Mr. HEAPS:

I think the right hon. leader of the opposition has stated more than a question of privilege; he also made an assertion which I do not believe is true. With respect to the statement I made, there are members about me who heard that Statement made this afternoon.

Mr. MANION:

May I ask my hon. friend to name the member?

Mr. HEAPS:

I think it was the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Cantley).

Mr. CANTLEY:

Mr. Speaker, I made no such assertion. Anyone who knows me and who knows the province of Nova Scotia must be aware that I have been opposing Besco since Besco came into being.

Mr. HEAPS:

I am very glad to hear the

statement of the hon. gentleman, and I accept it. I hope he will continue to oppose Besco, as I do. I am also extremely glad to notice the awakened interest of hon. gentlemen opposite in the conditions of the workers of this Dominion. I hope that interest will grow in all parts of the House. I am always extremely anxious to have these questions aired.

* I listened to a rather peculiar piece of arithmetic this afternoon from one hon. gentleman opposite. He stated that about $400,000,000 had been contributed by the Maritime provinces to the loss on the Canadian National railways, and because of that loss he claimed the Maritime provinces were now entitled to some kind of consideration. If that is correct, and we are to go on that assumption, then I think every part of the Dominion can expect something from the Canadian National railways, and if every part of Canada should ask something on that particular score, I wonder what would be the end of the Canadian National railways. That peculiar kind of arithmetic reminds me of a little story which it may not be out of place to give the House. A boy in the city of London was selling newspapers, and he became desperately hungry. Not knowing how to appease his hunger, a rather peculiar idea struck him. He met a kindly looking old gentleman and asked him to give him sixpence, He said to the old gentleman, "If you will give me sixpence, I will show you how to make ninepence qut of it." The kindly old gentleman took him at his word and gave him sixpence. The boy then went over to a bakeshop, bought himself a threepenny loaf of bread, and came back with threepence in his hand, which he gave back to the kindly old gentleman. The old gentleman asked the boy, "How do you make ninepence out of

sixpence?" "It is very simple," said the boy, "You have got threepence, I have a threepenny loaf; that is sixpence; and the baker has threepence, that is ninepence." That is how some hon. gentlemen opposite are dealing with the loss on the Canadian National railways-trying to stretch it a good deal further than perhaps it ought to go.

There is one other phase which perhaps has not been touched upon by hon. members representing Nova Scotia in this House, and that is the question of evolution in industry at the present time. I think we all must realize that the same problems now confronting Nova Scotia are confronting the mining areas in practically all parts of the world, and that the troubles of Nova Scotia are no different from the troubles of the miners in the United States and in Great Britain. What do we find? In Great Britain a royal commission has been appointed to inquire into the mining industry. We find the same thing at least being mooted to the south of the line, where the miners have been on strike many, many months.

The conditions in Nova Scotia may be due to various causes. They may be due to the fact that to-day less coal is being consumed in the Dominion of Canada. In the city I come from, coal for cooking purposes has almost become a thing of the past; electricity is taking its place. Even here in Ottawa oil is taking the place of coal, to a great extent, for heating purposes. When we find this change taking place in industry I think we ought to recognize the facts and deal with the problem, not purely in a partisan spirit, but as a national problem, in a national way; and one of the things I regret in the House this afternoon is that while this question was introduced as one affecting the poverty-stricken areas of Nova Scotia, it resolved itself subsequently into the question whether hon. gentlemen to my left had any right to sit on the government benches. The misery of the miners in Nova Scotia or poverty in any part of Canada should not be used in that way at all, because wherever human suffering prevails the issues are far more grave than the mere question of whether the Liberals or the Tories should sit on the government benches.

One of the speakers this afternoon referred to the over-stocked markets. If the markets are over-stocked to-day, say in Montreal or some other part of Canada, how will a reduction of freight rates bring about immediate relief to the miners of Nova Scotia. Even if you transport the coal for nothing, if there is no market for it it cannot be sold. So the

Nova Scotia Miners

question lies deeper than the mere question of freight rates as between certain cities of the east, or as between certain other parts of the country.

