Mr. BORDEN:

I am sorry if I misunderstood my right hon. friend; I did really understand him to say what I have just stated. If it is merely a thirst for information which led the right hon. gentleman to allude to this subject, I may give him the information now, that the Grank Trunk Pacific Railway have assented to the changes. I trust that declaration will do much to relieve the inquietude from which my right hon. friend seems to be suffering in that regard. The terminals at Quebec will be ready, I am assured by my hon. friend the

Minister of Railways and Canals, by the time the road is completed, and the road is being advanced with all possible expedition. Unfortunately, certain delays arose out of incidents connected with the Quebec bridge under the administration of my right hon. friend which I shall not pause to consider to-night. These have put the enterprise back to a certain extent. The station at Champlain market, and the joint station to be used by the Grand Trunk Railway Company and the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, which will be a station worthy of the city in which it is situated, and of the great railway companies which it will serve, will shortly be under construction, I am assured. The shops at St. Malo are already commenced and will be proceeded writh as rapidly as possible. Further than that, we have taken a step at Quebec, which my right hon. friend might well have taken long ago, that is, we have undertaken the construction of as fine and commodious a dry-dock, for the use of the great ships using the St. Lawrence waterway, as can be found anywhere in the world. The contract has been let for that work and the work will be proceeded with as soon as the spring opens, in fact my hon. friend the Postmaster General (Mr. Pelletier) informs me that it has already been begun.

My right hon. friend has summoned to his aid the cry of hard times, and he considers that the Speech from the Throne is absolutely insufficient inasmuch as it does not point out any direct or immediate remedy for hard times and for the high cost of living to which he also alludes. He confused these two subjects in the course of his remarks, as it seemed to me, and I was not sure from time to time, whether he was dealing with one or with the other. However, it may be that they are properly dealt with together. I would like to refresh the memory of my right hon. friend in one respect. He seems to think that the reference in the Speech from the Throne calls for the expression of some declaration of policy which will provide an immediate and effective remedy. He has forgotten the words which he put into the mouth of the then Governor General in 1908, words which were much more calamitous, if I may use that expression, than anything to be discovered in the Speech from the Throne on the present occasion:-

The Dominion has been blessed by a long series of prosperous years, and though at the present moment its business is being restricted by the financial stringency which prevails throughout the world, I feel assured that this

unfavourable condition will be temporary and that the illimitable resources of Canada and the world-wide recognition of them give us ample guarantee of continued material progress.

I have examined this speech-it is very lengthy-and up to the present time I have not discovered in it a statement of any immediate or effective remedy. Perhaps, if I yielded the floor my right hon. friend would explain to the House why that omission occurred. We did not put the word ' unfavourable ' into our speech on. this occasion. The Government of that day seemed to take a very gloomy view of the situation. We do not take a gloomy view of .the situation. We do really believe that the resources of this country are so great and so widely recognized that any slight restriction in business is not to be seriously regarded and that this country in 1914, as in 1908, will make it manifest to the world that the check, if any there be, is only for the moment.

My right hon. friend has alluded to the inquiry which the Government has directed into the increase in the cost of living. We have thought it wise to follow the British example in this regard, and to select civil servants of ability and experience to make an examination into this question. We have selected them without regard to what may be supposed to have been their political views, knowing that they are all men not only of ability and experience, but of integrity as well, and that they will bring to this important task the best that is in them, and give to the country the very best of their services in coming to a conclusion.

My right hon. friend has moved a resolu-iton on this subject. He desires that the Address to His Royal Highness shall not pass in the words proposed, but that the following shall be added thereto:

We regret to have to represent to your Royal Highness that in the gracious speech with Which you have met Parliament, whilst it is admitted that business is in a depressed condition, yet there is no indication of any intention on the part of your advisers to take any steps towards relieving such a situation.

When I said that my right hon. friend had forgotten the speech which he put into the mouth of His Excellency the Governor General in 1908, I evidently made a mistake; he was thinking of that speech when he drafted this resolution. His Royal Highness has not stated in the Speech from the Throne that business is in a depressed condition. I would like to observe in regard to this amendment that it does not quite come up to some of the speeches which the right hon. gentleman has been making in the

provinces of Ontario and Quebec; there is a remarkable difference. When my right hon. friend spoke at Hamilton on the 26th of November last he was ready with a policy. Why is it that the policy which he announced at Hamilton is not embodied in the terms of his resolution? Have some of his friends expressed the opinion that he was a little hasty? What is the reason for the marked difference? In the one case he shouted loudly; in the other case he whispers softly. My right hon. friend did not wait until the opening of Parliament to change his policy. His policy as expressed at Hamilton was this:

The policy I give you at this moment; the policy 1 believe every patriotic man in Canada ought now to support, and the policy I believe it to be the duty of the Government immediately to inaugurate, is a policy of absolutely freed food-food free from customs duty.

That was on the 26th of November, and on the 9th of December he reached Montreal. But in the meantime, he seemed to have received a new light and wisdom. His proposal when he reached Montreal was to have a few perambulating commissions of ministers such as he had in 1897, and in 1907, if I mistake not. That was a remarkable change, but he has not suggested either one or the other of these policies in the resolution which he has introduced to-night -a resolution of the vaguest character, which permits my right hon. friend to retire within the lines of Torres Vedras whenever he finds it convenient to do so. Let me point out to the right hon. gentleman-because he has insisted, outside of this Parliament, if not within, that the high cost of living is due to the customs tariff- that a perfectly impartial observer and writer, and one whose opinion would not be influenced by any lack of sympathy for him, has made a rather remarkable pronouncement on the tariff of 1897, which was not materially altered in 1907. In his recent work published in the latter part of 1913, Professor O. A. Skelton, in dealing with the general economic history of the Dominion, says at page 201, with regard to my right hon. friend's tariff of 1897:

Yet, with all this tinkering, the tariff remained substantially the National Policy tariff of the old regime.

I do not intend to-night, especially having regard to the fact that a commission is investigating this question at the present time, to deal at any length with the causes that have brought about the increase in the cost of living. My right hon. friend himself has admitted that the increase in the cost of

living is world-wide. In the same work from which I have just quoted, a General Economic History of the Dominion, 1867-1912, by Professor Skelton, I observe at page 272 the following:

After 1896 the rise was rapid and almost unbroken ; the index numbers prepared by the Dominion Department of Labour showed that by 1912 the average wholesale prices of the most important commodities had risen nearly thirty per cent above the average from 1890 to 1900, and the retail prices and rents had soared to still higher levels. This rise, as English railway strikes, French food riots, German Socialist victories and United States urban discontent revealed, was not peculiar to Canada; under the price-equalizing influences of international exchange, all the leading countries shared in the increase, in fairly proportionate degree.

That is the opinion of a disinterested writer who has made the study of economics his lifework. Many considerations have been put forward by economic writers as reasons for the increase in the cost of living. It has been asserted that a higher standard of living has been established throughout the world during a period of great prosperity. According to the opinions of others, it has been based, to a certain extent, upon the increase of urban population and the relative decrease of rural population. It has been urged that the large immigration to Canada of persons, many of whom locate in cities, and none of whom became producers of food within a year or eighteen months, has also had its effeet. The increased cost of labour, resulting in an increase in the cost of producing and distributing food products, including the cost of delivery in cities and towns, has been put forward by others as a contributing cause. Then it has been urged that the increase is to some extent dependent upon the lack of organization among producers and consumers, and part of it has been laid at the door of waste and extravagance. Great losses occur in all civilized- countries through unnecessary fires; Professor Skelton says that in the United States there is a yearly loss by fire of buildings which placed side by side would constitute a block extending from New York to Chicago. Waste, loss and extravagance of this character are' urged as causes. Then other economic writers put forward the decrease in the purchasing power of money owing to the remarkable increase in gold production in the last two decades.

I do not intend to pass upon any 9 p.m. of these causes. It may be that all of them have contributed in one way or another. But when my right hon. friend urges, as he has urged, that

this increase in the cost of living is due to the tariff, I would like to point out to him that the increase has not been restricted to recent years. Taking the number 100 as representing the average prices from 1890 to 1899, the index numbers, so-called, were as follows: in 1890 it was 110.3. In 1897 it had decreased to 92.2. My right hon. friend will observe that that was under the National Policy which he had undertaken to destroy. In 1907 it had risen to 12d. In 1908, during a period of financial stringency and business restriction, it fell to 120.8. In 1911 it had risen to 127.4. In 1912 it had risen to 134.4. In 1913 there was a trifling increase to 135. It is a remarkable fact that from 1890 to 1896 the cost of living in this country decreased, and an equally remarkable fact that from 18% until the right hon. gentleman went out of power, the cost of living increased in every year except one, 1907. By 1901 the cost of living in this country had reached the figure at which it stood in 18%, far above the figure of 1897. If my right hon. friend believes what he seems to believe, if one may judge by his speeches throughout the country, that this is all due to the tariff, why was it that during the fourteen years between 1897 and 1911 he took no step whatever to apply a remedy? But, if I mistake not, in the United States it is almost universally admitted that the reduction or abolition of the duties on food has had little or no effect upon prices in that country. My right hon. friend makes a comparison between the cost of living in this country and the cost of living in Great Britain. I have here a quotation, but I shall not take up the time of the House by reading it, from Mr. uoats, the statistician in the Department of Labour, who points out that although the cost of living is higher in Canada than in Great Britain, it is not by any means so much in excess as is indicated by the figures which the right hon. gentleman gave to the House this afternoon.

