Explain.

Mr. J. E. ARMSTRONG:

This Bill is similar to the one I introduced last year. It is for the purpose of bringing the boats on our inland waters and in our coastwise trade under the control of the Railway Commission in the matter of rates, tolls, tariff agreements and arrangements, time of call, duration of stay, and so forth. The last clause of the Bill I am introducing seeks to amend clause 358 of the Consolidated Railway Act in order that it may harmonize with the principles of this Bill, which is for the purpose of amending clause 33 of the Consolidated Railway Act.

Mr. MICHAEL CLARK (Red Deer):

Mr. Speaker, it is a very sincere pleasure to be able to congratulate the Government upon the excellence of their choice of the mover of the address (Mr. Cronyn) and the seconder (Mr. McGregor) in this debate. They chose two splendid specimens of different kinds of stalwart Canadian manhood. I did not agree with all they said, but it is all the greater pleasure to one to congratulate both of these gentlemen on the ability, the modesty, ahd the good taste with which they said what they had to say.

The speech from the Throne gives quite proper prominence to the League of Nations, and to the establishment of an international labour office. It may be truthfully said, I think, that the very endeavour to establish a League of Nations sounds for the first time the note of internationalism in human affairs, and I am sure there is no one in this House who does not re-echo in the shape of a prayer the sentiment of the speech from the Throne which expresses the hope that these arrangements will insure to us the blessings of continual peace. Lord Robert Cecil, who takes a great interest in the League of Nations in Great Britain has foreshadowed what must have occurred to large numbers of thoughtful people at any rate on this question, that if the League of Nations grows into a mature, stable, and effective organization there would naturally 11

follow in time a very large measure of disarmament. I refer to that to point out that that consideration should have an important bearing upon Canadian policy. I think that due weight given to that consideration would help to put a restraining hand upon the activities or possible activities of the First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Ballan-tyne) and the Minister of Militia and Defence. I say no more on that subject, but point the obvious moral to be drawn from this particular paragraph of the address and the important matter it brings before this House and the country.

The address repeats what I remember specially the leader of the House has brought before the Canadian people in various public meetings which he has addressed in recent times. May I, Sir, in mentioning my right hon. friend, offer to him and to the Parliament and country my very hearty congratulations on the fact that accident has placed so great a parliamentary veteran (Rt. Hon. Sir George Foster) in the position he at present occupies at the time when we are entering our new parliamentary home. I listened, as I am sure every hon. member in the House did, with the greatest pleasure and admiration, to the lengthy speech which he delivered the other evening with all his old-time vivacity and virility. Long may he be spared to grace the halls of Parliament and to teach the "young ideas" how to shoot.

I draw in my mind, Sir, a very clear distinction between the duty of individual economy and the duty of national economy, and I am not so sure that we cannot carry individual economy too far. As a small producer of beef, for example, I should conceive it a great misfortune to myself, and probably to others, if there were too much economy displayed in the eating of good roast beef and good steak; and the same thought occurs to me in connection with other lines of production. I wish some speaker on the Government side of the House would make it clear to the people just whom they expect to economize, and in what. They are not thinking of the veterans, I should think. The veterans did not have too much to spend when they were in the line, and I have it on good authority that some of them in our cities this winter have barely had enough to eat. This has arisen from a perfectly natural cause. The best jobs in the early period of reconstruction were held by men who did not avail themselves of the glorious privilege of going over the top, and the veterans, in too many cases, had to come home and take jobs in

the city at sixty and sixty-five dollars a month. Does the Government wish to teach economy to the working men of the country? I venture to say, Mr. Speaker, that the working men of Canada and their wives have a bit of very careful calculation to do every week of their lives in order to make ends meet. The farmers are a little better off, with present prices, than they used to be in this country; but even farmers are not extravagant people. With the exception of an automobile, which is often as useful to them in their business as it is for their pleasure, I do not know that there is any luxury to speak of going into the farm houses of the country. The farmers have no expensive carpets on their floors, nor have they any antique furniture. They are a very frugal and careful people, and they need to be, with their income.

Now, Mr. Speaker, when one has dealt with these several classes in the population what is there left? There are none but the profiteers left; and I would suggest to the Government, as I have done before, that in dealing with the profiteers it is not then-duty simply to teach economy but to enforce it as well. They ought to enforce economy on the wealthy people in the country, and they have right at their hand a means of doing so. If the wealthy people are spending more money than they should, then I trust no hon. gentleman opposite me will ask that question, which has been so often directed at the head of my hon. friend from Marquette (Hon. Mr. Crerar): "Where shall we get the revenue?" Get the revenue that the rich are wasting, if you are sincere in preaching economy.