We have had sitting in Nova Scotia a commission that reported recently. If that commission was going to solve the problem of the coal miners in Nova Scotia, I should indeed feel very happy, but somehow or other, from the very brief opportunity I have had of perusing the report of that commission, I find nothing in it to give me any hope that at any time in the near future the problems of Nova Scotia are going to be solved. Why? The basic facts in connection with tihe mining situation in Nova Scotia have been overlooked by that very commission. The question of a decent minimum standard of livelihood for the miners is something that was not properly dealt with by the commission, and so long as the miners can work only two or three days a week, so long as they have not the right to a decent minimum living standard, you are going to have trouble in Nova Scotia or in any other part of the Dominion where the same conditions prevail. The question arises: Can

those miners in Nova Scotia attain to that standard of living to which every human being is entitled? I very much doubt whether they can, under the conditions as they exist there. What do I find in the report of that commission? They claim there should be a revision of wages every six months, and what is to be the basis upon which wages are going to be paid? The basis upon which' wages are to be paid is the ability of the industry to pay wages. Now if you go to some manufacturers land ask them what ability they have to pay wages, some will tell you they cannot afford to pay wages at all. We in the Labour movement claim that wages must be a first charge on industry, irrespective of profits. That is something which the commissioners in the Nova Scotia inquiry entirely overlooked; they looked to profits first, and to wages second.

Thinking over the discussion here this afternoon, I have been trying to arrive at its real objective. Has it been the question of alleviating the condition of the miners in Nova Scotia? If that is the question, I am heartily in accord1 with the motion made to adjourn the House; in fact, Mr. Speaker, I rose in my place and voted in favour of adjourning the House to discuss that particular question. But what do I find in the afternoon's discussion? The man whose name has been most prominently mentioned all

afternoon is Sir Henry Thornton. Why does the name of the manager of the Canadian National Railways loom so large in this discussion, when we are dealing with the poverty of the miners of Nova Scotia? I am just wondering, Mr. Speaker, whether the poverty of the miners of Nova Scotia is not being used as a smoke screen from behind which to attack Sir Henry Thornton. So far as Sir Henry Thornton and his management of the railway is concerned, instead of being attacked by hon. members in this House he ought to have their full support in trying to bring the railway into a condition where, instead of it being a liability, it will be an asset to the Dominion of Canada. I am rather interested in that particular phase of this situation. I am not interested in Sir Henry Thornton as an individual; I have never seen him and should not know him if I did see him; but I am interested in the fact that the people of Canada to-day have got a railway, and they have got it not because they wanted to own it but because of the failure and blunders of the managements of these various roads under private ownership. For that reason they Came into the hands of the government, and the government, or in other words the nation, found itself with a liability. It should be the duty of this House to try to convert that liability, as I said a moment ago, into an asset. Sir Henry Thornton and the employees of the Canadian National Railway cannot feel that they have the confidence of the people if the management of the system is to be subject to attacks at all times in this House. I have seen, Mr. Speaker, similar oases before. An exact parallel is the condition as it exists between the Canadian National and the Canadian Pacific. The greatest trouble with Sir Henry Thornton to-day, in the opinion of some people, is that he has become too strong a competitor for the Canadian Pacific; and if instead of achieving a considerable measure of success in the position he now occupies he had allowed the road to go from bad to worse, then not one word would have been heard in this House about Sir Henry Thornton, not one word such as has been uttered here during the past few days. Why should Sir Henry Thornton's name be brought into this discussion? I think that one who manages a public utility should be given a free hand. If he committed blunders or mistakes in the management of that utility it should be the first duty of this House to get rid of him. Now the question arises: is Sir Henry Thornton making a success of

Nova Scotia Miners

the position he occupies, or is ihe a failure? If hon. gentlemen opposite think that Sir Henry Thornton is not filling satisfactorily the position to which he was appointed, then let them come in an honest and straightforward manner and ask for his dismissal. It would be far better to do that than to make flank attacks from time to time upon him.