The abolition of duties as against the United States could hardly have the effect which the right hon. gentleman has claimed for it in his speeches outside of this House. He has declared, as I have understood his speeches, that the cost of living had been increased in Canada by the fact that the markets of the United States were taking our food products, and then, in connection with that, he suggested that the people of this country could obtain relief by abolishing the duties on food as

against the United States. If the prices in the United States are so much higher than they are in Canada as to cause a flow of food products from this Dominion into the United States, how in the name of common sense are you to get relief by going to the United States and buying food products there at the high prices prevailing in that country? But, my right hon. friend may say: Let us throw down the bars altogether and open up our home market to all the nations of the world. Does he not realize the truth of what was expressed by Prof. Skelton, and what is expressed in more homely phrase in one of the United States journals which was attracted by certain utterances of my right hon. friend, that if we are going into the markets of the world to buy food products for the people of Canada, we shall meet Uncle Sam there, and the prices in the United States will, to a certain extent at least, control the situation? The markets of the world are governed by international conditions and demands.

Further, it has been pointed out by one of the foremost journals in the province of Ontario that the most obvious deduction from the speech of my right hon. friend in Hamilton would be this, that the only relief that could be brought to the people of Canada, if his theory is correct, would be to place an export duty on cattle, sheep, hogs and meats. I do not think my right hon. friend will be prepared to maintain a proposal of that kind.

He has also alleged that the high cost of living is due to trusts and combines. Well, if it is due to trusts and combines now, was it not due to trusts and combines during the fourteen years in which he saw it increase? If it was due to the

causes which he suggests, why did he not apply some of those remedies which he has been putting forward to the people of this country but as to which he was absolutely silent when he rose to speak in this House? And, further, does he not think that the trusts and combines in the United States are more numerous and highly developed than in Canada, and does he not believe that if we threw down our tariff bars and exposed the home markets of every province in Canada to competition from the United States, the trusts and combines of the United States would be just as powerful in Canada and just as detrimental in Canada as they could be in the United States?

Just one thing more in that connection. I would like to point out to my right hon.

friend that the difficulty is not wholly due to decreased production in Canada. Between 1901 and 1911 the population of Canada increased 34 per cent. The total production of milk increased 44 per cent. The export of dairy products decreased 11 per cent. The importation of dairy products increased 14 per cent and the total consumption increased 74 per cent. The per capita consumption in Canada during that period increased 30 per cent. Between 1900 and 1910 the production of eggs increased from 84,000,000 dozen to 143,000,000 dozen and their value increased from ten and a quarter million to twenty three and a half million dollars. During the same period the export of eggs decreased from 11,000,000 dozen to 92,000 dozen and the imports increased from 950,000 dozen to nearly two and a half million dozen. This indicates that the standard of living in Canada has increased, and the consumption in Canada, not only the actual but the per capita consumption, of a great many articles of food has very greatly increased in the meantime. What is the remedy? I say that the remedy is properly to be considered in this country and in this House, and the Government is giving it consideration. I say, in the first place, give every reasonable assistance and encouragement to maintain and increase the number of people on the land. I say, in the second place, assist the farmer with good roads, as we proposed in the Highways Bill against which the Opposition voted, and which was defeated by their friends in the Senate. Aid him with instruction in improved methods of production, as is proposed by the Agricultural Instruction Act. Thus increase the ratio of production to the labour and capital employed. Promote co-operation among the producers and the consumers and find more effective and cheaper methods of marketing. I do not say these are the only remedies that can be devised, but they are remedies that commend themselves strongly to me, and so far as is possible this Government will be prepared to act along those lines and to assist in every possible way in keeping the people upon the land, and in promoting co-operation between the producers and the consumers throughout Canada.

My right hon. friend's remedy is to abolish the protection now afforded the farmer in the home market and at the same time to subject him to a tariff protecting other industries. That seems to be a remarkable proposition. If my right hon. friend makes that proposal to

the urban population of Canada, I venture to say it will be no more effective among them than it is among the farmers of Canada. If we are to protect our industries, that of agriculture is at least entitled to the same consideration as any other. I say, however, to the labouring and urban population of Canada that if the farmers' home market is not protected, then the labouring population of the cities cannot expect that the industries which afford them employment can be protected. We believe that under present conditions in this country, Canadian industries ought to enjoy reasonable protection in order that our natural resources and raw materials can be worked up into the finished product by our own population instead of being exported to foreign countries to be employed in the support and development of their industries.

My right hon. friend has had many fiscal policies. He has had, in the first place, the policy of protection with which he started out in public life. He has had the policy of commercial union. He has advocated the policy of unrestricted reciprocity, and, among other policies, Continental free trade, free trade as it is in England, revenue tariff, restricted reciprocity, and now free food. My. right hon. friend has not stood by these policies very thoroughly. He has asserted them in very energetic terms, but when it came to the final conclusion of the matter he has not lived up to the mark. I have a great many quotations from my right hon. friend's speeches, but I shall use only one or two of them. In 1894 my right hon. friend was very strong upon the theory of free trade as it is in England. He said in Winnipeg in 1894:

*When the Liberal party are in power they will at once give a measure of freedom of trade and step by step they will follow it up, and if God spares our lives we shall progress steadily until we have it as full as Great Britain has it. I come before you to-night to preach to you this new gospel of free trade. I denounce to you the policy of protection as bondage, yes bondage and X refer to it as bondage in the same way as American slavery was bondage. Sir, our policy is freedom of trade such as exists in England, such as is practiced in Great Britain.

There are many similar references. In a letter written by Sir Wilfrid Laurier to Mr. Bertram less than two years afterwards, my right hon. friend did not stand very closely to that policy. He said:

Whether a policy of absolute freedom of trade would or would not be injurious to the manufacturing industries of this country, is a question which X will not stop to discuss here. There is no occasion for such a discussion as the 3

intention of the Liberal party is not and never was to establish [DOT]free trade in this country.

Under these circumstances, it would seem to me that the people could not have a great deal of confidence that my right hon. friend will persevere in the policy of free food which he advocated at Hamilton, which he partially abandoned at Montreal, and which he seems to have altogether abandoned now that he has reached this House.

My right hon. friend has also referred to unemployment. He has stated that there are 100,000 people in Canada at the present time- out of employment. Has my right hon. friend any authority for that statement?

Sir WILFRID LAURIER:

I think that I am within the mark.

Mr. BORDEN:

Of course, we can all have our own opinions on such subjects. I would like to point out to my right hon. friend that his somewhat despondent opinion as to conditions in this country does not seem to be shared by some of his political friends. I observed in a great Liberal organ, in its issue of January 1, a number of messages from the provincial premiers. Four of these gentlemen are friends of my right hon. friend. I shall only extract a sentence or two from each one, and I am bound to say that it is to the credit of his friends who are at the head of provincial' affairs, that they do not take the same pessimistic view of conditions in Canada as that which my right hon. friend has expressed to this House. Sir James Whitney, whose illness we all so sincerely deplore, and who will, I hope, shortly be restored to health, said:

Ontario has had a year of great prosperity and can see still greater things ahead.

He was not looking at conditions in Ontario through the same spectacles that my right hon. friend uses.

Sir Lomer Gouin, Premier of Quebec, said:

The province of Quebec has every reason to be satisfied with the measure of progress and prosperity which has been vouchsafed to it in 1913.

There is no note of pessimism in that such as my right hon. friend has uttered.

Hon. G. H. Murray, Premier of Nova Scotia, said:

There was much less decline in trade in Nova Scotia than in the western and central provinces. Moreover the present indications are promising.

Hon. J. K. Flemming (N.B.):-

Notwithstanding ' tight money,' the slackening of business energy within the province dur-

;4

the last year has been limited. We are hopeful that 1914 may prove a banner year. Our people are optimistic and better satisfied than formerly to remain and help to develop the wealth and possibilities in New Brunswick.

Hon. J. A. Matheson (P.E.I.):-

Generally speaking the year has been characterized by great corporate activity, as above referred to, and in other lines by a large and profitable trade, a fair production in the farming and fishing industries, a good measure of general prosperity, and the largest provincial revenue in our history.

Sir Rodmond Roblin (Manitoba): [DOT]

The year 1913 has been one of steady and satisfying progress along all lines for the province of Manitoba. In agriculture, in commerce, and along all industrial lines the year has been especially satisfactory.

Hon. Walter Scott (Saskatchewan):-

Saskatchewan reaches the end of the year with her farming population in better position and in better spirits than was the case a year ago.

Hon. Arthur L. Sifton (Alberta):-

Judged by every standard of the economist, Alberta exhibits a condition of prosperity. Nineteen hundred and thirteen has been one of the best years in this period.

Hon. Sir Richard McBride (B.C.) .-

British Columbia has made remarkable progress in the year just ended, and there is every reason to anticipate continued growth and prosperity in 1914.

Under these circumstances my right hon. friend cannot afford to sing the doleful song he has chanted to us.

Let me tell the leader of the Opposition that if he looks abroad he will find that there are countries in the world possessing magnificent resources and which are undoubtedly looking forward with certitude to a great future, in which the conditions as to non-employment are very much worse than they are in Canada. Between November 15 and December 1, idle freight cars in the United States increased from 22,000 to 57,000.