Production is of course important. President Wilson, in a message he sent to Congress lately, put a whole volume of politico-economic wisdom into two little sentences. He called the attention of his own people to the fact that the war had taught the United States that in order to sell you must buy. I commend that piece of political economy to my hon. friend the Minister of the Interior (Hon. Mr. Meighen): In order to sell you must buy. International trade was never conducted, and never will be conducted, upon any other principle. You do not always buy directly from the nation to which you sell, but there is always a certain relationship between the amount you buy and the amount you sell. The other piece of politico-economic wisdom which Mr. Wilson gave the American people was this. He said: "Restriction of trade always means restriction of production." So that when public men in this Government tell

[Mr. M. Clark.I

the people to produce, and yet keep up restrictions upon, the commerce of the people, they are following a course of absolute contradiction in economic principle.

Now, Mr. Speaker, as somewhat of an old parliamentary hand, and at the same time a politician without any personal ambition, I have been interested, as I am sure large numbers of Canadian people have been, in watching the clash that has been going on in the country and that has been brought into this House, between the aspirations of political youth, and the grim, I might almost say, barnacle-like' tenacity of political veterans. And in watching this fight I must . say that I was very proud last night of the leader of what, for want of a better term, I venture to call the National Progressive Party of this country. It must have been noticeable to every one that, with the advent of the member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar) upon the floor of the House, the discussion livened up and the debate in regard to the discussion of political principles was lifted to a plane a little higher, I venture to think, than that on which it had been before his intervention.

The very fact that the leader of this party has been able to interest the House in its principles and policies is the best evidence we can have that the party and its policies are interesting the country and that the by-elections which resulted in the return of my friends to this House were by no means accidents.

The Minister of the Interior followed the example of, I think; the seconder of the Address (Mr. McGregor), the hon. member for Brantford (Mr. Cockshutt), and others, in what appeared to be an endeavour to fasten the title of "class" to this little party. With what has fallen from these gentlemen about the impossibility of any one class permanently ruling in this country, I am in absolute agreement. I believe that the only logical, effective method for men who enter into the activities and the public life of the country is for them to combine upon a common policy in which they sincerely believe as being a policy which will redound to the public good, in which good all ought to participate, and that they ought to so combine absolutely' irrespective of the accidents of class. I am in absolute agreement in that with what I understood to be the attitude of the hon. gentlemen to whom I have referred.

I do not quite agree, however, with the Minister of the Interior in tracing, class policies to the origin of a given policy. I think it is largely an accident that for the moment those who support the platform of

the Dominion Council of Agriculture are, so many of them, farmers. Farmers hold these views because in Canada they have been hit so hard by the tariff that they have had to study economics, and the result of a study* of economics would be precisely the same amongst the workmen of the country, amongst the women of the country and amongst those on both front benches in Parliament, if they had the same promptings to study that the farmers have had. They adopted these same views because they were hard hit by the tariff, and they studied economics.

But what is it that is wrong in a class entering politics? It is not only class and class consciousness, but when it becomes the epitome of class selfishness, that is the real evil, and that is the danger which will always arise when men do go into the public life of the country because they belong to a certain class. But the farmers of all men-and particularly the Western farmers-are certainly free from any charge of selfishness in so far as their policy goes, because the first thing they ask Parliament and the Government to do is to take off all duties on the things they produce, in order that the general consumers of Canada may have the benefit of wholesome and cheap food. That is not class selfishness, surely. It is a sample of unselfishness and patriotism that would soon solve the tariff question if certain other members of the community would follow the example of the farmers in that respect.

Let me make an appeal on this point, which I have made before, to the people who do not see their way to stand on their own feet industrially. Let me make an appeal to these gentlemen to use all their endeavours to grow into the same stalwart type of Canadians that stood ip the trenches and asked for no protection and the farmers of the West who ask for no protection. I would respectfully invite men engaged in other forms of industry to consider whether they really would not like to belong to the first-rate type of Canadian manhood that you will (fmd in these two other classes of Canadians.

(Mr. BRIEN: Would you advocate taking the duty off raw leaf tobacco and early tomatoes coming into this country?

Mr. MICHAEL CLARK:

I had thought that my opinion in regard to the tariff was so well known that no one would need to ask me about it again. As far as my opinion goes, I do not believe in tariffs at all. They are an iniquity, and the sooner we get rid of them the better. But there has been 11*

a great deal of misrepresentation of our views in that respect, as these views have been presented by my hon. friend from Marquette (Mr. Crerar). I have been twelve years in this House, Mr. Speaker, under both the old parties, and I never was scared about free trade coming by return of post. I have seen duties go on but I have seen precious little of them coming off. If we do not make any faster progress along these lines in the years that lie ahead of us than we have done during the twelve years I have been in this House, it is going to require quite a considerable portion of eternity to bring about free trade in this country. In regard to the particular articles that are mentioned by my hon. friend (Mr. Brien), that is not a question which should be addressed to me, and it is not a question I can give my hon. friend a special answer upon. I have given him the answer as to my attitude on the tariff generally. In my speech in the Budget debate last year I told the House very fully, and I think with a fair degree of lucidity, exactly how the tariff should be handled, exactly how the tariff should be taken off, pointing out that I was only asking the Finance Minister of Canada to follow the excellent example of Sir Robert Peel in Great Britain and of President Wilson in the United States. President Wilson followed almost slavishly, when he came into office, the methods of Sir Robert Peel in dealing with the tariff in England.

