Mr. HOWARD:

I am glad, Mr. Speaker, that someone on the other side says, "hear, hear." I do not speak for the government, but I want to tell the House that I think the great majority of hon. members are opposed to the consolidation of our railway with any other railway. I will go further and say that fifteen years from now, looking back on the speeches that have been delivered in this House and on what has appeared in our newspapers, we will wonder if the people were crazy even to discuss consolidation. I am satisfied that the Canadian National railway to-day is one of the best investments that Canada ever made. When we remember that that railway is hauling wheat to the coast to help our Progressive friends at from seven to nine cents a bushel less than American farmers have to pay, we must realize that our railway is doing something for Canada.

How much is it

losing?

Mr. HOWARD:

It lost thirty million dollars last year, but it will not lose much this year.

Fifty million.

Mr. HOWARD:

It was a hundred million when you had control. Now, I am not going into details of how this country came to acquire the Canadian National railway system, because I might advance a theory which has not yet been heard in this House -possibly some of the men who financed the campaign for the other party in the city of Montreal had something to do with it.

But another reason Why we should not consolidate these railways is that we are recognized the world over as being, per capita, the leading exporting country, and we are proud of it. It is also recognized that we have 'the finest transportation company in the world-the Canadian Pacific Railway. If you should put those two railways together you would destroy the element of competition that makes every employee of the Canadian Pacific and every employee of the Canadian National boost for his own railway. When you take the train from here to Montreal, the conductor does not come along and say, "Tickets, please!" but he says, "Tickets, if you please?" Our Canadian National Railway is rendering a service to the country. The day will come when the deficits will give place to profits, and we will be proud that we own the system.

I am not speaking for the government, as I said a minute ago, but I want to touch on the tariff. The question has been asked three times by some hon. member; now I will answer him. I am a believer in protection, but I am absolutely opposed to protection that allows any manufacturer to sell his goods to the Canadian purchaser at a higher price than he ought to ask. I will give you some figures to show what I mean, Sir, but first let me say this by way of preface. A few years ago the automobile was a great luxury which only a few people could afford; now it is an absolute necessity. Those of us who go through our northwest and find, as was mentioned by the hon, member who preceded me (Mr. Bothwell), hundreds of our farmers located twenty to fifty miles from a railway, we realize 'that automobiles are to them an absolute necessity. They must have a smallsized truck in order to get their products to the railway-and save the building of branch lines. Now I come down to particulars, and

The Address-Mr. Howard

I want hon. gentlemen to take these figures seriously, because I am very much interested in this phase of protection. The price of a certain sedan car in the United States is $1,195; this car is also made in Oshawa and sold to the Canadian public at $1,925-60 per cent increase over the United States price. I am against -that. (No company, no group of men, have any right to bleed -the Canadian purchaser for any more than the actual difference of cost of manufacture over the American cost. A coach of the same make of car- that is the new one the people are all buying -sells in the United States at $1,095; for getting it made in Canada we have to pay $1,775. Now, Sir, the time will come, and very soon, when our friends of the official opposition will look back and try to claim that they favoured a -tariff board. They did not, Mr. Speaker. But a tariff board will solve this problem. The members of -that board, if they are -business -men, will sit around a table with the heads of industries, and when the facts are -presented as I have stated them to the House-that those industries are holding up the Canadian purchaser for sixty -per cent more than the American price, although the Canadian cost of production, including cost of selling, does not exceed fifteen per cent increase on the American cost-the board will -tell them where -they get off at and say, "You will either put your price down to the right basis or off comes the duty."

Mr. KAISER:

Would the hon. gentleman give me the names of the cars -he mentioned? I should like to have the information.

Mr. HOWARD:

Mr. Speaker, I prefer -to give that information privately.

Some -hon. MEMBERS: Oh, oh.

Mr. HOWARD:

I am not joking. I procured the particulars from the Saturday Evening Post of last week.

Mr. ROBIlNSON: Is the hon. member

taking into consideration that Canadian prices include taxes that the United States consumer does not have to pay?

Mr. HOWARD:

Yes, Sir. The duty on

automobiles is only 35 per cent, but our manufacturer adds to that and we pay a difference of 60 per cent.

Mr. -KAISER: May I-

Sit down.