Any observations which I purpose making as to conditions in the United States for the purpose of comparing those outlined by my right hon. friend as existing in Canada, are not made with the idea of reflecting in any way upon the future of the United States. I might point out, indeed, that

.

that great economic and business authority, Sir George Paish, is convinced that conditions! in the United States at present are such as will lead to an early and. very marked advance of prosperity and business activity in that country. I am merely pointing out that there are conditions in the United States of a temporary character which seem to me to transcend anything that my right hon. friend has been able to point to in Canada, even if we accept his statement as to non-employment at its face value. The Daily Iron Trade estimates that in the United States there are in the iron and steel industry 1,000,000 men on the idle list with a wage loss of fifty millions a month; also 270,000 miners out of work. Blast furnaces in operation declined from 306 to 183. The Daily Iron Trade also estimates that one million men have been thrown out of employment who were engaged in industries allied to the steel and iron business. In South Chicago district nearly 6,000 men were recently discharged within three weeks and a much larger number placed on half time. In Washington 227 shingle" and lumber mills have been closed and 15,000 men thrown out of employment. The New York Journal of Commerce estimates that the present wage payments throughout the United States are 1,250,000 dollars per day below the normal, indicating a falling of four hundred million dollars for the year-The same journal states that out of a total of 627,000 union men employed in New York state, 101,150 are out of work, representing the highest unemployed average for many years.

Although, the conditions in Great Britain are fairly satisfactory, so far as most branches of the trade are concerned, there were, during the year ending November, 1913, 38 blast furnaces (pig iron) out of 321 closed down, 28 tin plate mills out of 508 closed dowm, and six steel sheet mills out of 77 closed down. There are similar statistics as to loss of employment in other European countries, but I will not inflict them upon the House to-night.

I will merely add this, that when my right hon. friend asserts that there was not any non-employment in Canada from 1897 to the present year he is absolutly forgetful of the conditions which prevailed during the latter part of 1907 and the early part of 1908. If I am not mistaken the conditions as to

non-employment during that period were 'quite as severe as those which prevail in Canada at present, I hope the manufacturing and commercial establishments in Canada, and other large employers of labour will bear in mind that during a period of great prosperity things have been going well for them and well for the country, and if owing to a certain financial stringency which pievails throughout the world, business may be checked a little now, it is not desirable that they should be too ready to throw men out of employment. They ought rather to have a little patience and to use a certain foresight and to look forward to that recovery of business which we have every reason to believe will begin when spring opens.

I have transgressed upon the time of the House much longer than I intended to. Let me say in closing simply this. The Government have in mind and will have in mind the prevailing conditions, whether restricted to Canada or of world-wide scope, and the Government will endeavour to do their duty by the people of Canada and by this country. The Government are firmly impressed with the belief that any little check at the present time is purely temporary and that the people of this country have every right to be optimistic and to look forward to the future with confident hope that the development and progress in the years to come will be infinitely greater than any which have characterized past years. .

As to the resolution which my right hon. friend has proposed: it is designed to invite the opinion of the House adversely to the Government;, it is a want of confidence resolution pure and simple. Under the circumstances, in view of the paucity of argument which my right hon. friend was able to bring forward in its support; in view of the fact that we have these conditions under consideration at the present time; in view of the fact that my right hon. friend has not been able to point out in his speech one single measure which he himself would advocate at present for the purpose of relieving the conditions which he claims to exist, I ask the hon. mem-ers of this House to mete out to this resolution the treatment which it deserves and to reject it by an overwhelming majority.

Mr. MICHAEL CLARK (Red Deer):

I

should like to be allowed to associate myself with the expressions that have been used on both sides of the House, both as to the sympathy of the people of Canada with 34

their Royal Highnesses and as to the ability displayed by the mover and seconder of the Address. I would like to congratulate my right hon. friend the Prime Minister also on the fact, that he appears to be in very good health as compared with the reports we heard about him during the recess. I am very glad he has been able to give us abundant evidence that these reports were very much exaggerated.

I have a somewhat unpleasant duty ter discharge in my next sentence, and that is to take absolute sides with the leader of the Government and against my right hon. friend in one particular. I am a western man, and personally I am gi-ate-ful to the Government for the time at which they have called the House together. I have good reason to know that that action of the Government was taken not without sympathy for the members of this House who live at great distances from the seat of government. I do not think that the late meeting of the House should lead to any undue lengthening of the session. I think that, if we get to work as we should do, it would rather have the effect of the business going through in a more expeditious and business-like way than sometimes it has done.

There is a great deal of purposeless talk, I think, in all parliaments. Not that I think that that applies to the talk of the Opposition last session. There was nothing purposeless about our talk. We had a very definite purpose in view and we accomplished it. Our purpose was to bring the Government and their supporters to a better frame of mind in regard to naval proposals. What that frame of mind is now, I am in a little haze about, so far as the Prime Minister's speech is concerned. I am glad, however, to recognize, in the business-like address which has been brought down, that the Government desires to shorten the session and to shorten discussions. Certainly, the programme of the Government for this session is most unambitious in its nature. I think they have introduced only one Bill, and that they are compelled to do, under the circumstances, by the last census-the Redistribution Bill. With regard to that Bill, I would only say this: that I have found a very general opinion amongst the people of this country-and an opinion which I share- that there will be two considerations, which at any rate will be present in the mind of the Prime Minister of this country in regard to that Bill. The first is that he is most unlikely to go outside the recognized constitution of the country,

and the second is that there is a widespread confidence that he would not lend his personal authority to anything like a gerrymander. I share that view, and I shall continue to share it until evidence is brought to the contrary.

Now, there are one or two points in the Speech that I think the Opposition may fairly pass. We are promised an econi-mical administration. There is a good deal of the compulsory feature that overtook the prodigal son in that promise. The fact is that that promise would have been more useful to the country, if it had been followed by performance, if it had been made two years ago. My hon. friend the Minister of Finance (Mr. White), in the art of dissipating a fortune, has made the prodigal son a beginner. He got a legacy of $50,000,000 of a surplus. That surplus has gone, and then he, who, I presume, is responsible for that particular paragraph of the Address, promises economy. Even deathbed or late repentances, however, are not to be discouraged in this world, and I can only express the hope that that paragraph of the Address will at any rate be carried out, and I am sure that is a hope which is shared by a very large majority of the people of this country.

My right hon. friend the Prime Minister has taken rather a peculiar course in the very lengthy speech which he has delivered to us. He has shown a distinct disposition to revive the controversies of last session, while he has dropped the Bills of last session. That is a most peculiar course. In fact, this is a very peculiar Government. Last session they gave us the Bills and they gave up the controversies. This session they have dropped the Bills, and my right hon. friend renews the controversies. Well, I can only say in regard to that that if there is a general disposition to renew the controversies of last session, we still have some physical strength and ideas left, and the challenge will be taken up at once. I am very glad to take it up in regard to the Highways Bill. There have been very numerous statements made about this Bill, and very peculiar statements. My hon. friend the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Roche), who is usually a man of very moderate language, went into the west, and I think in the town of Minnedosa he said that the Senate had throttled or killed the Highways Bill. This is a fair selection of the words he used. There was some excuse for his using strong language on that occasion-I do not believe in using strong language my-

,

self-because he was accompanied by no less an exemplar than the Premier of Manitoba. The Premier of Manitoba on that occasion referred to my fellow countryman in the person of the Postmaster General of Great Britain, first as a grampus and then as a jelly-bag Englishman. Well, they say that evil communications corrupt good manners, and so I can understand the strong language of my hon. friend.

Now, against all this talk about strangling and throttling and killing and throwing" out, what happened to the Highways Bill? I have never found any difficulty with any audience in this country in getting them to be absolutely enthusiastic about the Senate's action in regard to the Highways Bill, when they knew the facts. This talk of strangling and throttling must all be given up when we come to the facts. There were six clauses in the Highways Bill. The Senate passed five of them. Is it fair controversy to charge that Chamber with having killed the Bill when they absolutely passed five-sixths of it without alteration? What was the sixth clause? My hon. friend from York, N.B. (Mr. McLeod) talks about this Bill having reached the hearts of the people of this country. The sixth clause was devised to reach their votes, and to reach their votes by using the money, as the clause gave them power to use it when and where they liked, and we know an election was on, and for the purpose of helping Tory candidates. Now, my right hon. friend says, in the only answer he gives to this charge, that he intends to fix the responsibility for the killing of this measure upon the Senate. My right hon. friend will not have the fixing of the responsibility. The responsibility will be fixed by the people of this country when they know the facts. He says that he and my hon. friend the Minister of Railways (Mr. Cochrane) expressed an intention that the moneys would be spent pro rata among the whole of the inhabitants of the country. I want to put it to my right hon. friend: is it a fair manner of conducting the legislation of this country that it should depend upon the expressed intention of any minister? Is there not a possibility of binding all ministers, so long as the Act remains in force, by the simple process of putting their intentions in the Bill? This they persistently refused to do, and by persistently refusing to do it, they showed that they wanted carte blanche to spend the money when and where they liked. Now,

these are all the facts in regard to the Highways Bill.

Mr. BORDEN:

Is my hon. friend referring to clause 6?

