Mr. D. O. LESPERANCE (Montmagny):

Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of privilege. I read in the Ottawa Cidzen and in

the Montreal Gazette, both published this morning, an article which is as follows:

Motion to repeal Laurier Naval Act brought down in the House of Commons.

I), o. Lesperance, M.P., for Montmagny, gave notice last night of a Bill to repeal the Laurier Naval Act of 1910 establishing a Canadian navy. Mr. Lesperance is a Conservative, but in taking this action he is not in accord with the Government.

The notice he has given has caused somewhat of a flurry in the House, more especially among the members from Quebec, for in that province, at the general elections, the Act in question was a very big issue.

To Embarrass Minister.

It was rumoured about the House yesterday that a deal was in prospect whereby the Liberals would join with a section of the Quebec Conservatives and vote to repeal the Act on the ground that the Government is not carrying it out, and that while it remains on the statute-book an alternative permanent policy cannot be brought in. There is likely to be nothing in this, however, because, apart from the inconsistency of any such action on their part, the Liberal leaders have little in common with certain interests understood to be behind the move to repeal the Act. The bona tides of this action are also questioned, and allegations are made that it is aimed at a Quebec minister recognized generally as one of the ablest members of the Cabinet. With him certain people are not in accord, and an attempt to embarrass his position is hinted at.

This article contains two distinct accusations and insinuations which I consider as reflecting on my honour as a member of this House and a supporter of the present Government. I wish to give an absolute denial that, 1 at any time, either directly or indirectly, negotiated or attempted to negotiate with any leader, member, or representative of the Opposition in connection with this Bill. I also give an emphatic denial to the malicious charge that the aim of this Bill is to embarrass a member of this Government. In presenting this Bill I am actuated by a sense of personal honour and public duty, which this House will be in a position to appreciate when I move its second reading.

Mr. E. W. NESBITT (North Oxford):

Mr. Speaker, coming from Ontario, I should like to join my voice with those of others who have congratulated Their Royal

Highnesses upon the restoration of Her Royal Highness's health, and I especially congratulate His Royal Highness because he has been preserved from the greatest calamity that can happen to any man in this world of trials and troubles.

I wish to congratulate the mover and the seconder of the Address, more especially the mover because I know of nothing that would have a greater tendency to make a man nervous than speaking for the first time in this House, no matter whether he had spoken before other assemblies or not. The mover certainly made a splendid speech; and I have no doubt the seconder did also, although I could not understand what he said. That, however, is my loss.

One or two things were suggested by the mover with which I am not entirely in accord. He said that the Government were at present building up happy homes for working men and artisans. Just at present I do not see much to favour that statement, I am sorry to say; quite the contrary.

He also objected to the Transcontinental Railway in New Brunswick running through fifty miles of virgin forest where there would not be a pound of freight, and stated that the forests would he destroyed. The people living in New Brunswick must be of a peculiar character, because in Ontario a railway going through fifty miles of virgin forest would be considered as the means of developing an enormous quantity of freight. Saw mills would be erected all along the line; and therefore, judging from ordinary humanity, I am sorry that I cannot agree with the hon. gentleman that the Transcontinental would not also develop a certain amount of freight, if not a large quantity, even in New Brunswick.

I am not one of those who were surprised that the Prime Minister did not say anything in the Speech from the Throne with reference to reintroducing his naval contribution, because I imagine that the Prime Minister and the country at large had quite sufficient of that Bill last session. I was rather surprised, however, that the government did not, in the Speech from the Throne, give us some intimation of what their permanent naval policy would be. They did say that they were going to introduce a Redistribution Bill, and one would think that after the redistribution was completed they would go to the country. In that case, they should be educat-

ing the people in regard to their permanent naval policy, if they ever intend to have one. I was not surprised that they dropped the contribution, because I imagine that the country at least did not endorse it. My hon. friend the Minister of Finance (Mr. White) said that he thought that, if the three ships had been gone on with, as proposed by the contribution last year, it would have been the means of reducing the armaments of the world. I am rather surprised that my hon. friend should make such a suggestion. I hope that he does not think he can make us believe that he really thinks so, because that is contrary to human nature. My hon. friend himself, if he had an antagonist, no matter in what capacity, mental or physical, would be one tof the very last to cease getting prepared, if he thought his antagonist was busy getting prepared. The mere fact of our contributing to an increase in the British navy would have been sufficient, in my judgment, to have stirred the German Empire, which is the nation that has been principally mentioned, to greater effort. We know that the Germans are very human in that regard. We know also that they have the means, because they did not reduce their naval expenditure, while they enormously increased their expenditure on their land forces during last season. That surely is an indication to us that, if we had joined with Great Britain in building more ships, that would have been the very thing that would have made the Germans increase their navy instead of decreasing it. There is nothing else that we could have done that would have assisted Great Britain to a greater extent in arriving at the naval holiday requested by the First Lord of the Admiralty than what we did do. It showed that while we, at least we-Liberals, were perfectly prepared to do our share to relieve Great Britain from our defence, we were not willing to enter into preparations for war in Europe. I think we did what the people of Canada expected us to do. With all due deference to the jingo and imperialistic elements in the country, I think the ordinary people who have to make their living, no matter what their vocation, whether farming or labouring, are very well satisfied that the Liberals, by their efforts, were the means of defeating a proposed grant of $35,000,000 towards increasing the naval armaments of Great Britain, which grant would have had the effect of increasing the naval armaments of the other European powers.

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Mr. BURNHAM:

Does the hon. gentleman mean that the Liberal policy was such that the Germans would take no stock in it and therefore would not increase their armament?

Mr. NESBITT:

The hon. gentleman no doubt -heard what I said; I think I spoke plainly. As to the attack that the Prime Minister made on the Senate, in my humble judgment, the Senate was absolutely justified in the position it took. I do not think the attack made by the right hon. gentleman will have any effect upon the mass of the people of Canada. The mass of the people, if they never were in favour of the Senate before, I believe, were in favour of its position in that case. The Senate simply asked the Government to carry out its promise and -allow the people to express their views on the question. The other day I read in the London Times an article which I ask leave to quote. We all know that, since last session, New Zealand -has decided to build its own navy. The following article from the Australian correspondent of the London Times struck me as rather odd in view of what the Times has published from its Canadian correspondent:

- Sydney, Oct. 7.

The first Dominion squadron, 'manned, controlled, and paid for,' as Lord Denman said on Saturday evening-, 'by the people of the Commonwealth,' has come to show itself to the people who made it. Every one is just a little proud; a little inclined to dilate with more emphasis than is absolutely necessary on * our boats ' and the show they make in and about Farm Cove; a little pleased to remind you that, though the United States fleet was bigger and far stronger in the aggregate, ' our battleship ' could blow any two of the vessels out of the water with ease. When that fleet was here the most characteristically Australian result of its visit was a cheerful and immediately popular song to the effect that

We're hanging out the sign from the Lecuwin

to the Line,

This bit of the world belongs to us!

It was no less characteristic that the people who so boasted at once began to make good the boast. 'We live in hopes,' said Mr. Deakin then, ' that from our own shores some day a fleet will go out not unworthy to be compared in quality, if not in numbers, with the magnificent fleet now in Australia.' Five years have gone by; the flags are up again, once more the main streets are triumphal avenues, and the great public buildings are ablaze every night from tower to basement with coronals and festoons of light; for in that five years such a beginning has been made of the Imperial enterprise which the then Prime Minister foreshadowed as neither he nor any of his auditors could then have dreamt of.

It is impossible not to make comparisons between the two occasions, but I need write down one only. Amid all the enthusiasm and curiosity which marked the crowds of 1908 one note was lacking-the personal-that is

very notable to-day. Never before have Australians, especially Australian mothers, watched the entrance of a squadron largely manned by their own boys. ' My boy's on the Sydney, and I must get down to the Heads to see him come in,' said one eager, tearful woman to the tram-driver when he slowed his overladen car on a steep grade. ' Our Tom was on duty when we went over the Australia; he wouldn't look at us, and quite right, too!" a father proudly told his fellow passenger on the ferry this morning. This is the note for the absence of which no amount of contributions, skillfully engineered through Parliament, could possibly compensate.

' Our ' ships and ' our ' boys will serve the empire better in times of stress than would twice the millions that Australia is spending on them.

That is our answer-at least that is my answer-to the assertions made here last year. I am sorry, as I have said, that the Prime Minister did not -see fit to give us some information of what his naval policy will be, for, so far as I know the minds of the Liberals, they are not opposed to doing their duty in any form to assist the mother country and relieve her of the burden of defending this country.

As to the Good Roads Bill, my hon. friend from Red Deer (Mr. Clark) thoroughly explained that subject. Of course, we know that the Prime Minister said that this ifioney could have been in the hands of the provinces for use this year, and that the lack of it was a great detriment to the provinces. I remember distinctly hearing him, and also the Minister of Railways (Mr. Cochrane), tell us that it was their intention to give the money under the Good Roads Bill to the provinces according to population. But he will remember that we moved a resolution to the effect that this should he put in the Bill. No person in this House, or in this country, knows better than does the Prime Minister that that is the only way to legislate; no person knows better than he that such a provision should have been in the Bill. Had he been on this side of the House and we on the other, and had our leader made a statement that such and such would be the case but that he did not propose to put it in the Bill, I can quite easily imagine how indignant the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Borden) would have been and how capably he would have discussed that question from the standpoint of the public right,- and quite properly too. The hon. member for Red Deer told us that wherever this matter had been properly explained the people did not hold the Liberals to blame. I can endorse what that hon. gentleman said, for I took the trouble to explain the matter to the farmers of our section of the country, and not only did we not get blame, we got praise, and so did 9

the Senate. The Prime Minister seeks to use the failure of the Good Roads Bill to pass as an argument against the Senate, but I do not think that cat will fight.