When it comes to a question of sympathy with the miners of Nova Scotia, for those men who are suffering so much to-day, I yield to no one. I am prepared to sit down and discuss the situation with any one, no matter in what quarter of the chamber he may sit, in order to try to arrive at a satisfactory solution of this problem. If it is a question of reducing freight rates, let us have a reduction ; if there is something wrong with the attitude of the corporation that owns the mines, let us know it; but let us stop following a pettifogging attitude such as so many hon. members opposite have adopted in discussing this particular question,-for example such as " that we on this side had 200,000 more votes at the last election than hon. gentlemen on the other side." What has that got to do with the situation? If my hon. friend opposite who dealt with that aspect of the situation wanted to be logical, he should send a cable over to the Conservative government in Great Britain telling them that they have got no right to occupy the treasury benches because they too to-day represent a minority of the votes cast in the Mother Country.

Mr. MANION:

They do not do anything of the sort at the present time.

M'r. HEAPS: I think my hon. friend is wrong.

Mr. MANION:

Give us the figures, then.

Mr. HEAPS:

I will in a minute. The combined vote cast for the Liberal and Labour groups in the House was 600,000 more than that cast for the Conservative party.

ML MANION: They had more votes than any other group in the House, which is not true of the present government.

Mr. HEAPS:

I hope my hon. friend will not shift his position; I am prepared to deal with that question. I made the statement that the Conservative party in Great Britain do not represent a majority of the votes cast.

Mr. MANION:

The Conservative party

here does.

Mr. HEAPS:

They certainly do not; they represent more votes than the Liberal party, that is all.

Mr. SPEAKER:

I must ask hon. gentlemen not to interrupt. I would also point out that the motion before the House comes under rule 39. It relates to a condition of acute distress in Nova Scotia and nothing else.

ML. HEAPS: There appears to be some distress among hon. gentlemen on either side, but it is not akin to the distress which the miners in Nova Scotia are suffering-it is in the nature of political distress.

Mr. MANION:

Is the hon. gentleman defending the miners of Nova Scotia, or is he defending this government?

Mr. HEAPS:

I am not defending the government. The question we are discussing is the prevailing poverty in Nova Scotia, and the hon. gentleman who departed most from the consideration of that particular aspect of it was the hon. member who has just asked me a question. I do not think I have departed very much from the real issue; but if I have not adhered to it as closely as I should, I as a new member would have expected older members of the House to set me a better example. I should not have wandered at all from the merits of the question had I not been led into following the ramifications of some hon. members opposite.

Now, how can a remedy be found for the relief of the men who are suffering in Nova Scotia? I want to say as one of the Labour group that if a proper remedy can be shown me, whether it is to be found in a reduction of freight rates or along other lines, I am prepared to sit down and discuss the matter and to try to arrive at some basis whereby the mining industry of Canada will be placed on a solid and permanent foundation.

Some hon. members opposite are anxious to know what the policy of the government is on this particular question. I am anxious to learn that, and I am also desirous of knowing what hon. gentlemen opposite have to propose. I have been trying to find that out this afternoon. Let me say that I am neither a defender of the Conservatives nor a defender of the Liberals. I am a defender, however, of Labour, and I am one who criticizes most severely the conditions that we find today in Nova Scotia. For that the Liberals are just as much to blame as the Conservatives. No political party should come here and try to make political capital out of such a situation; all hon. members should unite in endeavouring to find a means of relief. As to the members of the Labour party, it would have been only a matter of simple courtesy to notify us that this matter was to come up this after-

Nova Scotia Miners

noon, but we had not the slightest inkling of it. Personally, I was taken completely by surprise. At the same time I was agreeably surprised that this question was raised this afternoon by hon. gentlemen representing that part of the Maritime provinces affected.

Now, Mr. Speaker, if hon. gentlemen opposite are interested in the figures of the popular vote in Great Britain, I have them here. They are contained in a work called the Constitutional Year Book, published by the National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations of Great Britain. This is the authority I was relying on when I quoted the figures to hon. gentlemen opposite a few minutes ago. The figures of the exact vote cast for the Conservatives are 8,040,835; the vote for the Liberal and Labour parties combined was 8,600,123, yet the Conservative party have a two to one membership in the British House.

