Mr. GOULD:

Yes. But that is not all. If any member of this House has been following the proceedings of a certain inquiry concerning lumber operations in the province of Ontario, he will have learned that a number of these lumbermen did not even pay their honest dues to the Government that gave them privileges, thus touching the public, both going and coming. And, strange as it may appear, many of these ultra-iloyalists, the Divine Righters,-I am not referring to the press gallery-who needed the protection of the Canadian people to enable them to build up Canadian industries, to keep the trade away from the Yankees, are turning out to be Americans and not Canadians at all. I do not think any one in this House will accuse the farmers of being Bolsheviki in their tendencies. I do not think any one will say that we believe in seizing governments by unconstitutional means, as was charged in connection with the Winnipeg strike. Personally, I harbour no such belief. But at the same time I want to tell this Government that if this wholesale plundering of the people is not stopped, if the working people are to be deprived of places to live, while millionaire lumbermen demand the protection of the Canadian people and at the same time sell to foreigners cheaper than to their own people, and on top of that virtually rob the state of a large portion of the dues they should pay for their lumber, then this Government has not enough police in Canada to quiet the riots that will surely follow. T noticed by a statement in this House some time ago that this Government spent no less than $154,000 in costs to prosecute the Winnipeg strikers. That is a large sum, but perhaps it may have been well spent if it has taught this Government a

lesson that the producers of this country have come to the point where they are going to demand a square deal, that the burden be removed from the shoulders of the poor and placed where it properly belongs, and that the manufacturers of Canadian lumber, implements and other things, have to play fair with the people whom they serve. If that is not done, then all the eloquence of the hon. member for Barkdale, of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre and of the hon, member for Fraser River will not prevent the people of this country from taking matters into their own hands to see that there shall be equity and justice all round. .

I am only a young member of this House, and my experience and acquaintance is therefore limited. But in the short time 1 have been here the most remarkable thing that has impressed itself upon my mind is the number of members who sit in this House on the Government side and virtually plead for the special interests and the special business in which they are engaged. It is, to my mind, no particular crime for a member of this House to place before it the importance of his business if he has a good one, and to try to remove from the conduct of that business, if it he legitimate, any handicaps that may be placed upon it by government legislation. That is fair politics and' fair business, hut when manufacturers -and men representing special interests in the country labor day after day in this House to extract special privileges from the government of this country and place the cost of those privileges upon the shoulders of the people of Canada, particularly upon the farmers, I am constained as an agriculturist to voice my emphatic protest.

Let me show the members of this house just how it works out so far as the agriculturist is concerned. Let me show those who have no interest to serve in this house save the interests of the people just how it works out. Let me suppose that I am a farmer and I want to embark upon farming within the prairie provinces. If I desire tb build a little shack to keep out the cold, before I can do so I must pay some kind of a tariff upon the lumber secured from the friends of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre on the Pacific coast. If I get the shack and venture to exist, when I want a little fruit for breakfast, as is the wont of the well-fed manufacturers of this country, I must contribute something in the shape of tariff to make up the thirty cents per box that has brought about the political conversion of the hon. member for Fraser

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Valley, (Mr. Stacey). If, after breakfast, 1 staTt out to break up the homestead, I must first hand over something in the shape of a tariff on plows to my hon. friend from Brantford (Mr. Cockshutt). If I manage, in spite of all these handicaps, and all the uncertain elements, such as drouth, hail frost, and grasshoppers, to get something on the farm to cut, before I can cut it I must make a little donation in the shape of tariff on a hinder for the benefit of the tall chimneys of Parkdale so ably represented in this House by my hon. friend from that constituency. If it so happens that, after a hard day's work, I need something in the shape of canned fruit to add something in the shape of spice to my frugal meal before I can enjoy that fruit I must pass along a little handout to the can-ners combine of this country, whose peaoh cans I have thought contain as much water as the stock, of the company that finds such an able exponent in this House in the hon. Member for Haldimand (Mr. Lalor). If I happen to be fortunate enough to secure all these things, and get a crop besides, and desire to start out t-o haul that crop to market in the fall, before I am ready for the road and the cold, I must have some underwear to withstand the frost, but before I can secure it I find I must make some little contribution to the interests which send to this House the hon. member for West Hamilton (Mr. Stewart) and the hon. member for Haldimand, the latter of whom, representing the dual interests of canners and knitters, also carries on a sort of a dual woollen business on both sides of the 'international boundary, and insists that I shall pay him a tariff when I buy his Canadian woollens, presumably to enable his Canadian factory to compete with his woollen mill across the line in the United States.