There is one thing on which I congratulate the Minister of Finance (Mr. White), and that is on the fact that he has told us that he will bring the Estimates down at an early day. I hope he will carry that into effect. Last year, the time of the House was taken up largely with the discussion of the Navy Bill. The Estimates were not only not brought down at an early day, but they were brought down at an absurdly late day. Every person in the House was tired out. The Minister of Finance, referring to the fact that my hon. friend the junior member for Halifax (Mr. Maclean) had found fault with the expenses stated that we had voted last year for those expenditures. Now, I was here during all the time of the passing of the Estimates, and I know that we opposed very strongly some of the votes. Of course, we passed them. But why? Because hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House had just shown us the power they held over us by passing their pet Bill, the Closure. We knew very well what would be the effect of a prolonged discussion of any of the Estimates. We knew that our friends opposite, who had taken the great power conferred upon them by that Closure, could and would promptly pass the Estimates over our head regardless of our opinions.

Therefore it does not lie kindly with the Minister of Finance to tell us that we voted for the Estimates. After all, the Estimates are theirs, the expenditures are theirs, and they are responsible to the country; and I have not the slightest doubt that the country will hold them responsible. They are aware, as the hon. the junior member for Halifax (Mr. A. K. Maclean) pointed out, of the very extravagant expenditures voted last year. The Minister of Finance says he foresaw the stringency that would affect the country during the latter part of the year, but, so far as I could read from the papers, the enormous and unnecessary expenditures in some lines have gone on. I need not discuss these expenditures. My hon. friend the Minister of Finance, in discussing the borrowings that he had made this year, told us that his predecessor, the Hon. Mr. Fielding, had increased the national debt in 1908 and in the forepart of 1909 by about $100,000,000. I looked up the public accounts after that, and I found that from 1897 to the 31st of March, 1911, the public debt of Canada had increased bv $78,503,456. That is to say that when the Liberals came into

power in 1897 the public debt was $261,538,596, and on the 31st of March, 1911, it was $340,042,052, making a total borrowing in round figures of $78,000,000. In 1908 and 1909 the borrowings were, in round figures, $100,000,000, but the maturities in 1908 were $37,000,000. So, during the whole time of the fifteen years regime of the Liberal party, the increase of the national debt was, in round figures, $78,000,000.

The Minister of Finance asked the right hon. the leader of the Opposition what legacy the Laurier Government had left him in 1911. He told us about the legacy of protecting the country against loss on the Grand Trunk Pacific bonds. He did not tell us that the real legacy left to him and to the country was a surplus of somewhere about $37,000,000 that year, which was followed during the first year of my hon. friend's regime, as I think he told us, by a surplus of $25,000,000. I know of no finer legacy that could have been left to the Finance Minister or the manager of a large corporation than an immensely profitable business. Canada certainly was in the position, when the Liberal party went out of power, of such a corporation, with an immensely profitable revenue. Yet immediately following that, two years afterwards, we find that the Government in power have not only commenced to lose that revenue to a certain extent, but they have begun to increase the public debt, they have begun to borrow money to carry on their business.

My hon. friend the Minister of Finance also said that the Laurier Administration commenced the system of guaranteeing bonds. He said that the policy of guaranteeing bonds was a very bad one. I wondered at the time whether it was worse than giving away immense territories of the country. I wondered if it was worse than the policy that was followed with the Canadian Pacific of giving away, free of taxation for twenty-five years I think, large quantities of land in the western country that properly belonged to the people there. Was it worth these double and treble subsidies that were given to another transcontinental railway? As a matter of fact we did guarantee the bonds both of the Canadian Northern and of the Grand Trunk Pacific in place of making them direct loans. Had we made them direct loans we would have had to borrow the money ourselves,-and could probably have done it slightly cheaper. The policy may be bad, 'but I dou'bt whether we could have adopted a better policy at the time.

,

That brings me to this question of the financial stringency of the present day. My hon. friend the Minister of Finance read from the Labour Gazette a lot of notices from different parts of the country, in the fall of 1908, saying that there was a lack of work in the cities at that time. That is true. He read from a speech of my right lion, friend and leader (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) in Montreal, saying that there was no cry during the fifteen years of the Liberal regime of the high cort of living; and to contradict that he read these reports of the Labour Gazette showing that there were at that time .men out of employment in the various cities throughout the country. I cast my mind back to that time and I quite appreciate that there were many men out of employment; but, as a matter of fact, there was no great cry or no cry that I remember at all, with reference to the high -cost of living. The reason of the stringency in 1907 and 1908, as was pointed out by my hon. friend from Edmonton (Mr. Oliver), was because of the lack of money to pay their way by the bankers of the United States, You all know that while some of us are unwilling to have truck or trade with the Yankees, we follow very closely the events that take place in the United States. We copy them very closely in very many ways, especially in commercial life. Nearly all the banks of the United States in the fall of 1907 and the early part of 1908 practically suspended payment, in fact I am not too sure that Mr. Forgen did not say, before the Banking and Commerce Committee last year, that all the banks of the United States at that time had suspended payment. Certainly most of them did and a great many failures took place. Now, our banks were alarmed that that feeling of unrest would spread to Canada and the consequence was that they reduced the lines of credit to the various manufacturers and commercial interests throughout Canada at that time. The fact is that at that time the banks reduced the lines of credit to the manufacturers and the consequence was -that the manufacturers were unable to manufacture up to their limit. There was no lack of orders that I know of, but the state of things this year is quite different. So far as I am aware the banks have been prepared and have supplied the manufacturers throughout the country with all the money they wanted. The commercial interests also could have got all the money they wanted from the banks.

My hon. friend from Waterloo (Mr. Clare)

shakes his head. I do not know what his experience has been, but I am only speaking from my own experience-and I am interested more or less in various manufacturing industries in this country-and my experience has been that the banks were prepared to and did supply this year just as full lines, to put it that way, as last year to the manufacturing and commercial interests .of the country. But the manufacturers this year could not get sufficient orders. In 1907 and 1908 the manufacturers could get all the orders they could handle. But so far as I was concerned, we could not get the money to supply the material and labour necessary to fill the orders. Therefore I think .our right hon. leader was perfectly justified in stating at Montreal that there was no complaint at that time of the high cost of living. I do not remember there being any great cry about the high cost of living at that time and I must say that probably nobody here was more actively engaged in business of various kinds, though perhaps in a small way, than I was.

The Minister of Finance also told us in an ironical sort of way that our right hon. leader has had many fiscal policies. He told us that at one time he was a free trader as they have it in England and that he is now a free food trader for the moment, and my hon. friend emphasized 'for the moment.' But I did not hear the Minister of Finance say that our right hon. leader had brought about the preference with Great Britain. Our leader did introduce the preference with Great Britain. Perhaps he was an advocate seven years ago of free trade as they have it in England, but at the present time he is an advocate .of free food. You will notice that while he may have had many policies, to all appearances different on the surface, yet he has always been consistent. In all his policies his tendency has been to a reduction of duty and so it is to-day. I was present at the meeting in Hamilton and beard the speech of our honoured leader but I did not construe it as the Minister of Finance would like to construe it, that by free food our leader meant the duty being taken off all foodstuffs. I recognize that there are certain classes of foods from which it is not necessary to remove the duty, such as fancy canned goods, fancy cheeses, fancy pickles and that sort of thing, which we get occasionally on the tables of the swell restaurants and hotels, or on the tables of the rich. As far as I am concerned, I have never seen them ex-9i

cept on occasions of that kind and I do not think any of us will advocate'the removal of the duty on such go.ods because at the hotels and restaurants goodness knows they charge us enough to pay for the duty. By free food I understood our leader to mean free staple food. I am not speaking for the whole of the Liberal party but simply for myself and that is what I understood him to mean. The Minister of Finance also stated that if the duties were removed from all foods, it would affect according to the statistics of the YearBook, 6,985 establishments with a capital of $133,000,000, employing 252,000 men, paying $14,000,000 in wages every year and using material to the amount .of $175,000,000 and with an output of $245,000,000. That is a good argument to use to frighten the people, but when you dissect the proposition of our right hon. leader you will see that very few of those establishments would be affected. The minister went on to say that the output of cheese in Canada for the last fiscal year amounted to $37,232,969, and that there were 3,625 establishments employing men to the number of 6,147. And yet, he said, our right hon. leader proposed to take the duty off cheese. During the reciprocity debate I did not hear that any of our farmers were opposed to taking the duty off cheese. As a matter .of fact at the present time the dairying interests of this country are prepared to see the duty taken off cheese if the American duty is taken off. Our dairymen want the American market. My hon. friend the Minister of Finance said that the removal of the duty would destroy the cheese factories in this country and I could not help thinking when he was talking, of something I heard when I was a boy. I had an Irish friend who was ridiculing to a certain extent another chap that he was with. The other fellow got angry and said: Do you mean to make a fool of me, and the Irishman replied: No, the Lord took advantage of me; and I say the Lord, through Mr. Woodrow Wilson and the Congress of the United States has already taken advantage of my hon. friend. Let me toll the hon. minister that there will be a lot less cheese factories in Canada next year than there were last year-a lot less in Ontario at any rate and I think Ontario produces the bulk of Canada's cheese. And why? Because while at one time you could tell the farmers that they were entitled to the protection of their products just as the manufacturer is, to-day, so far as I know, there are no farmers that can be deceived in