Mr. CLARK:

The amendment made by the Senate provided that the money should he spent according to population, that is according to the way that my right hon. friend himself said he personally intended it should be spent. Clause 6 was cut out altogether, because the Government refused these amendments. But, with the five clauses and the Senate amendment, every cent of the money could have 'been spent upon the highways. No one on the other side will deny that. But the Government refused to spend it, without their precious sixth clause. The Senate threw out that clause and the Government destroyed the Bill. The action of the Government in this affair reminds me of an incident that occurred in my own professional practice. I happened to be present at the birth of a baby born with a supernumerary thumb- six digits upon one hand. With the help of the nurse and the approval of the parents I took off the extra thumb. The child looked better, and it lived and throve. What would have been thought of the parents if they had killed the child because I took its deformity away? But this Government was much more unreasonable even than these parents would have been if they had killed this child themselves, for they killed their child and then blamed the Senate for doing it.

I thought it better to take up this highways matter at once. But a number of interesting things politically have occurred since last session. My right hon. friend referred to the Chateauguay election. I wonder he mentioned it, especially in connection with the Naval Bill. I wonder if he knows what went on in that election. The Chateauguay election was won by a double appeal. The first appeal was to the cupidity of the electors-and about that I do not want to talk. I do not wish to spend my time upon it, and, to be candid, I am afraid that such appeals are all too common on the part of both political parties in Canada. The great majority of the people of this country hope that the time is soon ooming when we shall have purer politics in that regard. But there was another appeal made, that to the pusillanimity of the electors, and to that I wish to refer. I am personally concerned. Words that I used last year in the naval debate were

printed upon a leaflet and circulated in that constituency. I will read them to the House. I said, in the course of a few brief and imperfect remarks that from time to time I had to make last winter:

If the storm of which Mr. Borden speaks were to break, not a drop of Canadian blood would be spilt or risked.

When I used that language, in the innocence of my heart I believed that I was pointing out a defect in the scheme of contribution which would make it stink in the nostrils of every right thinking Canadian. But here it is reproduced as a recommendation of this measure,-and then the Prime Minister comes here and makes a feeble effort to revive his flag-waving. What a lot of tame jingoes my imperialist friends become when they get into the neighbourhood of Mr. Bourassa. There was another election in the recess which was quite a good offset to what happened in Chateauguay. I make my compliments to the Government upon the win they made in Chateauguay, especially to the imperialistic section of the Government. But there was an interesting election in South Bruce. My hon. friend the Solicitor General (Mr. Meighen) went down there. I do not know why the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Rogers) sent him. He seems to have made a very good diagnosis as to the scenes in which he himself should operate. I should like, by the way, to join my compliments, my very sincere and heartfelt compliments, to those of my right hon. friend and leader on the appointment of my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen). I think he knows that I am very sincere in offering them; but I noticed that -when he went to that election he made the remark that the Government, everybody must admit, had been riding on a flood tide ever since they came into power. It occurred to me it was a pity he went there, he soon turned it into an ebb. It was not quite so apparent to some of us that the tide had been so strong behind them; certainly, it was not so strong as in the case of other governments that have come into power. The reason why I mentioned the South Bruce election was that the Naval Bill was an issue, a very distinct issue, in that election. I heard in Nova Scotia a most interesting instance of how it was made so. In Amherst, the Tory journalist wrote a long article-such articles were written all over the country-to the effect that this was an ideal constituency to test the naval issue. This gentleman wrote just such an article

as any Tory journalist would have written who was a prophet and saw a Government victory ahead. And when he got the result of the election, I am told, he nearly fainted. I refer to the election to say that the result of that contest in the province of Ontario has had far more to do with the dropping of the Naval Bill than even the action of the Senate itself. I cannot understand the method of discussion followed by this Government and by its right hon. leader. I should have thought that he would have admitted that there had been an enormous change in the position of naval matters since last session. The fact is that during the recess there has been a great clarifying of the empire's position in the naval issue.

My right hon. friend mentioned the memorandum of Mr. Winston Churchill, the first memorandum, and he actually defended his contribution policy in a kind of postscript by referring to that memorandum. He seems to forget that in the course of the debate his first memorandum went by the board, and Mr. Churchill sent a second. The second memorandum shifted the trouble from the North sea a thousand miles to Gibraltar rock. The right hon. leader of this House is very curious in his dealings with Mr. Churchill. First, he goes with Mr. Churchill, he bases himself on what Mr. Churchill sends him; and then, at the end of the session, he takes him up once more and makes a considerable part of his speech by reading from recent speeches of Mr. Churchill in Great Britain. The whole case of contribution was a case of emergency, and the emergency disappeared when the fleet went to Gibraltar. And if it disappeared at that time, where is the emergency to-day? My right hon. hon. friend knows, and every one of his supporters knows, that the fleet has been dispersed to the seven seas and the German fleet with it-and every lover of civilization is very glad to see that come about. And that dispersal of the fleet is the second absolute justification of all that the Opposition did last winter, whether it was in the House of Commons or in the Senate. If they required further justification for their attitude, if they required any further defense as being as good British Empire men as sit on the other side of the House, it would be found in the fact that during the recess the little colony of New Zealand has given up the policy of contribution and has taken the policy of the Liberal Opposition in this Parliament.

Now, I want to come a little nearer to the amendment and dwell upon some other

,

aspects of the Address. I felicitate the Government on being able to announce an increase in the foreign commerce of the country. By the way, I am the only man in this House, if it be true that I am the only free trader in the House, who can thoroughly and properly rejoice in thalt paragraph. The contradictions of protection are most wonderful things. We have a Government which puts a paragraph in the Address rejoicing in the extension of our foreign commerce, and then lecturing me, a solitary free trader, for a year after that on the importance of a home market. I do not know what right the Government has to rejoice at the extension of foreign commerce in a protection country. However, there are some things in connection with our foreign commerce which would give students of economics good reason to pause. The fact is that our foreign trade has been largely increased by the increase in prices, and that the increase of exports is not anything like what it should be if Canada were doing her duty in the development of her resources. As a free trader, I am confronted not only with this paragraph of the Address, but with another very interesting spectacle. Under the predecessors of my hon. friends opposite we had eighteen years of what has been called the National Policy; then we had sixteen years under a Liberal Government, with what I am bound to confess were somewhat microscopic modifications of that policy; then we have had two more years of a continuation of the policy with the microscopic modifications. Now I am confronted with an amendment to the Address asking us to recognize that the Government has taken no steps to remedy the depression of trade in this country. It is a remarkable spectacle; there is something wrong with tile country. The slogan ' leave well enough alone ' now appears to be supplanted on the part of this Government by the slogan ' leave ill enough alone.' I do not think that at the present moment, despite the brave show my right hon. friend puts on this matter, that he would repeat his slogan of two years ago, and tell us to ' leave well enough alone.' In the presence of this depression, which the Government sees fit to admit, what do they do? They fall back upon the boundless resources of the country. Well, the boundless resources of the country, Mr. Speaker, are not an asset peculiar to this Government; they were in existence when there was practically nothing in the country except buffaloes and Indians, but they did not make a prosperous and happy country. What is wanted by the country is

some little resource on the part of the Government, and there are a great many people who, however brave a show my right hon. friend may make about this depression not being very serious,* are of the opinion that dreadnoughts at the present moment are not so important as the cost of living, and who are coming to the conclusion that in a country of boundless resources it is unfortunate to have a Government of very limited resources.

I am bound to say that in that view they will be largely borne out by the Address, and by the speech of my right hon. friend in regard to the high cost of living. But hon. gentlemen opposite not only tell us about the boundless resources of the country; they tell us also that they have appointed a commission. I went down to Halifax the other night and said we had a government of dissolving views, not of strong convictions and settled policy, and we certainly have a government of dissolving views in regard to the matter of commissions. In the first session of Parliament they brought forward a Bill to establish a tariff commission, and one of the horrible misdeeds of the Senate is that they are said to have destroyed the tariff commission. They did nothing of the sort; they put in an amendment which would make the commission look after the interests of the consumer as well as the interests of the producer, and the Government would not accept the amendment, thereby showing that they were tied to the producing interests and cared nothing about the consumer. Where does the condemnation of the Senate come in? My right hon. friend says of that most experienced member of this Administration who went down to Lanark and used the language quoted by my right hon. friend this afternoon, that he is now on the sea, coming back from England. Well, personally, that does not strike an extraordinary amount of terror into my heart; I only wish he were here now. I would like to have asked him what he meant by his language in South Lanark, especially when it is considered in relation to other lan-gauge used in regard to this very tariff commission. We have not forgotten how at the end of the first session, with finger outstretched and voice upraised, he charged my right hon. friend with having opposed the mandate of the country to appoint a tariff commission, and one would have thought he were going to carry the fiery cross through Canada. When you have a government that means business in regard to an upper chamber, then that business will be done. When Mr. George's budget

was thrown out by the House of Lords, he did not hesitate about what he should do with that body-he went to the people, and for the life of me, in regard to the Naval Bill, I cannot see why my right hon. friend should not follow that example, if he feels as courageous as he seems to be. For the life of me I cannot see what my right hon. friend's quarrel with the Senate is on the Naval Bill. I did not wish to speak about this; I said so at the end of last session, but if my right hon. friend persists in charging the Senate with these things, we must see where the blame really lies. My right hon. friend came home from Europe after being there the summer before last, and, I think, on three occasions he said: 'I have consulted the Admiralty, as I said I would; I will lay my proposals before Parliament.' He did that, as he said he would, but he also said: ' If they are