Should I happen to get through all this, and get the hired man started on his journey with a load of wheat to the elevator, if the wagon breaks down and I need a common, ordinary nail. I find that before the conveyance can be repaired or the trousers of the hired man hooked up in lieu of a button, we must go down and dig up something in the shape of a tariff tax for the hon. member for St. John and Albert (Mr. Elkin), who also has announced his conversion to a policy that, if I mistake not, is designed to maintain the protection on common nails, which will enter into the construction cost of every house and shack on the prairies during, perhaps, the next forty years.

But, if after all these taxes and misfor-tunates and handouts, the hired man manages to get his wheat to the elevator, if it happens that a farmer's elevator is not at that point, I find that I must sell my product at the price dictated by Liverpool and under the local conditions laid down by the elevator friends of the hon. member for Vancouver centre. Admitting that I get my wheat sold and a car of it on the way, I find that when it reaches the head of the Lakes or the Pacific Coast, it must again enter the storage terminals of the friends of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre or of the hon. member for Port Arthur (Mr. Keefer), and be stored there and shipped out under the conditions imposed by the elevator interests represented by these two gentlemen. And, if my grain happens to have a considerable amount of screenings, etc., due perhaps to the fact of the high cost of implements with which to clean it, I find that the stock food friends of my hon. friend from Vancouver Centre purchase my screenings at their own price and at their own terms, make out of it fodder for my stock and ship it back to me and sell to me my own product at their own prices and upon their own terms. Upon the big volume of my wheat product, if it is to go down the lakes, I find that the moment it is read for shipment, it is placed on board the steamships of the interests represented so ably, and so infrequently, in this house by the hon. member for Centre Toronto (Mr. Bristol), whose company, according to a statement I heard here a few weeks ago, started out with five millions in capital eight years ago and now has a plant that is being put into the big merger at an approximate valuation of $45,500,000.

Going a little further with my deductions, carrying the process to that logical conclusion that, in spite of everything, will eventually find a large number of farmers, after paying all these numerous tributes to the interests, in the shadow of the poorhouse, out on the street, as it were, I find that, if without a railw'ay pass on which so many representatives of the interests travel, the farmer who goes broke must go down in his empty pocket, before he takes to the ties, and pay something in the shape of a tariff tax on boots to the interests represented in this House by the hon. member for South Waterloo (Mr. Scott), and so ably sponsored for so long in Parliament by that eminent capitalist, Sir Herbert Ames, who has been carrying the glories of protected Canada to the impoverished peoples of darkest Europe.

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I might go on and enlighten the House still further about the ramifications, both in this House and this country, of the interests to which the farmers of this country must pay tribute in some shape or form. If carried to a conclusion, there is absolutely no limit in this respect. But I will, go no farther than to say that if the farmer of the prairie ships his wheat to Port Arthur before it can reach the Atlantic it must pass through the harbours that are-kept clear by the dredges of the capitalistic friends of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre, and if he ships it to the Pacific coast, it must pass through the harbours kept clear by the capitalistic friends of that hon. member. And, if I protest, if I complain of this multitude of tariff and other taxes, and of the conditions imposed upon me, the capitalistic friends of the hon. friend for Vancouver Centre have a newspaper at Vancouver and another at Winnipeg to tell both the public and myself that I do not know what I am talking about, and that I should be happy and contented under the spreading and protective mantle which they have thrown about me. The conditions which I have just outlined I would like to impress upon the mind of the Hon. Minister of the Interior. He is a Western man, though I regret to say that many years ago he forfeited any right he ever had to speak on behalf of the western people who have helped to make himself and others.of his colleagues from the West. But there is a story going the rounds today, the truth of which I am in no position to confirm or deny, that he is angling f t the Conservative; the Unionist or the Torv leadership, and that the capitalistic friends of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre are prepared to back him in his aspirations. What the outcome will be no one knows, but let me, through you, Mr. Speaker, put to the Minister of the Interior, who was so profuse with his questions in this House the other day, the plain query, whether or not, in the event of his succeeding to the leadership of the Tory party and the premiership of this Canada of ours, is he going to represent in this House the plain people of Canada or the capitalistic friends of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre?