that way any more. They are not afraid [DOT]of the duties being taken off; they are perfectly willing to have them removed. What they ask for is the open market and [DOT]cheap transportation. What will happen the cheese industry? As a matter of fact, [DOT]our export of cheese has been going down Tor some years. Why? Because, for one reason, there is a great consumption of milk in the larger cities at the present time. Since the Americans took the duty off milk, the price of milk in the western portion of the riding that I have the honour to represent has increased to $1.90 per hundred pounds. They are giving $1.90 per hundred in the western portion of my riding and shipping milk to Detroit. Cheese at 12! cents is supposed to net the farmers $1. Cheese at a price of 13! cents, which was paid late this fall, would net the farmers from $1.15 to $1.20 per 100 pounds. The City Dairy Company of Toronto have a *depot at Woodstock and uozens of teams come in every morning taking in a territory covered by half a dozen or more cheese factories. They are paying $1.60 per hundred, and they are paying in Thamesford, only 14 miles away, $1.90 qrnd shipping the milk to Detroit. You may ask the question ; Why do they not all send their milk to Detroit? The answer is that people in the vicinity of Woodstock had made a contract to deliver their milk in Woodstock. They are also shipping milk from Lakeside on the Canadian Pacific railway to Port Huron and Detroit at $1.90 per 100 pounds. While the farmer may occasionally be told successfully something that you want him to swallow, he is not so foolish that he does not know the difference between $1.20 and $1.90.

My hon. friend the Minister of Finance told me, speaking of the commission that had been appointed to look into the high cost of living, that I was reported to have said at Attwood, Ont., that the appointment of the commission was a rotten farce. I am not so sure whether I said it was rotten or not, but I certainly said that it was a farce. I would not be surprised if I did add the other word, because I think that it had the germs of decay in it from the start. It was certainly built on a very tottering foundation and will do no good to the people of this country in so far as a reduction of the high cost of living is concerned. I did say that the appointment of the commission was a farce. I did also say that the main cause of the high cost of living was the lack of production. I still say so, but I also said at Attwood, and I

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still say to-day, that the Government had it in their own hands a remedy, in so far as it is possible for a government to remedy it, the high cost of living by taking away the duty, by opening the door, so that when goods went too high, no matter what the goods were, on this side of the line, there would be an inducement to the people of the other side of the line that have them to sell to send them over here. That, I think, you will acknowledge, because I think it is a proposition that has a strong basis. If there are no artificial doors, production and supply and demand will regulate the market.

As to mergers or combines, if they are controlling to any extent the food supply of this country, the same would apply. If there is one thing that would do away with the control either by mergers or combines it is the opening of the doors to the other side of the line. My right hon. friend the Prime Minister says that the combines and mergers on the other side of the line are worse if anything than they are on this side of the line. That may be true in a sense, but there are no persons who fight

4 p.m. each other more than these mergers and combines, and it would be some years before the combines on the other side of the line could establish a working connection with the combines on this side of the line, if they wanted to do so in order to affect the cost of food. I am not one of those who think that the cost of food is seriously affected in a wrong way by cold storage. Cold storage may raise the price of food at a certain time of the year, but taking it on the average, the usual effect of cold storage is to keep the price down to a reasonable amount. In the summer time it does increase the price of perishable goods, but if it were not for cold storage at other times of the year the price of food would increase very much more than it does. If there is any combine in the cold storage business I am perfectly willing to see it investigated. I am perfectly willing to see any of these things investigated, but if there is anything in the world that would do away absolutely and entirely with any control of that kind it would be to take off the duties and let food circulate freely. The farmers of this country are perfectly willing that that should be done.

The hon. Minister of Finance says that his proposition to reduce the high cost of living is to educate the farmers, and he illustrates that by the Bill for $10,000,000 that was passed last year for agricultural

education. There never was a newspaper, yellow or otherwise, with a bigger headline than that $10,000,000, and there never was a big headline that was a greater deception. It might as well have been $1,000,000 a year and nobody would have paid any attention to it, but it was a great headline, a great advertisement, and nothing more or less in my judgment. I am not opposed to money being spent on the education of the farmers any more than I am opposed to what is being spent on the education of any other class of the people, but I want to tell the House that in so far as I know the farmers and I think I do know them, the farmers of Ontario are quite capable of farming properly if they have the inducement to farm properly. All they ask you for is cheap transportation and open markets. You talk about educating the farmers. The hon. Minister of Finance said that he would educate the farmers in order to do away with the high cost of living. I cannot help but think of the poor fellows that were on the submarine 7A, who went to the bottom of the ocean the other day, and I wondered if it would do them any good if in some years to come somebody undertook to educate the officers and men on submarines as to how to raise themselves from the bottom of the ocean. That very well illustrates the attitude of my hon. friend the Minister of Finance with reference to what he proposes to do for the education of the farmer.

My hon. friend from Souris (Mr. Schaff-ner) told us the other night that the Government had reduced express rates by twenty per cent, but I always thought it was the Railway Commission that reduced those express rates, and I would remind him that it was the Laurier Government that appointed the Railway Commission and made it possible for any public body in this country to reduce rates. And, if in their wisdom the Railway Commission should reduce freight rates, they will do so because the power was conferred on them by the Laurier Government. The hon. gentleman (Mr. Schaffner) also told us that under the new agricultural grant, educational plots of forty acres had been opened in each township or municipality in the West, and he pointed out that this would prove of wonderful service to the people of Manitoba. Well, that depends on the way these forty acre plots will be worked, and while no doubt many of these things have been so carried on as to reflect credit on the people and on those who manage them, others have proved failures. However, I hope this system will

be a success in the West. In my section of the country we have nothing of that kind. If the Minister of Agriculture were present I would point out to him that the Ontario* Government sends what is called a district representative to my section of the country and he has recently established a class ins the collegiate institute for educating the-farmers and their sons in scientific agriculture. I cannot help but think that if he would establish such classes once or twice a week in the schools in various parts of the country he would do more good than he would be liable to do in the' city of Woodstock, although at the same time he is doing good work there and I have nothing to say against that. But I was wondering if that is to be our share of the agricultural grant. At the various meetings of farmers which I attended this fall, I asked them if they had seen any signs of benefit from these grants which the Government are boasting so much about, and I could not find a farmer anywhere in our county who had heard of any benefit that had accrued.

Let me deal now with the duty on wheat, which is an important question at the present time. I understood from the Minister of Finance and from the Prime Minister that tiny are not inclined to grant the request of the western farmers for free wheat. I can inform them that, as far as I have been able to find out, the farmers of Ontario, of both sides of politics, have no possible objection to free wheat. So far as I have discussed it with them they say: If the western men

think it will be a benefit to them, why not give it to them? After listening to the speech of my hon. friend from Edmonton (Mr. Oliver) as to the results in connection with oats and barley and flax, I ask: Why does not the Government rise to the occasion and extend the benefit to wheat? The Government were the means of keeping the people of Canada from getting free markets in the United States two years ago, and if free cereals would be a benefit to the people of the West, why not let them have it? If the manufacturers want a duty put on or taken off any article, I am quite sure this Government or any other Government that might be in power at the time would be perfectly willing to listen to them, and I think it rather strange that while the farmers of the west are unanimous for free wheat, the Government should say to them: You do not know your own business, we will give you protection. I can-

not for the life of me see why the Government is disposed to refuse this boon to the farmers of the West, except it may be that they think it will hurt the millers. The milling industry is a large one in Canada, and I grant you it is the duty of all governments to look out for the interests of all the people and to legislate in the interests of the majority, no matter whether they are party friends or otherwise. It may be that this may hurt the miller, but why should it hurt the miller? As a matter of fact the flour made from Manitoba wheat is supposed to be the best in the world. The millers tell me that the millers of Great Britain require a certain amount of Manitoba wheat to mix with the softer wheat from southern countries, and I understand that the millers of Great Britain are ahead of the millers of the United States or of Canada in their system of mixing, which they have reduced to a science. But, after all, the best of their best quality of flour is made from Manitoba wheat. Then, if the Manitoba flour is better than any other flour, why should not western millers mark their flour so that they will get the advantage of that throughout the world? I cannot understand why that cannot be done, because after all people will pay for quality, and in that respect why have not our home millers an advantage over the millers of England and the United States? Of course, there is no possible doubt that if there were free wheat a great deal of western grain would be shipped to the United States by southern routes, and I recognize that we have built transcontinental railways at great expense to carry the grain from the West to the seaboard. .