not accepted by Parliament, I will submit them to the people.' Now, in regard to the Naval Bill the Senate only said: 'Very

well, submit it to the people.' Where is the quarrel between my right hon. friend and the Senate? That is another case of our having no fear of where the people stand once they know the cold facts in the matter. However, speaking of the tariff commission, my hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce excommunicated my right hon. friend with bell, book and candle because the Senate had destroyed the Tariff Commission Bill in opposition to the mandate of the people. But he himself is the best justification of the action of the Senate, because, having heard from the people of South Bruce, he goes to the people of South Lanark and says: 'The Lord

knows we have far too many commissions; they are as plentiful as the berries in Kazua-bazua.' That is one of the places, I suppose, where the hon. gentleman has been seeking'a market. And then he goes to England, and, after he has expressed this opinion to the people of South Lanark, the Government straightway appoints another commission. If that is not a case of dissolving views, I never saw one. The real emergency to-day is, as I think my right hon. friend has said, not a question of dreadnoughts. The German scare never was a real emergency; it was a sham emergency, and the high cost of living is the real emergency which confronts the people of this country. I do not propose keeping the House very long, and I certainly do not purpose making a budget speech upon the Address. I think that would be a highly inconvenient method of conducting public discussion in this Par-

liament. I want to show that I am rising to grace just as the Prime Minister is falling from it. I have had occasion to compliment him on short speeches before, but he will have to reform a little to get back to my good graces in that matter. I want to show that I am following his good example and not his bad one. But I do want to state this that I do not think there is any doubt whatever about the main cause of the high cost of living in protectionist countries. The Minister of Finance said last year in a somewhat light and airy way which be puts on with very great grace, that this is not a local trouble, it is all over the world-and there he left it. But we must look into this a little more closely. We are told that the high cost of living exists in Great Britain as well as in this country. It is not the case, not to anything like the same extent. The simple fact on that matter is that in the one free trade country in the world today, the one absolutely free trade country, you can get pretty well value for your money. In regard to foodstuffs the prices are high because Great Britain 'has to import the surplus of other nations and I think a very good argument could be set up in favour of the view that protection in other nations raises the price of foodstuffs in Great Britain, for if you talk the home market you will produce for the home market, you will have no surplus to sell and that must make a scarcity in Great Britain. But the British Board of Trade has issued a publication recently in which, taking the index number as 100, they show that the cost of living has risen since 1902 to 115 in Great Britain, while it has risen to 151 in Canada. That is a very serious question, and it will not be settled by party quips and passes as to what happened during the previous administrations. That is a very serious matter for the people of this country and a matter upon which we could have got light without the establishment of this commission of inquiry. Let me say that the cost of living in Great Britain ought to have risen far more than in Canada according to all a priori reasons. For what have you in Great Britain? You have five hundred people or nearly so to the square mile on an area, including Ireland, of one-half the province of Alberta. Here you have less than two people to the square mile upon a continent of resources. That is a most singular and significant fact- Why, wre should be all well off in this country and well off at a cheap rate, if our economic arrangements were proper. Although not making a budget speech I wish to state my ,

conviction that in protectionist countries the high cost of living is due, in the first place, to tariff and, in the second place, to combines which arise out of the protection of the tariff. I do not have any 10 p.m. doubt upon that subject. If I had, I think I could quote from good authority to convince hon. gentlemen opposite of both those opinions. The effect of a tariff is no mystery. My hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce said years ago in this House: Of course it is perfectly true that the effect of a tariff is to raise the price of the article carrying that tariff by the amount of that tariff.

There is no good economist on the face of the globe who can successfully controvert that position, and that settles all controversy on the matter. It cannot be successfully controverted. When an article costing say flOO comes to one of our ports and a tariff of 33 per cent is put on it at the port, that 33 per cent goes into the price of the article and the $100 becomes 5133 and more than that, because a profit must be charged upon the tariff as well as upon the original price of the article. In regard to the effect of combines, I am going to quote an authority who ought to have more weight than even the Minister of Trade and Commerce with my hon. friends opposite-I am going to quote the Prime Minister himself. In a memorial which he put out last election in regard to the objections to the reciprocity pact, he remarked in the first place, that they are profound and abiding. After that remark he went on to enumerate those objections, and I want to call my right hon. friend's particular attention to this objection. He said: The reciprocity pact will for the most part reduce the prices which our producers will receive for their output while the control of the trusts will prevent any reduction to the consumer. That language is an admission on the part of my right hon. friend that at the last election lie knew that the effect of the trusts was to raise the prices to the consumer and on that point he need not have appointed any commission now. If he will put together the opinion I have quoted from the Minister of Trade and Commerce and his own opinion he will find himself in this position that he is bound to admit from their own statements that the rise in prices in a protectionist country is due in the first place to tariff and in the second place to the combines which arise under the protection of the tariff. Confronted with the difficulty of living, what did Peel do ? He attacked the tariff. What has Woodrow Wilson done in the United

States ? He has attacked the tariff, and I submit that if my right hon. leader follows the example of these hon. gentlemen and sets up serious arguments about this subject, neither his actions nor his arguments should be made the matter of jollification as they were in this House to-day. Inconsistency on the part of the right hon. gentleman only proves him to be human, but he is, at any rate, following the example of great statesmen both in Great Britain and in the United States, in the course which he has taken, and I submit that amongst all the events of the recess probably the event which most particularly affects the destiny of Canada and which will certainly affect the thoughts of Canada is the fiscal revolution which has been carried out by the President and the Democratic party in the United States. When I first came to this country and dared, I hope always respectfully, to give my opinion upon tariffs, I used to be regarded as a sort of benighted islander who had strayed somehow out of my proper path and the one recipe for my complaint was that some gentlemen on the other side of the House got up and said: Look at the great country to the south. I see the hon. member for York (Mr. McLeod) still gets lessons from that great country, because he quoted it in one particular in his speech to-night. Well, I looked to the great country to the south and I kept on looking, and now I turn to my hon. friends opposite and I say: Look at the great country to the south and what do you see ? We see a great, simple and sincere man coming into office and cutting up protection and tearing its economic fallacies and false arguments into shreds and casting them to the four winds of heaven. There is no argument by which protection has been supported anywhere that he did not expose and we see that man with the approbation apparently of the whole people, because there is one peculiar thing about this reform: both Republicans and Democrats recognize that they have a statesman who means business and they are prepared to give a fair trial to what he has introduced. My right hon. friend in discussing this subject used an argument which I did not think worthy of him. It is an argument which is being sent out, canned (probably from the Manufacturers' Association), and which is appearing in little country newspapers, proving that there has been no reduction in the price of foodstuffs in the United States since the reduction of the tariff. I put it to my right hon. friend, if forty years of the National Policy here and

sixty years of high protection in the United States were needed before the people would take a fair dose of free trade, is it fair to free trade to expect it to produce a revolution in two months? A reduction in food stuffs is the very reduction which would not come at once. How could it? The moment Mr. Woodrow Wilson lowered the tariff a yearling could not become a three-year-old steer. I wish they could have. It would have been a very profitable business for me in Alberta, but it takes two years for a yearling to become a three-year-old. I could give my right hon. friend shoals of advertisement from the business men of the States showing that upon the other articles on which the tariff was reduced, prices came down immediately the tariff came into operation. Wannamaker's had a page advertisement in the New York papers mentioning the articles upon which their prices would be lowered the day the tariff came into effect. So I say the argument of my right hon. friend is scarcely worthy of him. This fiscal revolution in the United States has made it impossible for us to have reciprocity as it was proposed two years ago. I think everybody will recognize that as an absolutely necessary outcome of the change in the United States, but it does not follow that reciprocity is dead. It means that fifty per cent of it is very much alive and in operation on the other side of the line. I see the Minister of Finance making a note on that subject. I dare say he will tell us once more that reciprocity is dead. I very well remember when he first told us that. It was in his maiden speech. He said:

As far as the province of Ontario is concerned, I may say that practically all classes were against reciprocity-farmers, manufacturers and artisans. And, sir, when a verdict is got from such a province as that, is it not the part of wisdom to accept it?

I have a conundrum for my hon. friend in connection with that quotation. When Ontario changes its verdict, what is our duty? _ There have been two elections in Ontario recently which have shown that they are not sure that they took the part of wisdom. They have cut down the majority in Middlesex lower than ever before, and I hope we shall hear from the member for South Bruce that reciprocity was made an issue in his county. After all it is not the name, it is the thing I care for. Reciprocity is a term applied to mutual trade arranged by governments; but while that may fall through, the cry of * no truck or trade with the Yankees ' can never be raised again, because the trading between the two peoples has risen by hundreds of thousands of dollars since the pact was defeated.

This fiscal revolution lias another bearing. While it did not kill reciprocity, it did kill in my judgment the policy of mutual preferences within the empire. May I remind the Government that one of the things they did last year was to pass the West Indian treaty. What has happened to that treaty as a result of the fiscal changes in the United States? The Minister of Trade and Commerce said to the delegates from the West Indies: We will help you by giving you one-fifth advantage on sugar over the rest of the world. President Wilson comes along and says: Little Canada away to the north is going to give you one-fifth advantage on sugar. I will do more than that for you, I will give you a ninety million market, fifty per cent off, and free sugar within three years. What becomes of your preference then, and the charge against the Opposition that we wasted time last session? That West Indian treaty is a piece of waste paper to-day. Their sugar will naturally go into the United States. Take the case of wool. What preference can we offer to Australia upon her wool, which is her staple product? The fact is mutual preferences within the empire are only possible so long as the other countries of the world remain protectionist and Britain stands for free trade. Great Britain shows no sign of deserting free trade, but the moment the other countries of the world desert protection there is no possibility of mutual preferences within the empire. And the fact that my right hon. friend advocates mutual preferences within the empire, shows that in his trade outlook he is a benighted protectionist.