Mr. SPEAKER:

Order.

Mr. STEVENS:

The hon. gentleman has a perfect right to demand the name if he wants it.

Mr. HOWARD:

Mr. Speaker, I have just two more questions to discuss. First, our immigration policy,-

Which one?

Mr. HOWARD:

The last one. We have

heard a lot about keeping Canadians at home. I do not think there is a single member who does not want to keep every Canadian at home. But there is only one way to do this- to make this country so attractive and business so good that our people will prefer to stay at home; and hon. -members will note that the figures I have quoted are proof of what we are doing to this end. In many election campaigns, Mr. Speaker, we have heard this remark: "We would rather have

one Canadian than all the immigrants that could be brought in." I take exception to that statement. We are proud that we are Canadians and Canadian-born, but I say that you have only to look -back a few years to the time when our forefathers came f-rom the Old Land, travelled up the St. Lawrence and through hundreds of miles of forest, cutting down the trees to build the houses which you and I are enjoying and did not pay for. Surely it is evident that every immigrant we put into Canada is an asset which we cannot value. If we had a million more men in our Canadian northwest next year, we would have a crop worth $800,000,000 instead of $400,000,000 and the Canadian National Railways and the Canadian Pacific Railway would not be able to haul the traffic; it would have to go over the Hudson bay route. .

I am going to make two suggestions which do not bear upon the question we are considering, and then I shall have finished. I want to pay a tribute to a suggested law, the old age pension -measure. I am pleased that this government has almost decided to bring in a bill providing -for old age pensions. It is in the best interests of this country that any person who has lived in Canada and spent his money-who has not hoarded it up the way some of us do-should be taken care of when he has passed the age of seventy years, and I stand for that measure. Then there is the question of rural credits. Possibly this measure would not have been necessary had we not our present Canadian -banking system, but under the circumstances there is nothing else to do. Consequently a bill will be brought down covering this -matter of -rural credits.

One further thing I would like to see is a recommendation from the Board of Railway Commissioners that the government take over

The Address-Mr. Young (Weyburn)

its fair share of the cost of getting rid of level crossings on state highways. When this country was in its infancy-in* fact up until a few years ago-we had ordinary farm crossings on country roads, and over these crossings people passed with their teams from ten to fifteen times a day. But our governments have built beautiful highways, especially in the province of Quebec, from thirty to fifty feet wide, over which from two to three thousand automobiles pass per day. Every year these crossings take their toll of human lives. The trouble in the past has been that the municipalities, already taxed to the limit, have found it hard to keep going. They say, and rightly so, that they can get along with these crossings, so why build an overhead or underground crossing for the automobiles which use the roads? I have consulted with one or two members of the Quebec government and I know that government will do its share. I suggest that we divide the cost among the provincial government, the federal government and the railways themselves. We should do a few every year, where state roads exist, and eliminate this risk.

Mr. E. J. YOUNG (Weyburn):

Mr. Speaker, while I must congratulate you on being reelected to the Speaker's chair, I feel more inclined to congratulate this House on having among its members one so eminently qualified to fill that high office, and while I congratulate our distinguished fellow citizen, Senator Dandurand, on being eleoted president of the sixth assembly of the League of Nations, I feel more inclined to congratulate Canada on having produced a son whom all the world considers worthy of that high honour. After listening, Mr. Speaker, to the many men of your race who have so ably and so courteously acquitted themselves in the debates in this House, I feel that every one will agree with me that we must all take off our hats to our French-Canadian fellow citizens. They show not only ability in debate and a masterly grasp of affairs, but also a fine courtesy, a breadth of sympathy and loyalty to the highest ideals of Canadian citizenship which we would all do well to emulate.

I should also like, Mr. Speaker, to congratulate the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) on his skill in debate, and on the keen, trenchant manner in which he deals with every subject which arises. I never hear him debate without reflecting that he must have been a splendid lawyer. But though he may be a splendid lawyer I am afraid he would make a very poor doctor. I am afraid he would be something like a doctor I once heard of, who was called in to see a sick man.