I recognize that fact, and as a Canadian I am proud to see these railways built. At the same time, I can quite appreciate that the Government fear that the grain might be shipped to the south where the western farmers could obtain a better market. If that is not the fear of the Government, then why do they not give free wheat to the people of the West? There must be some reason of that kind. I think that the ordinary every day farmer in the West, with 160 or 320 acres, is not making money; and, if he is not making money, he will not continue to reside there. In that event we shall lose our great market in the West. We who do any manufacturing in the East know that Western Canada has been our greatest market during the last ten years. If these peo-

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pie in the West are not making money- and they cannot make money under present conditions-then why not let them have an open market to the south of them, so that they can put themselves in a position to buy goods from manufacturers in the East. That is the question that faces us and that we have got to decide. I hope the Government will decide it wisely, because it has got to be decided one of these days. You may refuse.the market to the people of the West and you may cajole, although I doubt it, the farmers of Ontario to believe that they are protected and that they need protection. For two or three years, however, I have not found a farmer who will claim that he needs protection. He is perfectly willing to compete.

At the present time, in my judgment, you will have to do more than to give free food. The hon. Minister of Finance was absolutely right when he said that there are thousands of industries in this country that, perhaps, are not in a position to compete with the very keen and severe competition from Europe and the United States, because the European and United States manufacturers have greater markets at their command than we have. They have also got their business down to a greater science. We manufacturers in Canada will have to learn to systematize our business; but, at the same time, while there are thousands of industries in this country to which we must give a certain amount of protection, there are others that compete now in the open markets of the world. Why should they be protected here? There are some of the latter industries that come into direct touch with the farmers, and I, as a farmer, may tell you that, while there may be no combines in other lines of business in this country, the sellers of agricultural implements have a peculiar way of showing competition. To save your life, you cannot in our country buy a plough or a binder or any other agricultural implement that I know of from one salesman a particle cheaper than you can buy it from another. That is a strange thing, but I have tried it time and again. In my humble judgment, the prices are also too high. These sellers will be forced, if the duties are removed or lowered to a great extent, to come into keener competition, and that will be a benefit to the farmers. The farmer cannot afford to do everything. He will be perfectly willing to give up any protection that he may have, either on his animal products or his cereals. He also will require something that this Government can give him, that this Government will

be forced to give him. The time is coming, and we may just as well make up our minds to do it, as you cannot cajole the farmer any longer into thinking that he is protected by protection. He knows that he is not, he knows that he can compete, but he also wants a fair show in the open market. The hon. Minister of Finance, I dwell on what he says, because what he says to the country should be important-tells us that instead of spending the money on the Transcontinental railway, it would have been better had we spent it on agricultural education. At the time the Transcontinental railway was started, there was the greatest possible demand from the West for a means of moving the crop. We heard from one end of the country to the other the cry: What is the use of growing the crop when we cannot get it out, when it rots in the field? That is why we spent the money in building this new Transcontinental railway to move the crop. This last day or two I have heard speakers on the other side of the House say, with the greatest of pride, that there was no block in the moving of the crops this year. Why? Because otner railways had come in to assist the Canadian Pacific railway in the moving of the crops. The building of the other railways, the mere fact of the suggestion that other railways would be built made the Canadian Pacific railway improve its rolling stock and double-track its line. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company are like all other corporations. I have nothing to say against any corporation. Let them do the best for themselves. The Canadian Pacific railway are absolutely sane, and they will not do anything until they are forced to do it, and they were forced by competition and nothing else to improve their rolling stock and their facilities for moving the grain. If it had not been for that compulsion, there would be still the same old story, and the grain would be rotting on the ground there still as it did several years ago. That has been improved upon. If it will improve the opportunities of the people of the West to have an open market to the south, although the railways may suffer to a certain extent, the railways will look after themselves. If the grain is taken to the south, it has still to be carried to the markets in the east to the south of us. Why cannot our railways carry it to those markets just as cheaply as the railways on the American side of the line can? I think they can; and what is more, I think they will.

The people of the West tell us also that the transportation charges are too high.

They tell us that if they grow wheat, say at Regina, and they get sixty-five cents a bushel for it, that is not sufficient money to pay them. I have figured it up time and again with some of the best farmers to be found in the West, and I do not believe it is sufficient money to pay, except to farmers in a very large way of business. Remember that the country is not made up of farmers in a large way of business, and after all it is the ordinary farmer whom we must consider; it is the ordinary businessman whom we must consider. It is not the exceptions that we must consider in legislation of any kind. I could not help but smile when I heard my hon. friend (Mr. White) say that it would have been better if we had spent the money on agricultural education that we spent in building the Transcontinental railway.

There was another thing, very funny, that I heard my hon. friend the Minister of Finance say, and that was when discussing a statement made by my hon. friend the member for Red Deer (Mr. Clark) as to the duty on agricultural implements. He said that under reciprocity the duty was only reduced to fifteen per cent, which, he said, would have been there for evermore. The whole challenge from end to end of the land, when the reciprocity discussion was on, was that reciprocity was simply the thin edge of the wedge. But now the Minister of Finance tells us that this duty of if- per cent would have been left there forever if we had passed the reciprocity agreement. Hon. gentlemen opposite suggest that my right hon. leader (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) is not always consistent, but surely he is quite as consistent as hon. gentlemen opposite, especially as consistent as the Minister of Finance when he makes ironical remarks. The whole question at this time, after all, is, what is best in the interests of the country, not a question of what is best in the interests of the Liberal party or in the interests of the Conserva-party. I believe that at heart we all recognize that. There is no denying the fact, I am sorry to say, that there is privation and hardship in the country at this time. The Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance have said that times will improve. I believe as firmly as I believe that I am speaking to you now that, unless there is some change in the administration of the country for the benefit of the West, the times will not improve there. They say to the people of the West: Go into mixed farming.

They might as well tell me to go into flying. It takes money to go into mixed farming, and it takes time. It is the same as with

the agricultural education which the Minister of Finance advocated. It is true you may educate the farmer to a better system of farming under which he will grow more grain. The farmers in Ontario could raise from two to three times as much as they are raising now on the land which they use if they would farm properly. But it takes time to bring about these changes. In the meantime, what are the people on these 160-acre farms, and 320-acre farms-the small farmers of the West-going to do? Such a man, if his farm does not pay him, will desert his farm and let it fall into the hands of the mortgagee, and that will be a great setback to the country. He requires relief; he knows what that relief should be, and why not give it to him?

Mr. E. N. LEWIS (West Huron):

Mr. Speaker, speaking, as I do, for the first time from my seat in the front row of the Government side in this House, I trust you will excuse my diffidence and not allow any imperfection in my presentation of the matters which I wish to submit to prevent you from giving due attention to the facts which I desire to lay before you, and through you before this House.

I was disappointed at not seeing in the Speech from the Throne some reference to the transportation question in relation to the great inland waterways of Canada. I fear that many hon. members, coming as they do from parts of Canada distant from the centres of lake traffic, have no idea of the hugeness of that traffic. To convey to you some idea of what that traffic means, I desire to lay a few facts before you. Sir, we are fortunate in having in Canada a waterway of thousands of miles- to put it accurately-2,384 miles-reaching from the head of salt water navigation to the heart of the country and affording, to a great extent, deep-water navigation to the heart of the continent and making the line of least resistance for the traffic of the one hundred millions of people who line that waterway. To illustrate the size of this traffic, let me give a comparison of canal tonnage. Take the great Suez canal which now takes the traffic of the entire continent of Europe and the British Islands through to Australia and the Orient,-that traffic which originally went around the Cape of Good Hope-and we find that in the year 1911 there were 5,200 vessels passed through that canal, with a freight tonnage of 25,000,000 tons. In the year 1911 there passed through the Sault Ste. Marie canal 25,000,000 vessels. In the year 1913, instead

of 25 000,000 of freight, as in the case

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of the Suez canal, there went through the Sault Ste. Marie canal, 79,718,344 tons of freight. And I am proud to say that the quantity which went through the Canadian Sault Ste. Marie canal was 5,674,943 tons more than went through the United States canal at that point. Add to this the traffic that comes through from Lake Michigan on which are the great cities of Chicago and Milwaukee, and the traffic which comes from cur own Georgian bay, and it will easily be seen that the amount in the year 1913 must have been over 100,000,000 tons. This immense traffic on its way to the lower lakes passes in front of the riding which I have the honour to represent. But it will be seen that the questions involved in this traffic are not local questions merely but are of national importance. On the 9th of last November, Sunday evening, while the people on shore were in church, there occurred on the Great Lakes, a catastrophe absolutely appalling, the greatest that ever happened either on the ocean or on the lakes affecting Canada or the United States. The gale that arose at that time wiped out of existence fourteen great steel steamships, eight of them disappearing absolutely, not a soul aboard being left to tell the tale. The loss was 205 stalwart young men. And the vessels, as I have indicated, were not old, unseaworthy hulks, but fine steamships. One of them had been on the ocean for years. Another had been built in a Canadian port. And when the representatives of the owners of that vessel in the city of Toronto were told that the steamship Carruthers had been lost they simply laughed; they said that no gale on the lakes could hurt her. She was a vessel over 600 feet long, and had been built by

the best men on the continent.