One thing more that has occurred to my mind because of the remarks in this House by the hon. member for West Lambton (Mr. Pardee). He told us the other day that while the cotton interest, the textile and

other big protected interests, were not touched by the new taxation, while they contribute nothing new and little old, while the long-suffering consumer must pay the whole shot, these beneficent industries designed ito build up a great country and an army of happy, contented Canadian people, were actually paying their thousands of employees who make the commodities that we have been buying at such exorbitant prices, the munificent wage of something like $550 per annum. Let me put the question to the Minister of the Interior, as a western man who has done some denouncing of men who went on strike, let me ask him: does he think any man or woman in this country, or in his own cold section of Canada can live on $550 per annum-can they live in Winnipeg, in Montreal or in Valleyfield on $550 per annum, and still be healthy and decent? Let* me ask him is he in favour of further protection to textile industries that show surpluses on watered stock of millions of dollars annually, and. pay their men and women the magnificent, princely wage of $550 per annum? Let me ask him, too, does he tnink all his pleadings, his hair-splitting and his legal briefs can prevent the spread of discontent among the men and women who receive such wages and see such profits if this system is to be protected? And let me say to my hon. friend from Fraser Valley (Mr. Stacey) -who I honestly and sincerely believe would extend, the sympathetic hand,-let me ask him does he think any woman in these days can remain healthy and decent and sufficiently well-clothed to withstand the cold on a wage of $550 per annum?

Mr. MACKIE (Edmonton):

Mr. Speaker, I rise to a point of order. The hon. gentleman has been reading the whole of his speech.

Mr. SPEAKER:

I think the point of order is well taken. The rule is very clear, and the hon. gentleman has certainly violated it most flagrantly.

Mr. GOULD:

I am not- in the habit of reading my speeches, but I thought tonight I would change my procedure because it has been such a common practice of late in the House. However, I will endeavour to continue my remarks without reading the manuscript.

Mr. SPEAKER:

The hon. gentleman is at perfect liberty to refer to his notes. He will also recall the circumstance that the rule on the subject is very clear, and when the attention of the Chair is directed to a

violation of it no other course is open than to decide in accord with the established practice of the House.

Mr. GOULD:

I will abide by your ruling, Mr. Speaker. I have brought my remarks very nearly to a close but I wish to make a reference to a subject 'I spoke on before-a matter of railway extension. It would seem that when anything is desired from the Government it is very difficult for one to obtain it. I have pleaded in committee. I have pleaded in the House and I have pleaded by letter, to have a short stretch of nine miles of railway built through my district to carry sixty million tons of coal that we in the western plains want, and want badly, and for the lack of which hundreds of people are suffering each winter. The coal is there, and we would like to have it released and carried to the homes where it is needed. The construction of nine miles of railway will permit that coal to come out, and yet it seems we are to be denied. I quote this only as another illustration of why there is unrest throughout the country. The people read of big interests and the influence which they exercise. These interests say, "We will form a $500,000,000 steel merger, and we will come and ask Parliament for a double capitalization on this, that and the other thing," and always some one rises to speak in their behalf. I speak for the people in my district, and it seems a hard thing to be denied this little matter. The release of the coal in question will bring revenue to our own lines of railway. The thing that we need more than anything else in this country, in view of the deficit upon our railway operations is revenue. I know of no other business that will produce such a revenue to our railway system in that part of the West as the release and the carriage to its destination of that coal will bring. The hon. member for Regina (Mr. Cowan) has also made a plea with respect to this matter, and therefore it cannot be charged that it has become political in any sense at all. My hon. friend knows the circumstances as well as I do. He has already pleaded for the construction of the small stretch of railway necessary to bring this coal out, and I desire to supplement his plea. My people are very much in earnest regarding this matter, and I want to say that in our part of the country the Government could not do a more popular thing than to listen, once at least, to the pleadings of the plain people. I have come here to speak for them, and I think if the Government fully understood the conditions,

Mr. STEIN:

On behalf of the Opposition I beg to move the adjournment of the debate, Mr. Speaker.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.

On motion of Rt. Hon. Mr. Doherty, the House adjourned at 1.45 a.m. (Tuesday.)

Tuesday, June 1, 1920.