I dco not wish to detain the House at greater length. My colleague (Mr. Woodsworth) will soon be here and possibly he will be able to shed a great deal more light on the question than manj^ other hon. members who have spoken this afternoon. When he does speak I think he will be able to tell the House something about Besco and the miners of Nova Scotia. My own knowledge of the situation is very slight indeed. In conclusion let me say that if any hon. member has anything to offer which will tend to solve this problem I shall accord to him the fullest co-operation and the fullest support.

Miss AGNES C. MacPHAIL (Southeast Grey): I desire to extend1 to the members from the Maritime provinces, particularly those members from the coal areas, my very sincere congratulations upon the fact that they are at least interested in the problems of the miners of Nova Scotia. I think I can quite honestly say that that is an improvement over the attitude of the late members from the colliery districts, who, when conditions were much worse than they are now claimed in this House that there was nothing wrong with the condition of the miners in that district. It might be worth while to point out that one, and possibly two, of the late members are now dispensing justice, I suppose in a fair and impartial manner. May I say to members from the Maritime provinces that they missed an opportunity of being gracious-in fact an opportunity they should not have missed: that of recalling to this House that four years ago the people who championed the cause of the miners of Nova Scotia were the Labour members in this

House, and it was then not such an easy task as it is to-day. I quite remember that the first big debate I heard in this House was when Mr. Irvine moved the adjournment of the House, as has been done to-day, to discuss the conditions of the miners in Nova Scotia. We all know, I think, the history of the corporation in question. The member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworthl has seen to it, I think, that this House dhould understand something of the formation of the company briefly called Besco, the British Empire Steel Corporation. At the time the adjournment was moved in 1922, the company was asking the men to take a wage cut of 37i per cent, as I recall clearly. It seemed to me at the time a very stiff reduction to ask them to accept at one time. Besco was formed by the merging of twenty-four companies with a capital of $83,000,000, forming one company with a capital of $102,000,000. They have a very resounding name, the British Empire Steel Corporation. They capitalize patriotism in their name. I think the organization of the company has always been unsound. I think it is based purely on profit. There are only two places to get the profit, either out of the consumer or out of the miner. Since there are more consumers and they make more noise, the company takes all it can get out of the miners, but what it cannot get out out of the miners it skilfully takes from the [DOT] consumer.

For my part I take a great deal of personal satisfaction in the debate to-day. I should like to draw the attention of the hon. member for Queens-Lunenburg (Mr. Duff) to the facts brought out. In the former debate he thought I was not telling the truth about conditions as they existed' there. It seems to me, from what I saw when I was there and from what I have read of the conditions, that the company was unsound; that it was a company exceedingly favoured by governments, pot only federal but provincial, not only (Liberal but Conservative-all sorts and shades of government. It was given subsidies, it was given bonuses and it was given tariff protection. It was given concessions of all sorts, and when the enraged and sullen miners attacked the property of the company it was given military protection. It seems this cor-iupt company-I think we can call it corrupt because of its corrupt foundation-proceeded then to corrupt governments. I do not know whether it came this far, but in the east that is not only a conjecture but a proven fact; and the miners were not in a fair field. It ,was not easy for them to get the things they wanted in a perfectly honest and correct

Nova Scotia Miners

way. Their constituencies, when they sought for representatives for themselves, were gerrymandered out of all recognition. The company forced the wages of the men below the subsistence level. When the miners got desperate and rebelled, the law, also corrupted by the company through the government, imposed some very severe sentences. These men were sent to gaol. They came out embittered, and were possibly the worst influence in the colliery towns. When I came back from Nova Scotia last year I said that if I lived in Glace Bay and had no way of getting away from .those conditions I would have been as "red" as anyone I saw there. I meant that. I do not wonder that these people have no respect for justice and think there is no justice in the law. How can you have such respect when you know those who have been recently elevated to the bench? The miners simply are sullen and for the time beaten, but if the same tactics are continued the trouble is there and will bubble up again.