When I asked this question I was going on to say that while I absolutely agree that class representation and class activity in politics would be a curse to the country, I am surprised that these protests should only come at this particular time when for perhaps the first time in the history of the . country certain classes are showing a little class consciousness. One would have thought that there never had been any class legislation in this world before, no' any attempt at class legislation.

Hon. gentlemen hold up their hands in holy horror the moment the farmers begin to take hold of public platforms. Why, Mr. Speaker, the history of progressive reform has' been a history of the fight of the common people against class domination on both sides of the Atlantic. Whett was the Family Compact? Was it not a pretty narrow class in its day? What was the House of Lords in Britain but a class occupying the second chamber of that countfy, and using their position in it continually to look after their own interests. Has theie been no class legislation in Canada at later periods than the Family Compact?

What is the Canadian Manufacturers' Association? Is it not the union of men in a class? And I venture to say that so far as I have been able to watch their operations, nine-tenths of the activities of that body are political activities-but not always in the open and on the platform where the farmers go.

Mr. MIDDLEBRO:

Would my hon. friend justify the Canadian Manufacturers Association, as such, nominating and electing representatives to this House?

Mr. CLARK:

The Canadian Manufacturers Association has always had candidates in the field and always had members in the House.

Mr. MIDDLEBRO:

The hon. gentleman has missed the point in my question. I asked my hon. friend would he justify the Canadian Manufacturers Association nominating and electing members to this Parliament as representing that body?

Mr. MICHAEL CLARK:

Certainly not. My hon. friend scarcely needed to put that question; he could have answered it from what I have said on the general principle. What I assert is that the Canadian Manufacturers Association, and other interests, have been in politics-can my hon. friend deny it? As to having candidates in the field I very much fear that the candidates of all political parties have been much closer to those interests than my hon. friend would like to admit on the floor of this House. What I am objecting to is that hon. members should raise this hullabaloo about class representation the . moment farmers and working men begin to make their voices heard as to the political principles which should govern the country. As a matter of fact, and we know it well, these other classes have been in politics and are continually in politics, and no one on either side of the House will deny it. If he did he would produce nothing but laughter and contempt both in the House and outside of it. My point is that the activities that are at [DOT] present showing themselves for the first time in this country have been provoked by that which is wrong in the body politic and in the public life of Canada; these activities have been provoked by what is wrong in our public life. The fact of the matter, Mr. Speaker, is this: We have only been a nominal democratic country in Canada. We have had many of the marks of autocracy under the forms of democracy; and what I think I see in the public life of Canada

to-day, as I see it all over the world, is the evolution of democracy. Did people expect that this little country would send 500,000 of her sons, 60,000 of them to die, to fight for democracy without attempting to get some of it in ,Canada? If it is a good thing for Europe it is also a splendid thing for the North American continent. We have so much of freedom that we shed the blood and gave the lives of 60,000 of our sons to fight for it in Europe. What shams we are if we go back to our own country and go on as if nothing had happened, bowing the knee to Baal, as we did in the past.

I do not concur in the view of the Minister of the Interior that the debate on the Address is an occasion when fiscal matters should not be mentioned. I have always understood that the debate on the Address constitutes a wide-open door, and that it is a tradition of Parliamentary Government that on the Address members of this House may talk about anything. There is a special reason, if I may say so, Mr. Speaker, why individual members should discuss fiscal questions during the debate on the Address, or make fiscal suggestions. What is the use of making any suggestions when the Budget is brought down? No Government ever alters its Budget if it has a majority behind it. In the very nature of the case suggestions are too late in coming when they come on the Budget. This is particularly true at the present moment, because we of the rank and file of the House hail the opportunity of endeavouring to guide the inexperienced feet of my good friend the new Minister of Finance in the path which he has lately had to try to tread. I condone with him on the burden he has had to take up, and I am sure I am sincere in expressing the hope .that he will distinguish himself in the post to which the leader of the Government has called him. If he cares for a little piece of advice-I may try and enforce it later on-I will tell him in a sentence hqw he will make a very good Minister of Finance. If he will fail by just one hundred per cent to follow the three principal courses followed by his predecessor in the Department. If he will carefully forget all that his predecessor did and do exactly the opposite, or go as far in the opposite direction as he can, he will be a splendid Minister of Finance.