One steamship 505 feet long, laden with 9,740 tons of coal, turned over as if she -had been a cork, without a scratch. 0-f the great number of young men who were- lost in front of that port, sixty-four bodies were recovered. Only one of these had been drowned, the others -had all died from exposure, and no bodies were recovered so far that had not life belts on. I refer to -the vessels by name, the Carruthers, the Wexford, an ocean steamship which had been on the lakes for years, formerly in the Mediterranean trade; the Regina, a Canadian boat; the Price, the one of 505 feet long that was overturned with 9,700 tons of coal; the Argus, the Hydrus, the McBean, and Scott. These boats, Sir, could have been saved-I say so here -from the evidence that was given at the inquest-not -a soul need

have 'been drowned, had we been advanced in our aids to navigation. They have on the ocean a wireless call, I believe S.O.S., which gives notice when a boat is in distress, but this is an entirely different proposition. There is no boat in the

world that could have lived or effected a rescue in that sea at that time with the heavy snow storm that then prevailed. To show you the force of the [DOT]storm, I may say that one boiat which was cast ashore on the American side, on which there was an insurance of $300,000, had a hole broken by the sea in her iron plates in the bow, into which you could put a barrel. Her inside bulkheads saved her until she went ashore-in fact all the boats that went ashore were saved.

Nothing could better illustrate the danger of the approach to Goderich harbour in a northwest gale than the fact that since the tragedy of November three steamers on three different occasions had attempted to enter that port in a northwest gale but had to put back to the open water. I contend that had the port which I represent and, which for the last ten years, the Govem-ment of this country have designated a port of refuge, and have been trying to make a port of refuge, had that port been a foul weather port instead of a fair weather port, [DOT]and had there been a wireless station with a hurricane call, there was not one of those boats that could not have been in shelter inside of three hours. As a basis for that opinion, I give you the record as produced at the inquest of the weather bureau in the city of Toronto. On Friday morning, the 7th of November, the *weather bureau sent out to the stations a warning that there was a strong northwest gale coming. The stations of all the upper lakes put up signals to that effect so that every captain had warning. That was on Friday the 7th. That storm continued through the 7th, and through the night of the 7th and on the 8th, but abated on the evening of the 8th. In the morning of the 9th of November the barometer on all the ships went up; the northwest storm signal was still up, but the storm had abated and the Kamanisti-quia left Goderich for Fort William at seven o'clock on the morning of the 9th of November. At half past ten o'clock she met the Wexford thirtv-five miles northwest of Goderich bound for that port, but that boat and her crew were never seen afterwards. At 10.40 o'clock on the evening of the 8th of November, the weather bureau in Toronto, according to the evidence in Toronto, had distinct information

and evidence that there was a northwest hurricane approaching. They were asked why they had not sent out that notice. They said that the telegraph lines were not working. They were asked why they did not use the telephone. I think, Sir, that on one or two occasions since then I have seen telephone messages sent to the lighthouse after the telegraph service was closed, to bring word of a storm. We have at Goderich the highest point on the whole of the shore of 200 odd miles, it is 120 feet above the water. To the north and south of the town the shore declines. I have asked that we should have a wireless telegraph station there. Even with the harbour entrance protected as I hope it will be, there should be still this extra call, because of late years the captains have not placed much credence in the weather bureau reports.

As to the importance of this port which I have the honour of representing, and to show you that this is not a local or parochial matter, but a national matter, we are a link in the great chain of inland navigation from our great northwest to the sea, and you all know that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. We do not compete with the great ports on the Georgian bay, Collingwood, Owen Sound. Depot Harbour or Meaford. Our trade is entirelv different, although we are eight miles nearer to Fort William and have a straight open course from the entrance to Sault river. The port with which we do compete is the port of Buffalo. To show you how the grain which is grown in Canada and should go through Canadian transportation systems is drafted away, I merely cite that up to the first of last September, 31,483,952 bushels of wheat: 2,465,490 bushels of oats; 1,721,679 bushels of barley; 6,319,303 bushels of flax, making a total of 41,990,990,423 bushels, went through the port of Buffalo from Fort William and Port Arthur.

We have in Goderich two large industries, one an elevator of over one million bushels capacity, which this year and the year before made over 50 per cent of its total value in earnings. That elevator is owned by people in western Ontario; every miller, in almost every town in western Ontario, from Toronto, Guelph, and London, to the Great Lakes, has stock in that company. We also have a mill which is directed by and connected with the Winnipeg Western Canadian Milling

Company, with a capacity of one million, and that mill grinds every day over two thousand barrels of

13d

flour from Manitoba wheat. That flour is shipped to every place in Canada. The stockholders of that mill are in almost every place in Canada showing you what I said is the fact, that the matter is mot one of local concern only.

To show you that the water traffic that passes through lake Huron is the greatest in the world I would cite the traffic of the great port of London which, during the year 1912, had 37,678,142 tons of freight and the great port of Liverpool which had 30,273,355 tons, the two together not making much more than two-thirds the amount which passes through lake Huron. All of this traffic is diverted to the other side of the lake because on our side of the lake there is no port with an entrance properly protected in case there is trouble from the northwest. We have a marine engine works in Goderich second to none in Canada engaged in building engines and repairing boats for this Dominion. Were that entrance properly protected a great trade would develop there. When I say we do not compete with the Georgian bay ports we do in this way: Every dollar that is

spent on a port in the Georgian bay is for the trade that goes to that port, while there is no dollar spent in Canada on public work which can produce the result that would be secured if spent to protect this harbour on this two hundred and seventy miles of coast line, on the second largest lake in the world which has a depth of six hundred feet. I contend, contrary to some statements of one or two at the inquest and the matter was gone into exhaustively, and all the marine evidence that could be was taken-that the plans as set out by the engineers of this Government are amply sufficient to make that a safe harbour. The only thing necessary is that it should be done at once, not piecemeal. This is not a matter of politics, it concerns one side of this House just the same as the other. There is only a certain amount that need to be expended and a great deal would be saved by quick completion because owing to the conformation of the harbour it now fills in each year, involving yearly expenditures for dredging. In the name of Canada, I ask this Government, and this House, in the interests of the country and in the interests of humanity, to make this port a safe port of refuge as it was formally constituted by this Government many years ago, and I ask that it should be completed at once.

It is to be noticed that after the recent disaster the United States Lake Carriers .

Association spent thousands of dollars in rescue work on .our shore and paid for the rescue and other costs irrespective of whether the sailor found was a citizen of the United States or of Canada. Every dollar properly spent in public improvements is well spent. Too much cannot thus be spent.

In that connection I would like to recall fto the House a Bill which I had the honour of introducing in Parliament some years ago. It was a Bill, a very proper Bill, I think, in reference to the load line on ships -Bill No. 98, January 20, 1911. I think our ships on the Great Lakes should have a load line. While it has always been contended by ship owners that a vessel properly built with proper steam capacity and properly loaded would be safe in any storm, the recent disaster proves the contrary to be the case. The only Canadian boat saved that went through the storm was the Kaminis-tiquia. She was absolutely light and left the harbour of Goderich ten hours after the weather bureau in Toronto knew there was to be a northeast hurricane on the Great Lakes. The hurricane began at three o'clock m the afternoon of Sunday the 9th of November, and it was all over apparently that evening because the watches of all the men were found stopped about the same time.

There is another matter which seriously affects the people of western Ontario. I know more of western Ontario than other parts of Canada and I hope other parts of the Dominion are not affected as much as we are in the east. I refer to bank interest. Bank interest has recently been raised from 6 to 7 or 8 per cent. I know that because when I applied for some money to come down here to discharge my duties as a legislator I was told that I should have to pay 8 per cent on the money, although I believe the law says they cannot collect 8 per cent. But we cannot afford to go to law with a bank. I contend-and I ask the Minister of Finance to bear this in mind, for I have already brought this matter before the House-that when a bank raises its interest on loans from 6 to 7 per cent, it should also raise the rate it pays to depositors from 3 to 4 per cent. If they were compelled to do this it would benefit a great number of people because it is well known the farmers of western Ontario have many millions of dollars in the banks at 3 per cent. It is a poor rule that will not work both ways.

I would like to draw the attention of the Minister of Justice to another matter which has been called to my attention in several

communications and to which a great deal of publicity has been given in the press. I refer to some indemnity being given to a man or his family in the case of a man who has been imprisoned and afterwards found to bd absolutely innocent of the offence with which he was charged. In the year 1907 I drew up a Bill at the request of some legal gentlemen in Toronto, men of large and kindly spirit, but on presenting the same to the law officers of the House I was informed that I could not present the Bill as it was a Bill including the expenditure of money and must therefore be introduced by a member of the Government. Here is one letter which I' have just received in connection with this matter:

Let the country know that Parliament had been given the opportunity to clean the skirts of Canadian justice, over this gross miscarriage of justice. It seems to me, that it is one -of the strangest travesties of our laws, that there is absolutely no redress, from the State, in cases of the kind, where innocent men are punished, and imprisoned by the State, on the principle that ' The King can do no wrong ' when every one knows that a cruel wrong has been perpetrated by the representatives of the King, in the name of justice. Surely a compensatory Act could be framed to meet just such cases. That the King can do no wrong is surely a survival of mediaeval darkness, and the blind worship of an ancient fetish, that no legal redress can be obtained from the State, when the liberty of the subject has been subjected to gross injustice by the same State.

I do not believe that there will be very many cases requiring this kind of compensation. For eighteen years I was in charge of the criminal jurisdiction of one of the largest counties in Ontario, and I remember discussing this matter with the jailer who was a man of great thought. He stated that in the whole of his many years' experience as a jailer he only knew of one man who had been imprisoned and afterwards found not guilty.