The patient said: " Doctor, I don't feel well; I feel rather weak. Can you give me anything to help me?" The doctor replied " To be sure I can; what kind of medicine would you like?" That has been the attitude of the right hon. leader of the opposition in connection with our Canadian manufacturers, and that is his attitude toward our Maritime righters. The manufacturers have come to him and said, " Mr. Meighen, we don't feel very strong; can you give us something to help us?" He has replied, " To be sure I can; what would you like?" and they have replied, "We would like protection in larger doses." " To be sure," he has said, " you can have it." Our Maritime righters have come to him and said, "Mr. Meighen, we don't feel very strong; can you give us something to help us?" He has said, "To be sure I can; what would you like?" They have said, "A little more protection mixed with a large dose of western wheat." He replies: "To be sure you can have it; I will get it for you if you put me into power." Has it never occurred to the right hon. gentleman that the first thing to do before prescribing a remedy is to diagnose the disease, or that the first step in solving a problem is to clearly state the problem?

Now, what is the problem confronting our Canadian manufacturers to-day? It is the same problem which confronts our farmers, namely, how to produce their wares and put them on the market at a price that will enable them to compete with all comers. That is the problem in a nutshell, and you will never solve it by a tariff which would make this a dear country to produce in; you will never solve it under a tariff which would make this a dear country to live in; you will never solve it under a protective tariff.

I have a message which one of my constituents asked me to deliver to our Canadian manufacturers when I came to Ottawa. This gentleman is engaged in the hardware business, and this is the message he sends: " Tell our eastern manufacturers that if they could reduce their prices fifteen per cent we in the west could easily double our sales. Every day people come into our store and want to buy something, but when they hear the price they say: 'we cannot afford it; we will have to do without it It might be only a dish-pan; it might be a kitchen range, but the answer is the same in every case; they simply cannot afford it and have to do without it.

What is the problem confronting our Maritime provinces to-day? The problem of the Maritimes, summed up in a word, is markets. When the Maritime provinces entered confederation they surrendered the control of their fiscal affairs to the federal government,

The Address-Mr. Young (Weyburn)

and in so doing sacrificed their natural market in the New England states in the interests of confederation. To compensate them for that sacrifice the statesmen of that day said: " We will build down into the Maritime provinces a railway, and put into effect on that railway rates which will enable you to ship your products into central Canada, where we hope you will find a market equally as good as the one you are sacrificing." They did it; they built the railway; they put the low rates into effect. But when the good people of the Maritimes shipped their products up here into central Canada, what did they find? The very things they had to sell were produced in even greater volume in Ontario and Quebec, and to ship their products here in the hope of selling them was like sending coals to Newcastle.

When in 1911 the Liberal government introduced a measure into this House to give back to the people of the Maritimes the market they had lost, it was hon. gentlemen opposite, the Conservative party, who were instrumental in defeating that measure. It was the Conservative party that denied the people of the Maritime provinces access to their natural market, and from that day to this the Maritime provinces have been languishing. But such are the vagaries of human nature, Mr. Speaker, that I have seen men stand up in this House from those same provinces and fight for the very system that has deprived their people of their markets. They are waging war for their chains, fighting for the system that has enslaved them. They are asking that this system of narrow markets and high protection be not only continued but even extended. Truly, Mr. Speaker, a protective tariff is like a narcotic drug. It does not cure the patient; it merely dulls his senses and creates an appetite for itself.

The hon. member for Cumberland (Mr. .Smith) speaking the other night in this debate, asked that the duty on coal and iron be increased because, he said, he would have us protect our home industries in coal and iron from the unfair competition of countries whose currency was debased. But it is British coal and iron, and American coal and iron, that has invaded our market, and will any hon. gentleman say that British currency is debased, or that American currency is debased? I am afradd they will have to find a sounder argument than that before they persuade this government to change its tariff policy.