I want to say a word or two in regard to another matter which is of vital and immediate moment to the people in the part of the country come from, and through them to the whole of Canada, a question which is raised in an acute form by the rearrangement of the United States tariff. I refer to the question of free wheat. If I wanted to impress upon them the importance of it, I should call their attention to the fact that the Argentine Republic has already availed itself of the United States' offer, and this I take to be a most vital matter for the Government of this country. I am surprised that my right hon. friend the Prime Minister had nothing to say upon this subject. If we want to increase the prosperity of this country we cannot do it by putting a paragraph in the Address referring to our boundless resources. As my right hon. leader said: you have to develop these resources and you will only develop them if you show yourselves acute ,

enough business men to contend with your competitors in the Argentine and elsewhere for the markets of the world. I put it to the Government that the Argentine Government have already shown that they know the value of the offer of the United States and have availed themselves of it. What is the [DOT] position of the Government of Canada? Echo answers, What? I wonder if they know their own position on this matter. The fact is that they have two positions. They had one in Manitoba six weeks ago; there is no doubt about that. Mr. Harvey Simpson, the Conservative member of the Legislature, was no doubt in communication with the most prominent member of this Government before he dared to put that resolution in favour of free wheat upon the table of the Manitoba House. That resolution has been carried by the political friends of the Government and carried unanimously in a Conservative House.

Mr. E. M. MACDONALD:

Did Roblin

vote for it?

Mr. CLARK:

Presumably, Sir Rodmond

Roblin must have voted for it, because it was carried unanimously. There are some other friends of my hon. friends opposite who came down from Alberta, and there is no possibility of them successfully denying the fact that they came also voicing the opinions of Western Conservatives as well as Western Liberals, to ask for free wheat. But this Government is a government of dissolving views; not only a government of dissolving views, it is a government of double views because the same Minister of Public Works who said to the Manitoba Conservative legislators: ask for free wheat; he apparently said to the legislators from Alberta: don't ask for free wheat. In the presence of such a peculiar spectacle I am surprised that the Prime Minister did not give us some light upon this subject, and I certainly think we ought to hear from the Government and hear from the Government at once: whether in this country we have not statesmen as acute-minded, or at any rate as resolute as the statesmen of the Argentine Republic. Personally I cannot understand the Government hesitating a moment in this matter; that is to say, if they are actuated purely by a desire to do what is best for Canada. Many arguments that were used in regard to the reciprocity pact of two years ago do not apply to this matter at all. This question is not now part of a large general agreement; it cannot be argued that it interferes with our fiscal independence. We simply have to take the

tariff off wheat, which would be no sacrifice whatever, and we get entry into the United States market for our wheat. I want to remind the ministers that they know as well as I know that Western grain growers do not fear competition from the United States or anywhere else. In fact, one of the peculiarities of this Government, asdistinguished from the Opposition, is that they have no faith in their own country. They tell us we must not tradewith the United States or weshould be annexed; they told us last year we could not build ships in this country, and now they are afraid

apparently that our wheat in the West can be successfully competed against from abroad. I want to tell my hon. friend the Minister of Finance, who no doubt is seriously considering this question, that we in the West have confidence in our country, that we have confidence in our wheat, and that we believe that no wheat anywhere can compete with it because we produce the best in the world. That is the kind of Canada we believe in and that is the kind of Canadianism we believe in. There was another argument used two years ago that need not frighten my hon. friends opposite now. They told us: there is no market to the south of us. My hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce, in that wonderful four hour speech, used the famous illustration of the jack knife. He said: why, you cannot do any business with the United States because they produce the same materials that we do; it would be like two men trying to make themselves richer by exchanging jack knives. But, let me call the attention of the minister to the enlightenment which they no doubt have already got as to the substantial nature of the exchanges that are going on between us and the United States. The tariff on cattle has been removed entirely. In the year 1912, 7,600 head of cattle all told went from Canada to the United States, and it is admitted that since the Woodrow Wilson tariff went into operation 100,000 head of cattle have gone below the line. So, our friends opposite need not tell us any more that we cannot do business with the United States. I never argue this question on the ground of price, but I am pleased to inform the Government and their supporters that those who argued that reciprocity would bring us higher prices have been fully borne out by events, because it is a fact that the cattle raisers of Alberta have received one dollar per hundred pounds more for cattle last year that they have ever received

during the time I have been in this country. The result of the Woodrow Wilson tariff has been that there is an enormous increase in the sale of Canadian cattle. The tariff on oats has been reduced, and what has been the result? It is established that in the year 1912 we sold the magnificent quantity of 183,000 bushels of oats to the United States, whereas since the Woodrow Wilson tariff came into operation we have sold something in the neighbourhood of twenty million bushels in a couple of months. There is no question any longer as to whether there is a market for us in the United States; we know now we have a market there. And, iSir, I want to point out what would be the result of these dealings with the United States. The result must inevitably be increased production of cattle and oats in the western provinces. Increased production will lead 'to increased settlement; increased settlement will lead to increased immigration, increased immigration will bring in increased capital, which will benefit every portion of the Dominion. That is what we lost by the rejection of the reciprocity pact.

I want to go a little further into an examination of this free wheat project. It is a very peculiar spectacle which presents itself to us in the matter of the grain growers and farmers of the West coming to the Government and seeking the abolition of the tariff upon their own product. I call the attention of the Minister of Finance to the fact that usually when an interest comes to the Government in connection with the tariff it is to request that the tariff be increased upon their products, or that it may be allowed to remain without reduction. And, curiously enough, in a protectionist country like this, and with a protectionist Government like this, these people get an extraordinary amount of consideration. Now, representing the farmers of the West, I want to ask the Government why it is they do not give the same consideration to the men engaged in the industry of agriculture when they come to ask that the tariff upon wheat should be abolished-and that is all they are asking for-that they give to the manufacturers of this country who come to them with respect to the tariff on their products. Have the farmers not the right to speak for their own industry? What is sacrosanct or holy about manufacturers so called that they should receive very much attention from the Government and that no heed should be paid to the plea of the

farmers who are engaged in the most important industry of all. I contend it is the right of the wheat growers to be the judges in this matter. They go on the prairies and they face the hardships of pioneer life, which I have shared with them in another branch of industry for twelve years, and when they come to this Government and say, we understand our industry and we want the tariff on wheat removed. The Government sits passive and lets the Argentine Republic get into the United States markets in front of them. The Government's treatment of the farmers is not fair to the agricultural industry as compared with their treatment of other industries which come to them. Why is it that the Government did not attend to this matter? Have the millers had anything to do with it? Have they had representations from the millers? I am afraid the Government has paid too much attention to the millers. Well, what about the millers? What about the milling industry? Sir John Simon, speaking in Birmingham, England, the other night, said: I do not suppose, at this moment, there is any industry in Britain which is more flourishing than the milling industry under free trade? That opinion is well worth weighing by the Government when the millers come to it. That is the opinion of Sir John Simon in regard to the milling industry of Great Britain, where they have to import their raw material; but here our millers are in the midst of the finest raw material in the world for their business, in the midst of an overwhelming abundance of that raw material. I say that if they cannot mill in Canada, they are not meant to mill; they should come out beside me and take up homesteads. They should certainly not be allowed to prevent the farmers from getting this market, if it is to be of any good to them. The millers say they would be put out of business. They are not afraid of being put out of business. What they are afraid of is that they will have to accept the same price for flour in Canada as they do in Great Britain. I believe they get higher prices for flour in Canada than they can secure in Great Britain. Their fear is that they will have to take the same prices in Canada as in Great Britain, and I do [DOT]not think that a fear of that kind should be allowed to interfere with the Government in this matter.

This is not a western question. It is a Canadian question. I have just indicated how it is a Canadian question. Everybody

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knows-my hon. friend from Portage la Prairie, the Solicitor General (Mr. Meighen) knows, and will not deny, that the development of Canada in the last half generation, the great prosperity of Canada has been due to the development of western Canada, not that there has not been a development of industries here; but, if you place more farmers on the land of the west, you benefit every industry in western Canada.