The hon. gentleman who last spoke made some remarks in reference to the navy. I do not purpose entering into that question, but I would ask this Government if they could not see fit, in the interest of the sea-faring men of the Great Lakes and of Canada generally, to enter into negotiations with the mother country by which five or six large cruisers could be sent here at the Christmas season of the year in order that the young sailor men and fishermen of Canada, who have nothing to do from the end of November to the first of April, might be allowed to take a cruise from Halifax or St. John to the West Indies or other places, and to exercise with the big guns, they to be paid

their wages by the Dominion of Canada during that period, and, after three years of such exercise and winter cruising, to be called naval reserve men, and paid a certain amount in consideration of the fact that they would be at the beck and call of the State when needed. I agree with Lord Fitzwilliam, and other authorities, that the one great need of the British navy is men, and as we have 80,000 odd fishermen and sailors who have nothing to do during this portion of the year, and who would only be too glad of the three months' training and service with the guns, I contend that this would be a very effective way of showing our loyalty to the empire. These men, I think, would be fully entitled to the amount which they would receive up to a certain age limit after passing through their three years of training. There is no more deserving class in Canada than these men who are fishermen or sailors on the Great Lakes or the sea coasts of Canada. The farmer in our fine country knows very well when he goes to bed at night that when he wakes up in the morning he will find his fields in front of him, and his barns in their proper places; or, if they are not in their places, he will find his insurance policy, and not be at any loss if anything occurs while he sleeps. But the poor fishermen, generally hardy men of no great means, when they go to sea, have no idea whether they shall ever return or whether they shall find their nets or what they are looking for. It would be a deserving payment to men of that class.

There was one more question brought forward by the hon. member for Oxford (Mr. Nesbitt); that was in reference to immigration. You may remember, Mr. Speaker, that I had a Bill before this House at one time to restrict immigration from certain parts of Europe. I refer to the southern parts of Europe. I think we should take warning from the example of the great nation to the south of us. From the time of the formation of that nation until 1830 they doubled and trebled in population out of the loins of their own people. They grew strong in stature and intellect. From 1830 to 1880 they doubled and trebled with an immense immigration, but where from? From the proper parts of the Old World in which to get a good class of immigrants-from the British Isles, from the north of France, from Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Norway, and they still grew a nation of men and women strong in

who are treated with some contempt by the more astute politicians who sit in the ministry from the plains of the fertile West. More than wheat grows there.

Now, Mr. Speaker, that is a very significant statement: more than wheat grows on the plains of the fertile West. We have some positive statements in this article. One is that this Government is controlled in Montreal. He goes on to say:

Not only the legislation alone, but the policy of the Government Is dictated by the railways and the banks and the big interests in the city of Montreal.

Now, there could not he a more sweeping indictment against any. Government, and I wish you to note that this indictment is made by a man who ought to know.

That is not all. In addition to the outside influences that we are told control this Government, there is a system of internal boss rule. Special reference is made to an astute minister from the plains of the fertile West, who not only controls the ministry, but treats with contempt the members of the Cabinet who come from the province of Ontario.

In Japan, before they adopted western ideas, some fifty years ago, we are told that there was an official called the great Shogun, who had complete control of all the legislation and of all the official business of the Empire of Japan. He was supposed to be second in rank to the Emperor; but he was not second to the Emperor in power; in fact, he had authority above the Emperor himself. He had complete control in the Empire of Japan. When the great Shogun said: Go, the people went; and when he said: Do this, they did it; for, if they did not do it, why, their heads were cut off.

To speak plainly, my reading of this article which I have just submitted to you, Sir, is that the hon. member for South York (Mr. Maclean) suggests that the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Kogers) is the great Shogun of this Government, and that this great Shogun goes so far as to treat the Ministers from the province of Ontario with contempt. I do not call this witness, however, for the purpose of showing that there are dissensions in the Cabinet. I produce this evidence for the purpose of showing that the policy and the legislation of this Government are dictated by the big interests. If any one on the other side of the House disputes that fact, I would ask him to fight it out with my hon. friend from South York. .

The second witness I am going to produce is no less a gentleman than the hon. Minis-,

ter of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Hazen). We all know that my hon. friend the Minister of Marine and Fisheries is a man of very great ability and energy. When he took up the important portfolio of Marine and Fisheries, very high hopes were entertained of him in the Maritime provinces; and I have no doubt that it was felt on all sides that he would administer the affairs of the department for the development of the great fishing industry of this country. I feel sure that he would have lived up to those high expectations, if he had not in some cases been ruled by outside influences.

Let me give you an example of how the Department of Marine and Fisheries is dictated to by the big interests. There is. an old regulation, which was passed, I understand, in the year 1894, prohibiting the export of sockeye salmon from the province of British Columbia. It was not a tariff regulation; it was absolute prohibition. The fisherman who caught the salmon could not sell them to the American buyers. If he did so he incurred the penalty of confiscation of his boat and his license, and he was put out of business. He must sell to somebody [DOT] within the province of British Columbia, or not sell at all. That was a regulation which occasionally bore hard on the fishermen. I have been told by hon. members from British Columbia that often the price on the south side of the line was better than the price on the British Columbia side, and even on some occasions the canners in British Columbia would not purchase the fish from the fisherman at all, and that he had to dump them back in the sea. I am not dealing just now with the question as to whether that regulation is a bad one or a good one. It was passed by the old Conservative Government in 1894, and has existed throughout the whole period of the Liberal Administration up to the present time. It may be a bad regulation or it may be a good one; but the question that I am discussing is that the Conservative members from the province of British Columbia, when they were in opposition, took the ground that it was a bad regulation, and that it ought to be repealed. My hon. friend the member for New Westminster (Mr. Taylor) was the champion of the fishermen on different occasions for ten years during the time of the late Administration. I often listened to the speeches on that question and I used to think that he made out a pretty strong case. In order that I may give him fair play, I shall quote his own words as they appear in

' Hansard ' referring to this regulation. They are to be found on page 8424 of ' Hansard ' 1910-11. He was applying at that time for the repeal of the regulation. He makes the statement that there is an absolute fish combineamong the canners of British Columbia. Then he goes on to charge Mr. Brodeur, then Minister of

Marine and Fisheries, not only with preventing them from selling their fish on the Canadian side by limiting the number of licenses, but with prescribing an absolute prohibition of export so that when a Canadian fisherman has 400 or 500 fish in his boat ready to sell, and no Canadian canner will buy them, and when an American canner within a few miles away holds out his hand for those fish, the minister says, I prohibit you by force of law taking those fish across the boundary line. My hon. friend from New Westminster described the regulation as a cruel one. He goes on to say:

We find the Minister of Finance standing up for the capitalists against the fishermen. The minister should he of all men the first to stand by the poor fisherman who is not able to protect himself.

Later on in the same debate, he speaks as follows:

Under the law as It has stood the fishermen are absolutely prohibited from selling their fish on the American side. They are prohibited from exporting it at all, but the canners have not been prohibited from importing fish. Upon bringing it into the country, it is true, they pay a duty, but as they export the greater part of their product, that duty, minus a very small charge for office fees, is always refunded to them, so that the transaction costs them nothing more than putting up a cheque from the time they bring the fish into the country until the time they export it.

After the present Government came into power, I must say it is to the credit of my hon. friend from New Westminster that he endeavoured to carry out his promise to the fishermen. In the session of 1912, the matter was brought before the House. I think it came before the House on the motion of my hon. friend the member for Comox-Atlin (Mr. Clements). Several hon. gentlemen from British Columbia on that occasion repeated the old protest against this regulation. They said it was a bad regulation; that it should never have existed, and they demanded its repeal. They said it was not in the interests of the fishermen, and that it was altogether in the interests of the canners. They condemned the Laurier Administration for not having repealed it. After

the discussion which lasted for a day, I think, the hon. Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Hazen) summed up the dehate. He denounced the regulation. He said he was surprised that such a regulation could be possible. He stated that he had already repealed it and that statement was received with tremendous cheers by his supporters from the province of British Columbia. We on this side of the House thought that our friends on the other side had scored a kind of victory over us. Let me read a part of the minister's speech on that subject. I quote from page 2492 of the ' Hansard ' of 1912. This debate took place on the 5th of February, 1912. The minister said:

The effect of that regulation was this: a boat might catch 300 or 400 salmon and on bringing its catch to the cannery would find a notice posted up to the effect that on that day the cannery would not take more than 100. One would think that the fisherman could then take his fish to the American or some other market; no, under the regulations he was absolutely prohibited from doing so, so that he had to dump his extra supply, in come cases 200 or 300 salmon, back into the sea.

Acting on representations or representatives from British Columbia endorsed by the officials of my department on Saturday last I had that regulation repealed, so that now the fishermen can send their fresh fish to other markets than to the canneries.

The regulation we have repealed was probably passed years ago, before the fisheries were properly understood, and when probably some wealthy men had sufficient influence to have this regulation made in their own interest. It was then continued in force from year to year until it became a serious scandal and a great subject of grievance to the fishermen.