Now while my hon. friend (Mr. Meighen) seemed to favour that view he went on himself, as he was merely bound to do in the course of the debate, to reply to some of the points that were raised by my hon.

friend from Marquette (Mr. Crerar). The Minister of the Interior seemed to get great satisfaction out of the thought that protection was one hundred and twenty-five years old in the United States. Well, that is a splendid Tory argument, although I never before heard one hundred and twenty-five years put down as the exact date at which institutions became at once venerable and invulnerable. Of course it appeared to me while this point was being made, that cannibalism is much older than that in the Fiji Islands, and yet the last man that I would expect to say anything in praise of cannibalism would be my friend the Minister of the Interior. Some one has put on record a great thought, to the effect that wisdom has been the general accuser of mankind, and I repeat the thought for the benefit of my hon. friend. I might add, off my own bat, that while wisdom has been the general accuser of mankind, error has never failed to advance its hoary head as the reason for its continued acceptance.

My hon. friend (Mr. Meighen) went on to mention the names of some big men who in their day supported the principle of protection in the United States. I want to be perfectly fair with him. I do not know whether he was simply basing his belief in protection on authority, or whether he was only enforcing the point that these men would not have supported a policy which was not a truly national policy. I think there was a little of both designs in my hon. friend's mind. He is a consummate and astute debater, and he would be very glad, I fancy, if a certain number of our people would draw the inference that these authorities gave such sanction to protection that it would be almost an act of sacrilege to say anything against it.

Well, Mr. Speaker, I would rather take for my pattern the United States of to-day than the United States of onq hundred and twenty-five years ago. And 1 must repeat, Sir, until hon. gentlemen get a true grasp of the fact,, that when eight years ago President Wilson came into power he introduced what was really a very large measure of free trade. Our tariff was a monstrosity compared with the tariff of the United States. Only thirty per cent of all the articles imported into the United States bear any tariff at all. I am weary of repeating this statement, but I must continue to repeat it until hon. gentlemen fully grasp it. No one who knows anything about the conditions of life in the two countries will com' pare the tariff of the States with the tariff of this country. I need only mention boots

and shoes and agricultural machinery- these are admitted into the United States absolutely free of duty, while in this country they still carry a considerable duty; indeed, in the case of boots and shoes a very heavy one.

I would like to give my hon. friend a little information about the great Scotchman who became a great American-the late Andrew Carnegie. If he thinks that the so-called National Policy of Protection is a benefit to all classes, and wants to persuade intelligent workmen on this continent of that fact much longer, he will have to tackle just such a case as that of Mr. Carnegie. A poor young Scotchman, he came to the United States, and with the help of a protective tariff he amassed a fortune of $500,000,000- I think that is about the sum at which he sold out his interest in the Pittsburg Steel Works. He has given away $300,000,000 in charitable bequests. He who at the end of his life espoused free trade doctrines-having taken full advantage of protection, as any man is entitled to do, even if he does not believe in it-gave evidence before the Tariff Committee of the United States Senate to this effect: .

When I sold out I had forty-three partners, and every one of them was a millionaire.

Now, if my hon. friend, with all his ability, will go down to the workmen at Pittsburg and tell them those two facts and say that nevertheless he believes that protection is equally good for the rich and for the poor, I imagine he will require even more than his ability to carry very much conviction among those people.

Why, Sir, just before President Wilson came into power there was a strike of the woollen workers at Lawrence, in Massachusetts. And what did they strike for, Mr. Speaker? They struck for a living wage. The woollen workers of Massachusetts struck because they could not maintain their wives and families on the wages they were getting in the same country which built up the Pittsburg Iron Works to such a degree of wealth that Carnegie and his forty-three partners were all millionaires. If I were a workingman I would need be greener than the green Englishman I am before I could believe that such a condition of things was equally good for me as for the millionaires.

Now, the hon. minister had something to say about exchange. I should just like to be permitted to give a little warning to the Government on this subject. I have never been able to get the Government to