Just compare the methods of freedom in this matter with the methods of protection. Compare the steel bounties' policy which has been supported by both Governments in this country with the method I propose of giving our wheat a free exit into the United States market. Protection begins at the wrong end. I was in Nova Scotia lately, and I looked over the Steel Works in Sydney. Very good works they are; but, while being shown over them, I came to two mills that were standing idle. I said to the manager, a courteous fellow countryman of mine: What is the matter with these mills? He said; We have got no orders. Now, what amount of tariff or what amount of bounty will send orders into those mills? If you gave them a million dollars a day, it would not give orders to those mills. All it would do would be to pay interest on the capital invested in the works. But, if you begin at the other end and develop your farm lands and develop western Canada, you will develop your transportation. You cannot do that without steel and you will, therefore, develop the steel works at Sydney and in other parts of the country. I bring that before the Government as an important consideration in connection with this matter of free wheat. A far-seeing statesmanship-and it does not require a very long sight- would give free wheat at once to the western farmers; and with it, if the Government wanted to do a wise act to cure the present depression, they should take the duty off agricultural implements. I trust my hon. friend the Solicitor General got a guarantee upon that subject before lie entered the Government. It would be customary in Britain for him to have got such a guarantee. When any gentleman, in the position of my hon. friend in the old country, has spoken as strongly as he has in regard to the reduction of duty on agricultural implements, he ought not to have taken his seat in that Government unless he has got a guarantee that his views will prevail there. He must be true to himself

and to his constituents. I have considerable confidence, however, that he has looked into this matter. The two things together would be a splendid start in dealing with the tariff, in the way statesmen have done in other countries., and would have a bearing upon the development of Canada, the relief from the high cost of living, and from the depression in trade from which the speech acknowledged we are suffering.

The Government, so far from providing any means of relief from the conditions under which we are suffering at the present time, rejoice in certain things which are calculated to aggravate our distress. Until we provide more markets for the sale of our agricultural produce, until we alter our economic system, no Government in this country ought to rejoice, as the Address rejoices, in the increase in immigration. Where is our immigration going? I very much fear it is not going on to the land. It is going into the towns. It is increasing the number of unemployed in the towns. A great many people in the cities of the West, who are unemployed at the present time, were working at harvest time and have gone into the towns. I contend that no Government has any right to go on promoting unlimited immigration unless it takes proper means to get the people onto the land. The hon. Minister of Labour (Mr. Crothers) tells us that what we are suffering from at the present time is too little production. We shall not increase our production by adding to the unemployed in the towns. The only way in which we shall increase our production is by adding to our rural population. There is something that is wrong with the economic condition of Canada. This question has a bearing not only upon the question of immigration but upon the question of rural depopulation, upon the question of the prosperity of the whole country.

I just want to tell my right hon. friend the Prime Minister and his supporters that this extra price for cattle has not in the slightest degree affected the loyalty of any cattle raiser in the province of Alberta. Personally, I want to give my right hon. friend the assurance that, although I have received, myself, a dollar a head more for cattle this fall than I ever received before, so far as I can search my heart and conscience I am as loyal to the Old Country as ever I was. I am glad to give that assurance, and I want to enter into a similar guarantee on the part of the wheat producers. I am perfectly sure, if they did take their wheat to the United States and sold it there, it would not interfere with their

loyalty. I do not think we shall fight a campaign again when that cry will be raised. It gained a few votes, but it was an extremely foolish cry, because, after all, men are not disloyal on account of thriving under a flag; men are disloyal when they fail to thrive under a flag. Make men poor; make them discontented, and then you will increase their disloyalty. That is the condition that we have as to poverty and unemployment at the present time. The responsibility of the Government is great in this matter. I trust they will not be deterred from doing what is right by any consideration of their own consistency. I trust they will look at this matter from the point of view of the interest of Canada and their duty to the people of this country. The fact of the matter is, there are large numbers of people in Canada, both Conservatives and Liberals, who think that we have had just a little too much attention paid to the great imperial matters upon which my right hon. friend spent so much time to-night, and too little attention paid to the affairs of our own country.

The Government has duties to Canada, and Canada is looking for them to discharge those duties. And if the Government wish to see how those duties should be discharged, they must follow the advice they give to me and look to the great country to the south of us. My right hon. friend says there is unemployment, there are distressed conditions, in the United States as well as here. It is extraordinary to hear that, because his friends the Tariff Reformers of Great Britain have been proclaiming that Great Britain was the only place where you had unemployment, and that that unemployment was due to Free Trade. But you have only to take up a paper published here in Ottawa this evening to see the headline, 'The Old Country cannot see any slackening in trade.' The one country in the world which was a commercial miracle in the year 1913, the country which has the smallest rate of unemployment in the world, the country which has the largest business in the world, is this country of forty-five millions of people living in a territory half the size of Alberta. And against this, we have this admission, this proclamation, of unemployment in the United States and Canada. Look to the great country to the south of us and you get ideas on this subject-for there is one kind of commerce that is not prevented by a tariff, and that is the commerce in thought. I see a market where my right hon. friend does not

see it. That market is there. The Government have a great responsibility with regard to this matter, and we all trust that they will face that responsibility in the interest of the country. If they do not, then I am sure of this-that so far as Western Canada is concerned, they will go down to an inglorious defeat, unwept, unhonoured and unsung.

Mr. JOHN H. BURNHAM (West Peterborough) : I am sure it will be a cause of astonishment that I rise at this juncture, but it is not altogether my fault. It arises, I presume, from a desire on the part of some people to take advantage of this late hour of the evening to take a nap. Let me say, Mr. Speaker, in opening, that I should like to join my humble voice in the congratulations to the mover and the seconder of the Address for the manner in which they carried out that pleasant duty. The strength of argument, the breadth of view, the fluency and finish of their diotion, excited general admiration. It is a great pleasure to see that the Government benches can do something of which the Opposition approve. We all wish to join our voices also in the universal praise of the pluck displayed by Her Excellency after her severe ordeal of illness in returning to preside in Canada. It is very gratifying to us to find that the Opposition unite with us in discerning the good qualities, the very brilliant qualities of the new Solicitor General (Mr. Meighen.)

I cannot understand why so much time is wasted by the Opposition in denouncing the statements made by their own provincial Prime Ministers. We are told that, through the inaction or mistaken action, the ignorance or otherwise, of the Conservative Government, Canada has failed to measure up to the standard as she should have done; and yet in the face of that, in the face of the great problem which .a young country like this has before it, we have the universal testimony of the provincial Prime Ministers, that Canada is exceedingly prosperous. Logically what justification can there be for taking a fling at the conditions in this country at the present time? I think I may safely say, without being considered impertinent, that it is not only illogical and inconsistent, but distinctly improper to fly in the face of the provincial Prime Minister who is the best exponent of local conditions. Are we to suppose for one moment that the Prime Minister of Alberta, or the Prime Minister of Saskatchewan, is anxious

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to place a feather in the cap of the Conservative Government of Ottawa? We know that he is more likely-being human and a Liberal-to minimize the conditions in Alberta and Saskatchewan than to magnify them. We must surely be allowed to rely upon the statements made by these men, and we do rely upon them more than upon the statements of those whose duty it is to find fault and to endeavour to resume their places on the treasury benches where they committed homicide by misadventure in 1911.

It must be remembered that the Naval or Imperial policy of the Conservative party springs from the fact that first and foremost-first, last and all the time-they desire to remain within the British Empire. The weakness of the Conservative position unquestionably is-admittedly is-that $35,000,000 or thereabouts will be expended, to a certain extent outside the country. It is admitted that half of that, even under the divine management of the Liberals, would have to be spent out of the country, because they simply could not build all portions of their navy here. I confess that is the weakness of our position; we do not say-or I presume we do not say- that our position at all points is invincibly strong; we do say that, in comparison with anything else that has been devised or suggested, our position is incomparably strong. But, who want's to embark upon a great military policy such as the Liberal policy is? Who wants to unfurl the Canadian flag of practical, if not nominal, independence, ' and sail the -seas provoking conflict and disaster? The Liberals are either sincere or insincere. If they are insincere, we do not wish to have anything more to do with -them, nor does the country. But if they are sincere, then they propose -to develop a policy which would place us alongside of such nations as Germany and France, who are now making a mad rush to complete a naval policy such as will be suitable to their station. I am told that Canada must do likewise. Now -there is no force in the argument of building a little tin-pot navy. There is no such idea on the part of Liberals Their desire is to build and develop a great naval force. I am free to acknowledge that while that is an exceedingly extravagant and unwise proposition, I am sufficiently imperialistic and sufficiently loyal to wish to adopt that plan rather than do nothing at all. But we find no reciprocity of spirit exhibited by our friends. They will not have the Conservative policy, and, not having that policy, they will t-hrow down

their arms and wreck the whole scheme; they will sneer at emergencies, and let everything, to use a common phrase, go to the devil. We are not like that. If these gentlemen were on the Treasury benches we might disapprove of their policy and say we had a much better one, but we are not so narrow, so stupid, so unloyal, if I may not use the word disloyal-so unloyal, so entirely anti-imperialistic as to decline to do anything to help the empire which we are supposed to adorn, if we cannot have our own way. It is well to talk about sheep and cattle, but.we had better see if we cannot develop some sort of a manly spirit as well. What kind of an education did they give in Newcastle to the Leviathan of Alberta? Is it absolutely impossible for us to develop an indepen lent spirit, a loftiness of conception, along with the material advantages of the world? Has the hon. gentleman never heard of Athens? Does he not know that twenty-five hundred years ago there was developed the spirit of freedom, of independence, of philosophy and of science the like of which the world has never seen? The whole history of Athens simply teems with the spirit displayed by her people. Many and many a time she might have sacrificed herself to material advantage, but she preferred to bequeath to posterity a noble name and a noble example. This we should never forget. Canada is in danger of becoming very materialistic. From one end of this country to the -other we hear -talk about free food, about dear food, about

the high cost of living, and about the tango. That is all that is going

on in the country now. Theories of government are not being worked out; they are not working themselves out, and the Liberal politicians will not allow them to be worked out. The hon. member for Red Deer is deluded by baits; he sees a fish flashing by, with sparkling scales, straightway, makes a bite at it. He would say: ' Why do' you seek fish in the South Sea when you can get them right here? He has no broad conception of things. The evolution of government has brought us to the time when the freedom of the people allows them and prompts them to manage their own business, but, strange to say, there are so many anomalies in the twentieth century, and we are now confronted with a vicious paradox. Over-supply produces scarcity; over-production produces starvation, and surplus of material produces stringency. It would be difficult indeed to unearth anything more absurd than this illogical fact. Why is it that we do not set ourselves to find out why these

things are so? Is. it that we must devote ourselves to something sentimental; to some esoteric theory such as the free trade which exists only in the imagination of the hon. member for Red Deer, the gentleman who voted for bounties? He despises tariffs; yet he overlooked the tariff which collects money for the public treasury and voted for bounties that put money into the private pockets of individuals.