I wish you to mark these words of the minister : ' On Saturday last I had that regulation repealed.' Now, Mr. Speaker, you will be surprised to learn that this regulation was not repealed at all and that it is still in full force. What is the explanation? No sooner was this declaration of the minister's sent abroad in the newspapers than the combine in British Columbia woke up and for the next day or two kept the wires hot with messages to the Minister of Marine and Fisheries, to the Prime Minister, to everybody who, they thought had influence with the Government. We had these telegrams placed on the table last year in response to an order of this House, and from that return I wish to quote. The first telegram which I will quote is addressed to Hon. J. D. Hazen, Minister of Marine and Fisheries, and is signed by W. D. Burdis, secretary of the British Columbia Canners' Asociation. This association, I am told, represents all

the large canneries in British Columbia. There is evidence of this in the papers submitted to the House. Among these are the following: The Fraser River Canning Association, Limited, British Columbia Salmon Cannery, Canadian Canning, Limited, the British Columbia Canning Company, Limited, the British Columbia Packers' Association, Limited, the Anglo-British Columbia Packing Company, and the Wallace Fisheries, Limited. All these fish canning companies are in this combination, represented, we are told, by Mr. W. D. Burdis, who signs this telegram:

To Hon. J. D. Hazen, Minister of Marine and Fisheries, Ottawa.

Repeal of fishery regulations prohibiting export of raw fish reported in the press. If correct, salmon canners in British Columbia desire respectfully to enter their earnest protest against the removal of the restriction, as it would be disastrous to the industry, already seriously handicapped. It would constitute a reversal of a carefully considered policy adopted by the Conservative Government in 1894, would promote piracy and dishonesty, and deprive citizens of this province of much labour, to the advantage of competitors in the United States. You are prayed to suspend action in this connection, pending receipt of a memorial setting forth the facts.

W. II. Burdis,

Sec'y B. C. Salmon Canners' Assn. Yiou will notice incidentally that this telegram says that it ' would promote piracy and dishonesty ' to allow a British Columbia fisherman to sell fish to the Yankees. In eastern Canada, in the last election, we were told that it would be unpatriotic, and bad for the flag, if we were allowed to sell a barrel of fish or a bundle of shingles to the Yankees. But they go further in British Columbia; it would be piracy-which is punishable by death-in the opinion of the British Cblumbia Salmon Canners' Association, for the fishermen to sell their fish in the United States.

The next telegram I shall read is one to the Prime Minister, which that right hon. gentleman turned over to the Minister of Marie and Fisheries, in the following letter:

Ottawa, Ont., February 19, 1912.

Deputation from British Columbia salmon canneries arrive Ottawa Monday morning next to interview Minister of Fisheries and Cabinet regarding new regulations authorizing export of Canadian Soekeye salmon to American canneries, taking business away from our canneries and Canadians employed. Last year every man and boat was put into service. We were short sixty-five per cent of deliveries in actual sales. If exportation allowed it will be resented by Pacific salmon industry, wholesale grocers, consumers everywhere. Election decided against reciprocity. This new movement will reverse will of people by Order in Council.

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Cancelling of boat taking very objectionable. Hope nothing be done until deputation heard. Regret Hon. Hazen's departure for Washington before deputation arrives.

Yours faithfully,

(Sgd.) R. L. Borden.

Hon. J. D. Hazen,

Minister of Marine and Fisheries,

Ottawa, Ont.

The third telegram is from the Canadian Manufacturers' Association in Toronto. It appears that the canners' combine in British Columbia, fearing that they had not sufficient influence with the Government to secure the reversal of the Order in Council, decided to apply to headquarters. They went to the Manufacturers' Association in Toronto and asked them to send a message to the Government in regard to this matter. And here is the message:

Toronto, Ont., Feb. 20, 1912. Hon. J. D. Hazen,

Minister of Marine and Fisheries, Ottawa.

Advisory Committee Canadian Manufacturers' Association, in conjunction with the Association's British Columbia Branch, strongly urge retention of regulation prohibiting export of raw salmon pending a thorough investigation of the situation by experts, believing that its cancellation at this time may injuriously affect the canning industry of that province. This association stands firmly by the principle of manufacturing Canada's raw material as far as possible in the Dominion.

G. M. Murray, Secretary.

To sum up the whole story, which is a rather long one for me to go through today, it comes to this: First that regulation was condemned by the Conservative members from the province of British Columbia year after year while they were in opposition. Second, it was an issue at the election in the province of British Columbia in the general election, and I" am informed that hon. gentlemen opposite who were candidates in British Columbia, in that election pledged themselves that if they were elected they Wiould have it repealed. The third point is that this was declared to be a bad and oppressive regulation by a number of British Columbia members who spoke after the election of

1911 in the discussion in the session of

1912 to which I have referred. In the fourth place, the minister consulted the officers of the department, and the officers of the department said that it was a bad regulation and ought to be repealed. In the fifth place, it appears from the statement of the minister himself that he consulted the British Columbia members supporting the Government-and it happens that all the members of this House from British Columbia are on that side-agreed that the regulation was a bad

regulation and ought to be repealed. The sixth point is that an Order in Council was prepared, and, as I am instructed, was passed, cancelling the regulation and declaring it repealed. The seventh is that the repeal of that obnoxious regulation was announced in the House by the Minister of Marine; and, after all this had happened, a telegram from the combine in British Columbia, and another telegram from the Manufacturers' Association at Toronto, were sufficient to send them all to the woods, and to hang up the regulation which the Minister of Marine declared was iniquitous, and it is still in full force. I submit that, in that case at all events, I have proved my case. But if it is necessary I can give you further proof. Let me refer you to the fact that when the fishermen on the Atlantic seaboard, in the session of 1912-13, applied for free cordage for their lobster traps, a privilege that had been granted to them for years by the late Administration, they did not get this privilege because the cordage combine had more influence with the present Administration than the fishermen had. Let me also refer to the fact that when the western settlers, after the election of 1911, applied for a proper construction to be put on the tariff clause relating to rough lumber imported into this country, the Government listened to the lumber combine of British Columbia rather than to the settlers, and the settlers had to fight their case through the highest courts of the realm before they could beat the Government out and regain a concession which had been granted to them by the late Administration. And last, but not least in consequence, let me refer you to the fact that when, a few days ago, a unanimous resolution was passed by the Legislature of Manitoba asking for free wheat, they apparently got the cold shoulder from this Administration because free wheat is not acceptable to the railway companies and to the millers. The member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Meighen), I understand, is to follow me. Perhaps he will tell us whether the Government are really in favour of giving free wheat to the West or not. We would also like to hear from him on the question of free agricultural implements. I understand he was the champion of the farmers some years ago in regard to free agricultural implements, and moved an historic resolution in regard to this question. I presume he 10

did not accept the office of Solicitor General without some understanding about these two important questions, and it would be interesting to know just what attitude he and the Government he supports take in regard to these questions.

In the Speech from the Throne reference is made to the fact that there is a certain amount of depression in Canada at the present time, but no remedy has been suggested, and may I venture to say that there is no remedy possible without an attack upon the privileges of the big interests, and we can hardly expect that there will be any remedy applied by this Government; it would be a kind of suicide for the present Government to apply any remedy of that kind. But they have tried to administer consolation to us by telling us that we have in this countrv unbounded resources. No doubt that is a good thing, but such resources are not much good to a hungry man. Think what a comfort it would be to one of the poor fellows waiting in line to get into some soup kitchen in Montreal or Toronto to be told that in this country we have boundless resources! It reminds me of the story of the Bourbon princess who, when she heard that people in the streets of Paris were crying for bread, at the time of the French revolution, said: * If bread is so scarce as that why do they not eat cake or biscuits?'

Reference has been made in this debate to the navy, although it does not form any part of the speech from the Throne. It is a strange thing that the speech does not refer to this important question. Hon. members who have spoken on the other side, or most of them, have condemned the Senate for their action in regard to the navy. Let me ask, what is the offence of the Senate in reference to that question? As far as I understand, the offence of the Senate is that they have adopted the Conservative policy. The Conservative policy was that no step be taken until first there was an appeal to the people. I suppose that every Conservative in this House who was here in 1911, in the preceding Parliament, voted for Mr. Monk's amendment that no steps should be taken in regard to that very important question of a navy until first there was an appeal to the people. How is it that these hon. gentlemen are in any position to criticise the Senate in regard to this matter when the Senate has simply adopted the policy they themselves laid down? Why, Sir, about twelve months ago, the Prime Minister himself proclaimed

that policy of an appeal to the people. Everybody remembers that in the citv of Montreal a banquet was given to the Prime Minister which was attended by four or five hundred of the leading Conservatives in this country, and that at that banquet the Prime Minister made a very impressive and eloquent speech which appeared in the press of the country with great headlines, and no doubt made a great impression on the people of this country. He said that there was a crisis in the affairs of the empire; he heard the German guns in the North sea, he had visions of trouble for the empire and he said that, so far as he was concerned, he would do his duty, he would clear his skirts, and he laid down a policy which he said ought to be adopted. He said: ' I will call Parliament together, and submit a vote to Parliament asking for $35,000,000 for the immediate help of the empire in regard to naval affairs; if Parliament refuses to vote the $35,000,000 I will appeal to the people of Canada. He carried out part of his programme. He called Parliament together, he appealed to Parliament for $35,000,000; Parliament refused it but he did not appeal to the people of Canada. He thought better of it. No man knew better than the Prime Minister that an appeal to the people of Canada on that question would meet with defeat and consequently he did not make the appeal and I submit that neither the Prime Minister nor anv of his supporters is in a position to-day to criticise the Senate for having adopted the policy that was approved of by the Conservative party and their leader. There has been a very large number of vagaries in connection with this naval discussion and when the history of it comes to be written it will be a very interesting chapter indeed. Two years ago or a little more, hon. members from the province of Quebec thought that the Naval Act ought to be repealed. I understand that many of them came here under pledge that they would repeal that Act. That was an absurd kind of pledge because the Naval Act deals with a number of other things in addition to the navy; it regulates the protection of fisheries on our coasts. We have always had a Naval Act in this country. Prior to Confederation, in the little province from which I come, seventy-five years ago, we had a Naval Act; we had regulations that are to-day in the Naval Act and if the Naval Service Act had been repealed by these gentlemen they would have had to enact immediately another one or else