I am willing to do almost anything to relieve the conditions in Nova Scotia. If it Is d'esired to vote a sum of money to tide the people over, or if a lower rate on coal, a statutory rate, is wanted, or almost anything you can mention that is the decent sort of thing to do, I am agreeable. But I do not-want hon. members to imagine that I think that will relieve the trouble, because it will not. I certainly did not like the attack on Sir Henry Thornton this afternoon; I really think it was cheap. Perhaps I should not say that, but it sounds like that to me. I was astounded that the gracious member for Fort William (Mr. Manion), who is always so sweet and charming-

Mr. MANION:

Does my hon. friend mean to say that I attacked Sir Henry Thornton? I never mentioned his name.

Miss MacPHAIL:

No, I am sorry. I do

not mean to say that you attacked him. I mean to say you looked very angry, not in .the least like yourself.

But referring again to the attack that was made so often on Sir Henry Thornton, and all in the name of the miners of Nova Scotia too, it looked to me as though there might be people who were afraid that this enterprise, this public ownership concern called the National Railways, was really going to be successful, and the dream that private capital has undoubtedly had that they would one day control all the railways in Canada wa3 apt to fade into thin air. I wonder, and I suggest to the government-maybe I had better add, as it seems to be customary, if

there- is a government-that the same chance be given to the miners who cannot get work in the mines and who have not been getting steady work for a long time-to go on the land in Canada as is given to immigrants outside of Canada. Also I would say that one of the evils that I saw when I was in the east was that the British Empire Steel Corporation is a sort of little immigration bureau, and that immigrants come in there to bring down the .wages of the workers when there is only a little work to go round among a great many people. I do not think that should be permitted to continue. It seems to me the government ought to have some control. Let the government's immigration policy be the only immigration policy, and do not let all the waterlogged concerns in this country run a private immigration concern of their own.

Mr. HANSON:

Can the hon. member tell

us what the government's immigration policy is?

Miss MacPHAIL:

I am no more posted

on the government's policy than my hon. friend; so that possibly he knows what it is. I only know what I hear in the corridors and read in the newspapers.

Mr. STEWART (West Edmonton):

If the hon. member will content himself for a few days he will find out all about it.

Miss MacPHAIL:

I am going to tell the

House the steps we will have to take before we reach a permanent solution of what is to me too big a problem, and what I think is almost too big for the members of the House. Still these are the only suggestions I can think of to offer to hon. members. I think the labour men, the miners, should be given every opportunity to organize, and that the almost contemptuous propaganda that has been circulated against class organization in this country should cease. The miners have just as much right to organize and to work aggressively for better living conditions as have the manufacturers or bankers or farmers or any other class group. The government, the Liberals, or the Conservatives, should they be the government, should keep their hands off gerrymandering. It is not fit for decent hands in any case, and the miners have a perfect right to representation as such in this House. I am pleased indeed with the representation which they have secured. It is better than they had, and I will go one step further and say that when they represent themselves the situation will be still better.

The co-operative societies that have been started in the colliery towns are an excellent thing. After all, co-operation is not a matter

Nova Scotia Miners

of dollars and cents; co-operation is a philosophy of life, but it is one which the British Empire Steel Corporation does not understand. Before there is a real settlement there will have to be a complete reorganization of the British Empire Steel Corporation, and the man whose name should be dragged on the floor of this House is McLurg, not Sir Henry Thornton. If there is a man in Canada for whom I have absolutely no respect, that man is McLurg. Evidently the thing he wants out of the company is profits and profits only. The thing I want out of any company, whether it be a steel or coal or steamship company, or all three combined, is the happiness of those who work in that industry. There will have to be a reorganization, and finally-this may not be for another hundred years-any such huge industry must be organized on a straight co-operative basis, so that when people in the industry want to work and make that industry a success, they will benefit by their efforts to work and to get markets. At present there is no encouragement for the men, as anyone who views the situation can easily see. I am sorry I have nothing more constructive to offer to the House, but at least I believe the things I have said, and I will not bore the House longer.