pay much attention to my advice, although I have been most disinterested in giving it to them. I told them when they established the Board of Commerce that they were stirring up ia nest of hornets for themselves, but then that hoard had been called for by my hon. friend the member for Cape Breton North and Victoria (Mr. McKenzie). He takes peculiar pleasure in the fact that he was the joint parent or the grandfather of that particular board. He said, "We have been calling for this board in this House;" and the Government listened to the hon. member instead of to me, and so brought all that trouble upon themselves. I do not mention this for the sake of raking up ancient history) but I do want to warn them most seriously against listening to my hon. friend from Cape Breton (Mr. McKenzie) on this question of exchange. His remedy for the exchange situation would be to rub out about a billion dollars of our foreign trade. Well, that would remedy the trouble with a vengeance, no doubt, but it would be making a desert and calling it peace. I do not think there is another hon. member who would have the temerity to tender such advice. I hope not. However, I want to warn the Government not to take any immediate steps to rub out the whole of our commerce with the United States of America. And I issue that warning the more emphatically because I am very doubtful indeed if the exchange situation is at all connected with the so-called adverse balance of trade. During the whole of my natural life before the war Britain had a so-called adverse balance of trade. Year after year her imports exceeded her exports, while we used to say that the British sovereign spoke all languages-English credit was the highest in the world, as it will be again before we are very much older, in spite of that "so-called" adverse balance of trade. ' I borrow the phrase from Adam Smith, who did not believe in its being adverse at all.

With very great modesty I venture to assert my opinion that the exchange situation is the result of lowered credit in Canada as compared with the United States at the moment, and I have to go a little further and say that that lowering of credit has been the direct and immediate result of faulty action on the part of our Finance Department. Mr. Speaker, hoiw does a man lower his credit? In the first place, he lowers it if he does not make enough income; in the second place, he lowers it still further if, in spite of not making enough income, he goes on spending; and the result of the two {Mr. M Clark.]

processes will be that he falls into the hands of the money lenders-and when a man takes those three courses his credit will become very bad and his exchange will be bad also. That is precisely the history of the Finance Department of this country since the beginning of the war. I have strong personal grounds for pressing these matters upon my hon. friend who now holds that portfolio (Sir Henry Drayton). It is not yesterday that I began to express these views. I told his predecessor in office that if I were in his shoes in the war session of August, 1914,1 would then and there put on an income tax and graduate it up to a very large degree on the large incomes. The Government did that, but they waited until 1917 to do it, and during the years in which they did not do it they spent with a lavish hand,-as, of course, they were com-nelled to do in the war although there was a great deal of expense that they might have saved-they spent with a lavish hand, and they borrowed what they spent. When my hon. friend who held lately the portfolio of Finance *(Sir Thomas White) introduced his loan of $70,000,000 from the United States, I took occasion to express my views to this House-and my hon. friend confirmed my teaching; he agreed with me. I said that I did not oppose the loan; we could not. If the Government had not the courage to put on direct taxation to get the money with which to prosecute the war, we had to get it from somewhere; the war had to be won. I took the opportunity of pointing out to the House and to the country what we were doing in borrowing that money. I pointed out that we were building up American industry, as the whole of that borrowed money would come from the United States in the shape of goods; and my hon. friend the then Minister of Finance agreed that that was so. So that the Government, by pursuing this course, have been largely instrumental in producing the exchange situation which we have to deal with to-day.

Inflated currency, borrowing, squandering, are not new things in this world, and they were never practiced by Governments without bringing financial ruin upon the country, or some approach to it. Mr. Lloyd George recently called attention

3.55 p.m. to the fact that the French revolution was perhaps brought about more by the financial condition of France than by any other single circumstance. Of course the causes were complex, but when Mr. Lloyd George expresses an opinion of that sort, he is well, I think, within the historic facts. One remembers

the frequency with which the directors of finance in the old country of Prance were changed in the years immediately preceding the French revolution. I was interested in looking up Mr. Carlyle's book on the subject the other day and seeing what he had to say about Calonne, who was a famous director of finance in France for two or three years before the revolution broke out. Mr. Carlyle was not only a great prose writer; he had some thoughts on economy which would be very useful to this country if my hon. friend the Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton) would only take Carlyle for a teacher. In summing up his comments on Calonne and his policy of that day, Carlyle said:

Nay, in seriousness, let no man say that Oaloime had not genius; genius for persuading ; before all things, for borrowing. With the skilfulest judicious appliances of underhand money, he keeps the stock exchanges flourishing; so that loan after loan is filled up as soon as opened. . . . The misery is, such a time cannot last! Squandering, and payment by loan is no way to choke a deficit.

Now, there is a splendid picture drawn by the great master of English prose of the condition of France about the year 1789, and every word of it is true, in a degree, of the condition of the finances of this country. No wonder we have class movement and class revolution and people doing things when this is the way the finances of the country are being handled.

The supreme condemnation of the Finance Department of this and of the previous Government-I exclude the present Finance Minister from anything that I may say; we do not yet know whether he is a protectionist or a free trader, and sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof-the supreme condemnation of the Finance Department is to be found in the success of the Victory Loan of this year. For years we were told by that department that you could not raise a Victory Loan if you taxed it. But the Government had to go back upon that opinion; they taxed the loan, and the money of the people was forthcoming just as it had been in previous years. Surely, too, the Victory Loan condemns the Finance Department inasmuch as it shows that there is plenty of wealth in the country to furnish a large amount of the revenue if the Government had the backbone to impose taxes directly on those whose backs are well able to bear them.

