May I ask my hon. friend the

Minister of Finance, the Acting Minister of Trade and Commerce in his capacity as Acting Minister of Railways (Mr. Robb) if he would be so kind as to table the correspondence in connection with the Inverness railway.

Hon. J. A. ROBB (Acting Minister of

Railways): If there is any correspondence I

shall be glad to table it.

Mr. DONALD SUTHERLAND (South Oxford):

I know the Minister of Finance

is a very busy man, but I should like to ask him if any reply has been received from the government of Australia regarding the bonus on butter to which I directed his attention yesterday. If not, would the minister place before the House the nature of the communication sent by this government to the government of Australia?

Hon. J. A. ROBB (Minister oT Finance):

I think my hon. friend must have misunderstood me as I never said that we had communicated with the government of Australia. We communicated with our trade commissioner at Melbourne, Australia, and I gave my hon. friend the information yesterday. I notice Hansard got the wrong interpretation to the answer.

Mr. SUTHERLAND (South Oxford):

I

would like to direct the minister's attention to the statement made by the Minister of Agriculture on Monday last that he understood the Minister of Finance was in communication with the government of Australia in regard to the matter.

Mr. ROBB:

With Australia. We have a

commissioner there who acts for Canada.

The Address-Mr. MacNutt

Mr. G. T. MacNUTT (Colchester):

Mr. Speaker, I rise to address this House for the first time with no small degree of diffidence. Due, however, to your charm of manner, your dignity and the courtesy that you have shown to other new members who have preceded me, my task is made very much lighter. May I too, even at this late date in common with many other hon. members, convey to you my sincere felicitations on your elevation to the honourable and exalted position of chief commoner in this the fifteenth parliament of Canada?

Having listened with a great deal of pleasure throughout this debate to hon. gentlemen from all parts of this vast Dominion who have discussed questions of paramount importance to this country, I have observed that many new members have taken the opportunity of giving some of the impressions they have gained since coming into this House. May I be permitted to refer to a matter that impressed me perhaps more than any other, and in doing so, I wish it to be distinctly understood that it is not my intention to cast any reflections upon any party in this House nor to read a lecture to any hon. members. May I refer to what I think is altogether too common in this House and that is the too frequent interruption of hon. members who are addressing this assembly? In my judgment the dignity and prestige of parliament is very much impaired by this practice. It is unfair to the hon. gentleman who is addressing the Chair. It is unfair oft-times to the hon. member who makes the interruption which is not infrequently of a kind intended rather to embarrass the speaker than to edify the House. It is unfair to you Sir, as the Speaker, whose duty it is to endeavour at all times to maintain the dignity of the House. We have come here from different portions of Canada to try to solve problems of tremendous gravity which confront us today, and I do not believe the Canadian people have sent us here to practise what I may be permitted to term sledge-hammer politics. This, the first and highest court in this country, is a good place in which to practise the golden rule and it should be the endeavour of every hon. member to maintain as far as possible the dignity of this House.

During the past week the Australian treaty has been debated at great length in this chamber. The county of Colchester, Nova Scotia, which I have the honour to represent, is largely interested in the dairy business and I may be permitted to make a few observations concerning this treaty, which is of considerable importance to that county. Since coming here some weeks ago I have received very many letters from my constituents with reference to butter that has been coming into the province of Nova Scotia and forcing down the price of local butter to the farmers in the county at a time of year when it costs them more than at any other period to produce this commodity. These letters are not all from Conservatives, many of them coming from Liberals, and this will show that the question is not one of party. It is a matter of bread and butter to the farmers of that province. If the valorization scheme which has been proposed in Australia becomes law the dairy business in my province will be immediately ruined. The Pattersen scheme, which seems to be receiving a great deal of support in Australia, is not unlike the valorization plan in certain features, a plan which has worked to the advantage of the Brazilian coffee growers. It is proposed to levy a tax of 2 cents per pound on butter made in the creameries of Australia and to use the proceeds of that tax to pay a bonus of 6 cents per pound on each pound of butter exported from the country. How the Australian consumers will view this proposal we are not told though we can easily imagine what their attitude will be towards it. What concerns us in Canada is the fact that the Pattersen scheme makes it possible to lay down Australian butter in this country at 6 cents per pound less than its actual market value. In other words, a bonus of 6 cents per pound is provided to enable the Australian dairyman to undersell his Canadian cousin right in his own Canadian market. In the interests of the automobile business and of other manufacturers who are building up a good trade in Australia, it might have been necessary for our government to offer that country some inducements. But what were our farmer members doing to allow their interests to be sacrificed in such a manner? Is it more important to retain a party in power, or to preserve the interests of so very important a business as dairying in Canada? A few days ago when I expected to address the House on the Australian treaty I found that by agreement between the whips I was unable to take part then, and in the meantime I have taken the trouble to wire to one of my friends in the town of Truro, which is the county seat of Colchester, for