We all know from our boyhod experience that no lie can stand alone; that if you tell one lie to-day you have to tell another tomorrow to bolster it up. The same is true of any false policy, of any unsound course. When the Conservative party in 1911 went out and fought reciprocity and defeated it they adopted a false course, an unsound policy, and to-day, standing amid the ruin they have wrought, seeing the disaster they have brought on the Maritime provinces, and lacking the moral courage to say, "We were wrong; we made a mistake," instead of trying to retrace their steps, they propose other unsound policies in the hope, I suppose, that the one evil will neutralize the other. What do they propose now? By artificial means to force the traffic of western Canada through the Maritime ports. The hon. member for Victoria-Carleton (Mr. Flemming) the other night said that successive governments in Canada had built railroads down into the Maritime provinces for the express purpose of trying to divert western traffic to those ports. That is true, showing clearly that different governments in this country have tried their level best to live up to the spirit of the bargain of confederation. They have done everything they honestly could to help the Maritimes, as it was intended they should be helped; and yet the traffic does not flow that way. They have done their best to make the stream flow up hill, but it will not. It would look as though nature intended to have her way in spite of us, and what is the course for any rational beings to pursue? Is it not this, that we should find out what nature's intentions are, what her laws are, and put ourselves in conformity with them? As .long as we try to fly in the face of nature, we are bound to come to grief. If we persist in trying to force our trade through artificial channels, it will not go, and we will only bring trouble on ourselves. I would ask some of our protectionist friends this question: At what point geographically speaking does it cease to be profitable for a country to carry on trade across its borders? Or to put the question another way: What is the largest geographical area that can carry on a profitable trade with its neighbours? Here is the situation: Our

friends over the way tell us that the prosperity of the Maritimes depends on promoting trade between them and their neighbours the other provinces. They also tell us that if Canada carries on trade over her borders she will be ruined by it. The only possible inference is that a country the size of Canada is too big to carry on a profitable trade with its neighbours, but that the Maritime provinces are not too big to carry on a profitable trade with their neighbours in the other provinces. Will they tell us how big a

626 COMMONS

The Address-Mr. Young (Weyburn)

country would have to grow before the profit which it was making on its foreign trade would be turned into a loss?

I would like to say just a word in regard to the coal situation. As I understand it, here in central Canada, in what is called the industrial area there is a market for something like $100,00,000 worth of coal each year. In the past that market has been supplied from the American coal fields just across the lake. At present an agitation has arisen to supply this market from the mines of Nova Scotia and Alberta, particularly from rhe mines of Alberta. Our patriotic citizens of Toronto and the surrounding country believe it to be their patriotic duty to burn Canadian coal. Of course, they admit it will cost more to get that coal down here, but they think they have done their patriotic duty when they have consented to bum the coal, and the rest of Canada should pay the freight on it. The arguments they advance in favour of this policy are two: first, they say it would

make us independent of any labour troubles in the American fields. That is true. Labour troubles in the United States would not affect us at all if we got our coal from Canadian mines, but how about labour troubles in Canadian mines? Do Alberta miners never go on strike? We who live in the west and depend on Alberta mines for our coal always have an eye on the labour situation, and it is quite a common practice among the farmers of the west, among those who can afford to do so, to put in a supply for six months or a year ahead just for fear of a strike. So if you relieve yourself from American labour troubles you have no guarantee that you will not have Canadian labour troubles.

The other argument advanced in favour of this policy is that it will promote the development of Canadian industry; that is to say, it will develop the mining of coal in the west and in the east, and develop the manufacturing industries in central Canada. Very true; we will admit it would, so long as the people pay the freight, of course. Here is the situation: You have all these factories

and industrial establishments located here in central Canada. Has this particular part of the country any special advantages to offer to that kind of industry? I believe it has several: first, it has accessibility to market. Again, it has unequalled transportation facilities, both by water and by laud. It has also cheap water power. These three advantages the factories here in central Canada have over any other part of the Dominion. One advantage they lack, and that is they have

no coal of their own here at their door. Now they propose to ask the government to pay the freight on coal, bring it here from the east and west and put it dowm at their doors just as cheaply as they can get American coal. But there are some people in Alberta who would like to see a little industrial development in their country. It is true they have not as many advantages as the people of Ontario have; they have not the cheap water power, or the unequalled transportation facilities; they are not as *'[DOT]lose to their market. But they have this one advantage, the only one they have: they have coal right under their feet, and under those circumstances and with that object in view they have conceived the idea cf trying to build up some factories in their own country. But our patriotic manufacturers here in the east-

Mr. PRICE:

I should just like to call

the hon. gentleman's attention to the fact-

Mr. SPEAKER:

Order, order.

Mr. PRICE:

-that the distance from

Sydney to Montreal-

Mr. SPEAKER:

Order.