.

there would have been a great deal of confusion in the affairs on the coasts of this country. But you will remember that after the opening of the first session in the fall of 1911 my hon. friend from Dorchester (Mr. Sevigny) put a question on the order paper: Does this Government intend to repeal the Naval Service Act? He did that very early in the session. This question was called over again and again for several months. I well remember the scene that used to happen every week when the Speaker called this question. A cloud came over the manly brow of my hon. friend the Minister of Inland Revenue (Mr. Nantel) and an extra wrinkle came into the face of my hon. friend the Postmaster General (Mr. Pelletier). The Prime Minister himself looked anxious, and the question was allowed to stand week after week, and it was only towards the end of the session that they mustered up courage to say: 'Yes, we will repeal the

Naval Service Act.' But the Naval Service Act still stands, and there has been no further word from the Government so far as I know that it is to be repealed. That strikes me as one of the vagaries in regard to this question. A great deal of amusement was created amongst several members of the House at the position taken by my hon. friend from East Hastings (Mr. Northrup) in his speech on naval defence. He was speaking about rivets and riveters. He said he had information that when a ship was approaching shore the rivets fell out in buckets' full, and as there were no riveters in this country capable of putting them in again, it would therefore be unsafe to have ships on the coast until we could get riveters. That seemed a very amazing statement to hon. members on this side of the House, and especially to my hon. friend from Pictou (Mr. E. M. Macdonald) and myself, who live in a town where there are hundreds of as good riveters as you can find anywhere in the world. And New Glasgow is not the only place in Canada where you can find riveters. The latest phase of these vagaries on the part of the Conservative party is in regard to a proposal to establish a shop on the banks of the St. Lawrence somewhere about opposite the city of Montreal. It is stated in the newspapers that the British engineering firm of Armstrong, Whitworth & Co. have organized a company to start a shop at Montreal. Sir Percy Girouard, I understand, is president of the company, and there are a number of able financial men on the board. But the curious thing about it is that while this company is stated in

the newspapers to be building a shop for the purpose of making high grade steel tools and articles of that kind-and it is hoped later on to build ships-yet considerable alarm has been created in the Conservative press over this matter. The Ottawa Citizen has almost gone into hysterics over it. It thinks these people are going to come up here on the Hill and put the German bogey in front of the members, and we shall have to build ships whether we want to or not. That appears to be the idea of the Citizen on this matter. And I understand there are a number of old women in the Tory party who are losing their sleep at nights over the proposed shipyard in Montreal. I think we should be very much pleased to see a new industry coming to Canada. In the discussion of last winter, the argument that our hon. friends opposite used was that we could not build ships. And now they are afraid that we can build ships.

Reference was made in the Speech from the Throne to changes in the Civil Service Act. We are not aware of the nature of these amendments, but you will not blame us on this side of the House, Mr. Speaker, if we are somewhat skeptical about what this Government will do on the question of Civil Service. My hon. friend the Prime Minister, when he was on this side of the House, was a Civil Service reformer himself. He laid down the principle that no man should be dismissed for partisan reasons, that all appointments should be made on merit and not as a reward for party service, that civil servants should be permitted to go on a political platform and make speeches in opposition to the government that was paying them their salaries, provided they did it in a decent and manly way. These are high sounding principles, but how have they been carried out? Will any one pretend that A. B. Morine was appointed on his merits as the best man in Canada for the high position to which he was appointed? Or that Captain Landry, that jailbird down in the county of Richmond, was appointed on his merits? These are only examples. Eighty officials were dismissed in my own constituency, and not one of the appointments made to fill the vacancies was on merit. The appointments were all made as [DOT] a reward for party services. I do not know how many cases there are like this throughout the country, but there must be thousands of them. There have been so many of them that the Government have not been able to count them themselves. More than

year ago a motion was made in this 10|

House asking for a list of these dismissed officials, and while no doubt officials have been working hard at it for a whole year they have not yet been able to give us the list of men turned out of office by this Government.

There are other questions, such as the road question, which is a very interesting one to the people I represent. I take the ground that the Government never intended to make a genuine road Bill. If they had intended to do so, they had an opportunity. There are only six clauses in that Bill, and five of them were passed by the Senate without any amendment. The sixth clause was the one giving the Government power to spend the money just as they pleased ana in whatever province they pleased. We had the assurance of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Railways that this would not be done, but Prime Ministers do not last forever, and Ministers of Railways come and go, too. Changes may take place, and when we pass a Bill we expect it to be permanent. We expect a Bill that will be workable when we have another Prime Minister and another Minister of Railways. The Government refused to accept the amendment that was made by the Senate in regard to that matter-an amendment that made the Bill a perfect one.

Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN:

Does the hon. gentleman refer to the sixth clause? He says all the others were passed without amendment.

Mr. SINCLAIR:

I refer to the amendment the Senate proposed to make in regard to the way the money should be spent. I will read the amendment:-

The sum of money voted in any year to he expended under this Act shall be apportioned among and paid to the several provinces of the Dominion in proportion to the population of such provinces respectively as shown by the then next preceding census.

Mr. MEIGHEN:

What clause is that in amendment to?

Mr. SINCLAIR:

The sixth clause.

Right Hon. R. L. BORDEN:

My hon. friend said a moment ago-and the statement has been repeatedly made-that five clauses were passed without amendment. Does he adhere to that statement?

Mr. SINCLAIR:

Is that not correct? I think I am correct in saying that in the end five clauses were passed. There might have been slight amendments but the battle was over the sixth clause. It is no use quibbling over the exact number of clauses.

The Senate proposed that the money should be distributed among the provinces according to population, and that amendment the Government rejected. If the Government had really intended to give a genuine Road Bill to the people of this country that was their opportunity, but they did not want a road Bill. What they wanted was a Bill for the outdoor relief of the Tory party.

At six o'clock, the House took recess.

The House resumed at eight o'clock.

Mr. SINCLAIR:

At six o'clock I was

referring to the Highways Bill, and I had pointed out that the issue between the parties was in regard to section 6 of that Bill. The Senate insisted upon a distribution of the money among the provinces in proportion to population; the Government refused to accept that proposal and the Bill was dropped. It has been often said that the Senate was to blame because the Highways Bill failed, but I place the blame at the door of the Government. If the Government had accepted the Senate amendments they would have had a working Act under which the money would have been expended to the advantage of all the provinces, but the Government absolutely refused to accept the principle of a fair division among the provinces according to population. Perhaps the best way for me to place this matter before he House is to read the reasons given by the Senate as to why they referred the Bill back to this House with their amendments attached. The Senate gives these reasons:

1. Because section 6 of the Bill empowers the minister to undertake the construction or improvement of highways in any province, which would be a contravention of the letter and spirit of the British North America Act, 1S67, and of the uniform practice under that -Aat, for which contravention no sufficient cause has been shown.

2. Because the said amendment affirms in effect that it is undesirable that the minister or the Dominion Government should usurp the functions of the provincial administration in the building and maintenance of highways and bridges.

3. Because the said amendment will not hamper the Administration in carrying out its policy and in applying the funds placed in the Estimates for that object under conditions and regulations it may deem just and proper to make, sufficient provision being made in earlier clauses of the Bill for co-operation between the federal and provincial governments.

4. Because section 6 of the Bill is a violation of the principle of responsible government, inasmuch as the Dominion in expending provincial subsidy would not be responsible to either the provincial or Dominion legislature.

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I invite the Solicitor General to take up these reasons one by one and to deal with them, and if he is able to answer them he will do more than has been done by any gentleman on his side of the House during all the discussions that have taken place on the Highways Bill. Is there any good reason why this money should not be divided among the provinces according to population? The reason why it should be so divided is obvious, and the Prime Minister pledged himself to the principle. But the whole question became a question of this Government wishing to hold on to the patronage of the road money and that is the reason the Government refused to agree to the Senate amendments. What they wanted was to have an opportunity of using this money in whatever way might seem best to them for election purposes or for any other purposes. And, Mr. Speaker, we have very ample reasons for making that statement. Everybody remembers the history of this transaction; everybody remembers that the Bill was introduced into this House at the first session of the present Parliament and that the ink was scarcely dry on the Bill when the by-election in South Renfrew took place. We all remember that four or five ministers of the Crown went up to South Renfrew to take a hand in the election and amongst others the Minister of Customs. I was not in South Renfrew at the time but there is a leading Conservative newspaper published in South Renfrew called the Renfrew Journal, in which an account of the several meetings is given. I wish to read to the House an extract from this Conservative newspaper setting forth the conduct of the Minister of Customs on the Highways Bill. The Journal says:

Dr. Reid then turned his attention to the good roads' movement advocated by the Conservative Government at Ottawa, and the bald way in which he handled this topic disgusted all decent men, who look for something higher than this kind of talk from a Cabinet minister. The burden of this part of Dr. Reid's speech was that South Renfrew should vote for Dr. Maloney and the Borden Government would then spend money in this district for good roads.