I notice in this connection that the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Meighen) made no attempt -whatsoever, at least I cannot recall that he made any attempt-to answer the member for Marquette (Mr. Crerar) on

this particular head when he compared what has been done in New Zealand with what has been done in Canada in the way of direct taxation. Mr. Speaker, I am a Canadian. I have been in this country for eighteen years; everything I have and everything I hold dear is in this country. I should like to be proud of being a Canadian, but fn this matter of direct taxation my Government has given me no cause for pride. New Zealand has, roughly, a million people; we have eight millions. In the year 1917-18, New Zealand raised $25,000,000 by an income tax. If Canada had raised the same amount in proportion to her population we would have obtained a revenue of $200,000,000 a year under that head, and if we had obtained that amount each year of the war, our national debt would be one billion instead of two billions and we should not have heard so much about the adverse exchange situation.

Mr. JAMES ARTHURS (Parry Sound):

If the hon. gentleman has observed the newspaper reports, he must have seen it stated that the national debt of New Zealand amounts to about $850 per capita, while in Canada it is only about $300 per capita.

Mr. MICHAEL CLARK:

I would like

something better than newspaper reports from any one who speaks about the per capita debt of any country. I am not going to migrate to New Zealand; my hon friend need not be frightened. I am only comparing what the two countries have been doing along one specific line of national endeavour. If my hon. friend likes the fact, why he can roll it under his tongue as a sweet morsel; but I do not- I would like to think that Canadians had done as well as New Zealand. And we were under a pledge to do it, especially after the last election, because the formula upon which we fought the last election was: "We are in this war to the last man and to the last dollar." Well, some supporters of this Government have a good many dollars standing between them and their last one.

These remarks upon the financial situation which have been raised in the course of this debate are not without their bearing upon the amendment before the House. They have in my mind a very strong bearing upon the amendment, and on the duty that men who hold the views I have just expressed have to perform in connection with that amendment. Let me say that I agree absolutely with every word that fell fiom the lips of the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Meighen) as to the unfortunate

nature of what I venture to call the preamble of the amendment. I should have liked the amendment much better if it had called for its result upon grounds of policy rather than upon grounds of personnel. I can scarcely speak with patience of that portion of the amendment which brings the illness of Sir Robert Borden before this House. Sir Robert Borden is as much a victim of the war in his illness as if he had been in a front line trench in France. I have again and again expressed what I consider the indebtedness of this country to the leader of the Government and to all the members of this Government, but in case there is any doubt about where I stand on that matter, I want to say once more that I think the men who formed Union Government discharged a patriotic duty regardless of consequences.

I do not quite see the force of all the speech of my hon. friend the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) in supporting this amendment. Naturally, the speech partook of the nature of what I have ventured to call a preamble. Amongst other things he charged the Government with having no policy. Well, I think there is justice in that charge along certain lines. When you form a Government partly of protectionists and partly of free traders or very-low tariff men it is clear they will not very easily formulate a policy on the tariff, and what is likely to happen to the tariff under those circumstances is that it will be left alone, unless indeed the tariff mongers prove the heavier lot and pull their Liberal brethren with them in raising it. I did not, however, quite understand how my hon. friend the leader of the Opposition could be so light-hearted in charging the Government with having no policy, unless indeed he had gone on to tell what his own policy was. I know that there was a convention, and that a platform was drawn up at that convention, the tariff portion of which was lifted bodily and without apology from the programme of the Dominion Council of Agriculture, with the exception that the western farmers proclaimed themselves free traders in principle at least to the extent of having free trade with Great Britain in five years. So far as I know, that part of the tariff policy of the Dominion Council of Agriculture was not adopted by the official Opposition in this House. That leads me to repeat a statement, which I have no pleasure in making, that the official Opposition has gone back on pre-'96 days in this matter of the tariff, because at that time they

were looking towards free trade as they have it in Great Britain. I should like some speakers on the Opposition side to tell us exactly where they stand in this matter of free trade and protection. If it is just a case of tinkering and pottering with the tariff, one side is no better than the other, unless there is some principle asserted, some goal to which they are aiming. When my hon. friend from Assiniboia (Mr. Gould) was fighting for his seat in this House on the principle of free trade practically, or near free trade, two of the most energetic followers of my hon. friend the leader of the Opposition went out to prevent him if possible from getting into this House.

Mr. A. R. McMASTER (Brome):

Would my hon. friend suggest that the Hon. W. R. Motherwell is not just as sound a low tariff man as he who now represents Assiniboia in this House?

Mr. MICHAEL CLARK:

I do not think either the country or I have kept very close track of Mr. Motherwell lately. He was lost in the early snowstorm of the fall. Theie is one thing, [DOT] however-and that is that-my hon. friend (Mr. Gould) who represents that constituency is in a vastly better position for carrying out that policy.

