing us for tariff reduction ?

Mr. CLANCY.

I say there were some reductions, but there were not hundreds.

Sir WILLIAM MULOCK.

The hon. gentleman said there was not 15 per cent reduced.

Mr. CLANCY.

I said there was not 16 per cent of the imports of 1903 on which there was any reduction, and I repeat it. The Minister of Finance himself declared that taking reductions and increases on the whole, there was no general reduction of the tariff.

Mr. FIELDING.

I did not.

Mr. CLANCY.

Before we close I will prove that the hon. gentleman (Mr. Fielding) did say that. The Postmaster General thinks that in referring to an alleged statement of Sir Charles Tupper he can down the Conservative party. Sir Charles Tupper is well able to take care of himself, but let me remind the Postmaster General that there are a great many things which he said in this House, and which his party and he himself now repudiate. He is the last man who should speak of inconsistency. The Postmaster General is not himself able to pull up his skirts and pass safely over the mudhole. It doesn't come with very splendid grace from him to try to quote Mr. FIELDING.

Sir Charles Tupper against the Conservative party.

Sir WILLIAM MULOCK.

The hon. gentleman voted with Sir Charles Tupper then.

Mr. CLANCY.

I voted with him and I will vote with him again. This government proposed the most vicious tariff that has ever beset any country. They came into power just as 'the expansion 8iad comf menced the foundation for which was well laid by a prudent and wise Conservative government. The Liberals in opposition promised reductions, but because they saw they were wrong or because they were afraid of public opinion, they did not carry out their promise. The Minister of Finance told us the other day that the .people went to the customs houses to hand their money over. Well, the reason is that they could not get their goods until they handed their money over. The Conservative party would have protected every industry in Canada that would give a man a fair wage for a fair day's work, and they would not have collected the millions of unnecessary taxes that this government does. They teir us that they have a revenue tariff, and if so a revenue tariff is a device for taking the greatest possible amount of money out of the pockets of the people.

Sir WILLIAM MULOCK.

The people pay into the public treasury and not into private pockets under our tariff.

Mr. CLANCY.

The Postmaster General and his friends went throughout the country denouncing the duty on sugar, but last year there was a higher rate of duty on sugar than ever before. It was $1.26 per 100 pounds as against $1.14 during the Conservative regime. It is the same with rice and numerous other commodities. I am not afraid of money going into the pockets of the manufacturers, because if it does it will enable them to pay better wages to the workingmen and give them more employment. I venture to say that if the Postmaster General goes into any business which has become profitable by reason of fair protection, he will very soon find he will have competition in that business which will give him enough to do to hold his own. I would like to read to the Minister of Finance one or two chapters from his speech in which he declares what protection has done. We had it read by the right hon. the First Minister the other day. He told us that the United States was ruined with protection, that an unhealthy stimulus was given to business, that too much was done, that the small fellows were frozen out, and that the big ones fell after having swallowed up the small ones. I want to say to the Postmaster General, with all the respect which I have for a gentleman of his ability and his inconsistencies, and they are great, that until he is in a position to cast the

first stone, he had better hesitate before ho throws one at even so distinguished a man as Sir Charles Tupper.

Sir WILLIAM MULOCK.

I was not so much alluding to Sir Charles Tupper as to the hon. member for Bothwell. In 1897 Sir Charles Tupper declared that our tariff had made such a wholesale reduction that it -was going to bring about wholesale disaster.

Mr. BRODER.

Sir Charles Tupper was discussing the preference so far as you proposed to apply it to other countries besides Great Britain.

'Sir WILLIAM MULOCK. He was discussing the tariff, and the hon. member for Bothwell voted with him on that occasion, and on several occasions since. I am not quarreling with his vote or with his references now. The only difficulty I have is as to the views of which member for Bothw'ell to accept-the member who voted at that time or the member who is sitting here tonight.

Mr. CLANCY.

They are quite consistent.

Sir WILLIAM MULOCK.

He has told us that our tariff reductions amount to nothing-not more than 15 or 16 per cent on the total imports-while a few years ago it was the very opposite. I only mention that for the benefit of those who do not know the facility with which the hon. gentleman can take this or that side of a question, from which they will no doubt judge how much value to attach to his utterances.

Mr. WM. ROSS (Victoria).

Mr. WM. ROSS (Victoria).

What I was going to remark was this. In the old times, before the change in the tariff was made, there were compound rates of duty-so much a pound or so much a square yard, and so much ad valorem on the same article.

Mr. CLANCY.

There are specific duties on nearly every article produced in the maritime provinces. Can the hon. gentleman tell me one that has been taken off ? And if the people suffer under them, we in the other provinces are suffering.

Mr. WM. ROSS (Victoria).

In the present tariff the duties are either specific or ad valorem, and one clerk will do more business for a wholesale house to-day than three could do under the old tariff, because there are not so many different calculations. That is admitted by all men in the wholesale trade.

Mr. BROCK.

What would that amount to in a business ? Not $20 in a year.

Mr. WM. ROSS (Victoria).

But that is not what I rose about. We wasted the whole time of the sitting of Saturday night, and that is what we are doing now. At this time we should exercise some common sense and bring the session to an end. On Saturday night a man spoke on the Trent Valley canal from eight o'clock till eleven. Do you think the interest of the Trent Valley canal was promoted by that speech ? No, it was retarded. Now we are going back to give the history of the tariff, and we seem likely to do just as little to-night as we did Saturday night.