Mr. MICHAEL CLARK:

I rise to a point of order. If my hon. friend is stating this as a fact, I may say that I have never consciously voted for the imposition of a tariff or the payment of a bounty. I do not think my hon. friend has the information as to when I gave such a vote.

Mr. BURNHAM:

I do not wish to be in the slightest degree inaccurate, and I was particular to make my assertion when the hon. member was present. I refused to vote for the lead bounty last year, but the hon. gentleman, on one occasion at least, I think, voted for it. If, however, he did not vote for it, if I am not misinformed, he certainly spoke in favour of it.

Mr. MICHAEL CLARK:

I rise again to correct my hon. friend. I made as good a speech as ever I could against it.

Mr. BURNHAM:

All I have to say, then, is that I am utterly unable to understand the English language as spoken by the hon. member for Red Deer. I could a tale unfold, but I will not unfold it. However, as the hon. gentleman said in the course of his fine speech that he has a conscience, I will leave the matter with that conscience.

No branch of industry-and I must be excused for being, perhaps, a little irrelevant-could possibly thrive if it were not given proper attention; if the stock were not taken and a balance struck; if there were not some intimate control and supervision exercised in regard to it. And yet, notwithstanding the fact that this House and the people generally are concerned most intimately with everything that takes place in this country, they are reproached in the most scathing language by the hon. member for Red Deer for failing to know all about the conditions of industry in Canada. He reproaches us with our ignorance, but would not allow us a commission which would find out why we do not know these things. And yet he says we are inconsistent. There are some very striking passages in the hon. gentleman's

address, but I would direct your attention, Mr. Speaker, to this fact, that whilst government ownership and government control, that is to say, public ownership and public control, are spreading the world over, there seems to be a disposition to leave them in a haphazard condition here, so that they are neither one thing nor the other, and we are confronted witjr the extraordinary fact that we decline to provide a decent living wage for the working man, and yet demand that he shall live in a decent manner. We also decline to deal with the problem of unemployment and wonder that a starving man is inclined to strike. The injustice is done on both sides. We fail to regulate and provide for the employer those peaceful conditions which would enable him to develop his industry and we decline to provide conditions which only a government can provide for employees which will enable them to provide for the present and for the future in some respectable and certain manner. These things of course are extremely obvious. Books galore have been written upon them. Every president of every university in the world has written a book this last year or two upon that subject. Every man of prominence in every government has dealt with the question. Commissions have found out causes and commissions have failed to find out causes, and yet here we are in Canada, industrious as we are, painstaking as we are, capable as we are-and I think I may be forgiven for saying so-and yet we are not endeavouring to bend our energy to the solution of the most obvious and the most pressing of problems. It is useless to say that free trade is a powerful or effectual buttress against such a thing as the unduly high cost of living. It is admitted by the very speaker who lauds free trade in this connection that it has not had the effect of lowering or preserving the cost of living in Great Britain. That cost has risen by fifteen per cent or thereabouts. Well, all we can say about that is that it is not a question between free trade and protection. It is a question of the comparative effect of economic policies under the conditions that exist. It is idle to suppose or to assert that the logical conclusion is that one is right and the other is wrong because they are diametrically opposed when, as a matter of fact, they both run in the same groove. We must be consistent. There is no use listening to great statesmen and the enunciation of tremendous principles if those propositions and the enunciation of them do not bear out the conclusions.

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I would like to deal just for a moment with one or two statements made by the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark). He scoffed at an emergency. Are we to understand that there is no emergency, in the British Government at this minute over the navy question? I do not wish to meddle in other people's affairs, but the cables all tell us that at this present moment Great Britain is convulsed with an emergency and yet, because the hori. member for Red Deer has not had it proved to him in black and white so that everybody would laugh at him if he did not admit it, he will not provide for an emergency, he will do nothing, he will throw his arms down and let it all go. He follows only too well the motto of the free traders, laissez faire, let everything go, let well enough alone, that is what that means. There are 4,500 millionaires by the last census in Great Britain, and who has the audacity to tell us there is no 11p.m. poverty there? Why are people fleeing from Great Britain? If the people were leaving this country as they are leaving Great Britain wages would be high and there would be no unemployed; but the fact is they are leaving Great Britain in such tremendous numbers that they themselves consider it a reproach that the people should leave Great Britain for another country under the conditions. It is not fair to argue in that way, it is inaccurate.

One half of the magnificent speech of the right hon. the leader of the Opposition (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) referred to the very bad business of the Prime Minister in calling the House on the 15th of January instead of the 15th of October. The hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark) knocked that all on the head in one minute but all I can say is that if the Opposition are going on like this, fighting each other in mortal combat, we will have to put a ring around them and charge an admission fee. * Strange to say in criticising the Highways Bill the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark), admitted that five-sixths of that Bill was perfect, five clauses out of six were all right, the Senate admitted that. The sixth clause, which refers to the administration of funds under the Bill being apparently the key to the position and referring to what the hon. member considered possibly a political advantage, was so distasteful to him and to the Senate that they decided to throw it out. That is to say, rather than forego a political advantage they would throw the material advantages of the people of this country to the four winds of Heaven. Are

they aware that this Government is not responsible to the Senate? This is not oligarchical government, notwithstanding the fact that they are trying to make it so; we have still popular government in Canada, and if the Government passes a Bill against which the Opposition think it their duty to make a protest let them make a protest and preserve their position without prejudice if they like; then, when this Government go to the country on their record, if the people disapprove they will turn the Government out. But the hon. gentlemen opposite knew that the people would not disapprove and that is the reason why they burked that Bill. If that Bill meant that the Government were committing suicide, does anybody tell me that the hon. gentlemen opposite would not have provided a halter? Not at all, they would have said: certainly we disapprove of the Bill, go to the country; go further if you nKe, that is where you will end. But they did not do that, for they knew that with that Bill and other Bills oi first importance and advantage to this country, they were not only out of the Treasury benches but hopelessly out, and that they might never see them again in their lifetime. That is what affected them, and that is why the Senate was called upon to be so judicial Let me say one thing which convinces me, although it may not convince hon. gentlemen opposite. Living is cheapest in this world in that country which has the highest measure of protection, namely, France. Of all the countries on the face of the earth the country that is the cheapest to live in is France. She, two years ago, so approve 1 of the policy of protection that she raised her whole system of protection by 20 per cent. If that is not a direct argument in flat contradiction of the statement of the hon. member for Red Deer I do not know what is-and it is not borrowed from theory but from practice and fact. I was very much upset,-although I may recover-by a statement of the same hon. gentleman about free wool from Australia. Why, Australia is a protected country the same as Canada. Why does he not treat the question in a logical way and treat free wheat from Canada the same as Australians do their wool from Australia? But that unfortunately is generally his failing. He is very quick, very picturesque, very defiant and very polite, but as to being cogent we must confess to having our reservations. He said the price of Canadian flour was higher in Canada than in Great Britain. Is he aware that quality for quality it is not so? Flour is flour, he thinks. Well, I can tell him it is 4

not. There are several brands of flour and that makes all the difference in the world. If he wants an analogy, a small one it is true, let him take the case of the old country tailor who sends his goods out to this country, pays the tariff and yet sells them at the same price he charges in England. How does that happen? I do not buy these clothes myself, I make my own, but if we are to have these monstrosities of trade brought up before us all the time, why are they not- dealt with in a fair manner? There can be no question that the Conservative party has made mistakes in the past and has profited by them. It is admitted that different conditions are suitable to different countries and to argue at large as if Canada were Britain and Britain were Canada but shows the ineptitude of the hon. gentleman on these questions. However, I fancy that a due regard to patriotism and a certain virility which we have inherited from our ancestors both Gaelic and British, will enable us to weather the storm. I know that the Americans do not start to howl as if everything had gone to the bowwows. When they get into a bit of a slough, they set to work to get out of it, and they have set an example to the whole world. They cannot be excelled for strength of mind, and body and character, and surely we are not going to throw our doors open and howl as if the country was something we should be ashamed of. Let us bend our energies together. Let us find out by commission and cease to draw our illustrations from impossible and irrelevant conditions. Let us face the facts in a scientific manner and deal with them accordingly, and then we shall be much more edified than by a tissue of sarcasms, and, I am afraid, absurdities.

On motion of Mr. A. K. Maclean the debate was adjourned.

On motion of Mr. Borden the House adjourned at 11.10 p.m.

Tuesday, January 20, 1914.