Mr. JOSEPH ARCHAMBAULT (Chambly and Vercheres) :

That is no answer.

Mr. MICHAEL CLARK:

I do not know what Mr. Motherwell's views are on the tariff; I hope they are all right. The fact

is, Mr. Motherwell's opinions have nothing to do with it. I am simply trying to find out where the leader of the Opposition stands on this question, and I hope some of his followers will tell us, for the country has a right to know. I say that if I vote for this amendment I would rather have voted for it on some ground of policy and principle than on the mere matter of personnel which is raised so prominently in

it. I was saying I do not know exactly where the leader of the Opposition stands on this question, and if I were to get my information frofn some of his doings I should think he had changed his attitude on more than one question since the last general election. Why, he sent a cablegram of congratulation to Mr. Asquith on his election the other day. I think this House would almost need to be told whether that was an act of penance on the part of my hon. friend, because he must recall that Mr. Asquith was the father of compulsory military service in Great Britain, and that

he is the outstanding and greatest living exponent of free trade. If my hon. friend approves of Mr. Asquith and his policies to the extent of cabling congratulations to him on his election, I think we ought to know whether it was done merely on personal grounds, or whether he really does approve of Mr. Asquith's policy.

I shall vote for this amendment, little as I like its preamble, on grounds of broad public policy. A coalition government has much to say for itself, and there is much to be said for it in time of war, because in time of war you are dealing with an .external foe, and a coalition government is frequently the best means of concentrating the whole powers

of the nation on defeating the foe. After the war is reasonably over the same argument for the existence of the coalition no longer exists. Indeed, there are many grounds, one of which I just touched upon, why the argument is the other way. The moment the war is over domestic politics become more important. Take the vexed question of the tariff. How can hon. gentlemen in the same Cabinet, holding almost diametrically opposite views on tariff questions, possibly touch the tariff in a coherent and effective manner? The thing is an impossibility. And so along many other lines of policy.

I want to say that in this Cabinet, even, now, notwithstanding the withdrawals from it, there is any amount of high political ability. This was still truer before the various withdrawals from the Cabinet. But ability gives no guarantee of Cabinet cohesion. My-hon. friend the leader of the House (Sir George Foster) said the other night that the Government had never produced a policy upon which the Cabinet was not absolutely united. That, however, may carry with it, I think, the legitimate inference that policies upon which they could not unite were not produced, which would go far to justify some of us in voting for this amendment. Now, doubt has been cast upon the sincerity of the amendment. I do not take the amendment as indicating merely a personal wish. So far as the desire for an election is concerned, Mr. Speaker, I should say that at the present moment any hon. member who is pining for an election is fonder of adventure than I am. The field of elections is a splendid one for any man who has a fancy for adventures, but I imagine that politics at the present time would impress with great emphasis upon any one of us, who was looking at this matter from a personal point of

view, the old doctrine that self-preservation is the first law of nature. But I do not conceive that this amendment is the expression of a personal desire or even of a personal belief so far as the mere holding of an election is concerned. The people have rights as well as the members of this House, and I think that the conclusion of the amendment is an expression of the opinion that the people voted for this Government on certain specific understandings and that the majority of them now think that the time has come when they should have an opportunity of forming another kind of Government if they so desire.

Now, I listened, as I always do, with the greatest pleasure and attention to the speech of the Minister of the Interior (Hon. Mr. Meighen) last night. He took up ground which had previously been covered well by my hon. friend the President of the Privy Council (Hon. Mr. Rowell), and stated that there was a considerable programme laid down in the year 1917 besides the winning of the war. Well, after all, that point can be strained rather far. What I would put to my hon. friend, honestly and with a desire that he should get my point of view at least, is this: Were the people in 1917 sufficiently interested in domestic politics ever to have read the programme? I addressed meetings in my own riding every night for six weeks, and I said: "I appear before you as a win-the-war candidate, supporting a win-the-war Government; the winning of the war is the only issue at stake, and I support the steps that the Government believe to be necessary for that purpose." And I venture to think that all over Canada that was the attitude of the candidates on the Government side, and that was the understanding of the people. What did they understand, and what did they vote on? What did they care about patronage when the Kaiser's troops were threatening to take Paris and overrun the channel ports? The only matter in the minds of the people was the winning of the war.

Now, my hon. friend raised another point which is of very great importance to Western Canada, and that is in regard to the question of redistribution being carried out after the census of 1921. This Government cannot give us any guarantee that they will deal with the question of redistribution. If retirements from the Government continue at the rate at which they have been occurring, before redistribution comes about the Government will have become entirely disintegrated. We cannot possibly, in the

present state of affairs, expect this Government to give us a guarantee that they will introduce redistribution. As a matter of fact, if an election were held now, my own opinion is that there would be at least sufficient men of truly progressive views returned to enforce a considerable portion of their policy upon the House of Commons or to force a fight on it.