The Address-Mr. MacNutt

information regarding the imported butter which was coming into that town. I am going to read to the House the information I got on the subject. I have the telegram here and as it is rather lengthy I have condensed it in order to make it more understandable. Now the freight rate on butter from Australia to Halifax is $1.75 per hundred pounds, while the rail freight from Halifax to Truro, a distance of 62 miles, is 41 cents per hundred pounds. The total cost of delivering Australian butter from that country to Truro is 2.16 or less than 2i cents per pound. Let us see what the farmers in that province are paying for the transportation of their products. My information is that it costs 20 cents per can for the railway transportation of 25 pounds of cream from Brookfield to the Truro creamery, a distance of eight miles, and the average test of this cream being 27 per cent butter fat, this can would give 6| pounds of butter, thus making the transportation charges to the farmer over a distance of eight miles approximately 3 cents per bound for his butter, while as I have said butter can be shipped from Australia to Truro at 2i cents per pound. The government should endeavour to stop the importation of butter from Australia and New Zealand at the present time because this butter is forcing the price of the local product down to a figure which returns no profit to the farmers. One good feature of the treaty, as I understand it, is that upon six months' notice from the government it may be cancelled.- Well, surely enough has been shown in this debate to prove that the treaty is most injurious to the farmers of the country, and there should be no hesitation about cancelling it.

I have observed throughout this debate that bon. members from all parts of Canada have invariably discussed the questions which most interest them in their individual constituencies in their own provinces. Now I have the pleasure this afternoon of following the hon. member for Oape Breton South (Mr. MacDonald) who addressed the House last night in connection with Maritime rights, and I do not offer any apology for considering, for a time at least, this important question which transcends every other question not only in the province of Nova Scotia but in the Maritime provinces generally. Before proceeding however I want to offer my thanks to and express my very great appreciation of the hon. member for Gloucester (Mr. Robichaud) whc gave us such a splendid address a short time ago, for the compliment he paid me in reading to this House a manifesto issued by myself to the electors of Colchester county on September 26, 1925. I deem this a great honour,

an honour which I believe no other gentleman in this House has thus far enjoyed this session. Let me state here on the floor of this House for the benefit of the hon. member that I stand here prepared to fulfil every pledge that I made to my constituents during that contest. The hon. member read portions of that manifesto, which is as follows:

In accepting this nomination I wish to make it plain that if I am elected I will not be a political partisan.

Surely that is preferable to being a died in the wool partisan. Again:

I will stand four square for the rights of Nova Scotia and the rights of the Maritime provinces.

Does my hon. friend see anything very wrong in that?

And again: [DOT]

I will stand four square for the rights of Nova Scotia and the rights of the Maritime provinces, and if the time should ever arrive when I must choose between the interests of my party and the interests of my native province, I pledge my word to the electors of Colchester and the people of Nova Scotia that the interests of my native province will always come first.

That was the platform I presented to the people of Colchester on October 29; that is the platform upon which I stand on February 26. I may go further and say that we have 23 members from the Maritime provinces on this side of the House who have subscribed to the same manifesto, and until our honoured leader refuses to implement the promises be made to the Maritime provinces, we intend to support him.

I think it was my good friend from Queens-Lunenburg (Mr. Duff) who stated recently that Maritime rights were nothing more than Tory propaganda. I hold in my hand the manifesto issued by my opponent in the county of Colchester. I wish the House to remember that he is a very clever barrister. The manifesto is very long and I shall detain the House with only a few extracts. He tells the people of Colchester:

It is generally recognized that business conditions in Nova Scotia have been particularly unsatisfactory because of 'the great burdens placed upon our people and upon the natural industries of the province by the customs tariff devised by previous Conservative governments and since maintained in varying degrees by succeeding administrations.

Just grievances also exist in railway matters created by previous Conservative governments and in justice to our people and the province such grievances must be righted.

The farmer, lumberman and fisherman have been sacrificed, indeed every person other than half a dozen factory owners, specially privileged and subsidized by the customs tariff are feeling the pinch and finding it difficult to make ends week.

Hear, hear.

Mr. MacNUTT:

An hon. member opposite says, " Hear, hear." In the course of my re-

The Address-Mr. MacNutl

marks I shall deal with the half dozen " privileged factories " in my county to which the manifesto refers.

The young people are being forced by conditions in Nova Scotia to go to other parts of Canada and to the States in search of a livelihood.

I appeal for your support on a platform of Nova Scotia rights-

Nova Scotia rights, not Maritime rights.

-and a customs tariff suited to the peculiar needs of the province.

Those are the essential parts of the manifesto issued by my opponent to which I wish to draw the attention of the House.

Now let us for a moment look at the results of that manifesto. In 1921 the county of Colchester was represented in this House by a Liberal. In the October election-

I do not wish to speak in any boastful spirit -my Liberal opponent, a good friend of mine, a very Olever lawyer and a young man of unimpeachable character and great promise, barely saved his deposit; sixty-six per cent of the votes were polled for me. I think the hon. member for Kent (Mr. Doucet) gave the House particulars of the votes polled in the Maritime provinces last October. I wish, Sir, to give hon. members the figures for Nova Scotia. The Conservatives polled 125,656 votes; the Liberals, 92,737; Labour, 3,617", or a majority for the Conservatives of

30.000 over all other parties in the province.

Mr. ROBICHAUD:

Is the hon. gentleman including in the Conservative total the votes east for himself?

Mr. MacNUTT:

No. The figures I have given show approximately a majority of

30.000 for the Conservatives over the other two parties.

Mr. ROBICHAUD:

My bon. friend does not understand my question. Is he including in the Conservative total the votes cast for himself in the Colchester election?

Why not?

Mr. ROBICHAUD:

I thought he said he was not a Conservative candidate.

Mr. EDWARDS:

You only thought you thought.