We of this party are in earnest, Mr. Speaker. In saying this I do not suggest that others are not also in earnest. But, il repeat, we are in deadly earnest. We believe that the economic views we hold are vital to the well-being, the progress, and the prosperity of this country. We agree with Mr. Asquith, who has just won an extraordinary by-election, fighting almost exclusively on his economic and fiscal views as being necessary to save the Old Land at this time. We hold our views with equal tenacity and strength, and we believe they will prevail. If there were an unbalanced state of opinion in this Chamber, then we might be on the eve of another election before a redistribution Bill was carried. Many people think we are in for a series of short governments and short parliaments in this country. Now, I mention these matters only to make myself clear, that if we could have a guarantee that redistribution would come before an election it might alter our attitude on this question. I have not the least doubt that the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Meighen), my hon. friend the Secretary of State (Mr. Sifton), and my hon. friend the Minister of Immigration and Colonization (Mr. Gaidar) will fight hard in the Cabinet for that view. It is both their interest and their duty to do it in the Cabinet provided this amendment is not carried. But we can have no guarantee that they will be able to pull the Cabinet their way. As a matter of fact, what has happened in the past in that respect? I am speaking from memory, but I think I am correct in saying that in the early years of Confederation redistribution was twice at any rate carried on the eve of an election. But since that time the East has had the pull. Political considerations have prevailed, and it has rather been the tendency to have an election before redistribution. Human nature is human nature, whether East or West, and I have no confidence that my hon. friends, pull as hard as they may, will be able to keep their colleagues right on this question. As I say, I shall vote for the amendment on grounds of public policy. My hon. friend the Minister of the Interior was very em-CMr. M. Clark.I

phatic last night in directing to my hon. friend, the leader of the Opposition, the question, What is wrong with this country? I have tried to answer that question in so far as the finances of the country are concerned as my leader answered it before the minister spoke along that and many other lines last evening. But if the question is put seriously -and I say this not along the line of cheap party warfare-should it be directed to the leader of the Opposition; or could my hon. friend not direct it more properly elsewhere? I do not think the Government have any conception from their utterances of the extent to which public opinion is moved on political questions in this country. What is wrong? What was wrong in Assiniboia? There was no Government candidate, but does anybody for a moment conceive that the presence of a Government, or an Opposition, candidate would have made any difference as to who would win that seat? What was wrong in Carleton, N.B.? These are the places to which to direct this question.

What is stirring in the minds of the people? What are the people thinking? Are their thoughts'all complimentary to Unionist Government or do they not follow the thought that was so earnestly and eloquently urged by my hon. friend from Marquette last evening when he said that great questions are stirring the minds of the people of this country and will continue to stir them until they are settled along the lines of democracy, freedom and justice.

My hon. friend should ask the veterans what is wrong with this country. The speech from the Throne takes note of the fact that unrest and disquiet prevail all over the world while claiming, it is true, that Canada is more exempt than other countries from disturbance. Why is it that this class have been heard in this House; or wiry is it that the farmers are rising in a way they have never risen before and are combining with other men of progressive views? What is moving them? It is a world movement. The movement is bigger than any group and it is bigger than any party in this country has any idea of or any man may guess. It would have been strange if it had been otherwise.

What is wrong with this country?-my hon. friend asks. What is wrong with the workmen, what is wrong with the farmers, what is wrong with the veterans? I will tell my hon. friend-it is the sense of injustice. That is what is wrong. Let him go to the rank and file of the veterans and

ask them what is the most disturbing factor in their lives and five out of six of these men will tell him that what disturbs them is the thought that they went overseas, fought and risked their lives-60,000 of them died-for $1.10 a day, the honour of thfeir native land and the progress and safety of civilization and of humanity, only to come back and- find that men who did not have two dollar bills to rub against one another at the beginning of the war were speaking of their wealth in millions now. The veterans feel that this is an injustice and especially when it is permitted by a Government that has not the courage to take a fair amount of wealth in the way of taxes. The same feeling exists among other classes that are making themselves heard and felt. We are witnessing the evolution of a new democracy. Men everywhere in this country, consciously or unconsciously, are asking the question: "What did the men fight for?'' They have had the answer in stereotyped shape a hundred times that they fought for democracy, freedom and justice. That is what they fought for in Europe and a little bit of that sort of thing would not go badly in Canada. I have seen no tendency on the part of the Government to grasp this situation in the light of what after all is the vital matter of the handling of the finances of the country. It is on that ground that on this occasion I cannot vote confidence in this administration and it is on that ground that I shall vote for the amendment.