Mr. SPENCE (Maple Creek):

I am very

glad to have the hon. gentleman's denial. Wheat growing is a stage of development in our great western country, it is the first stage of development. The pioneer goes and locates on the prairie. He builds his little sod shack. He is a man without capital; all he has is his muscle and a desire to win. He goes in there and he does what is quite natural; he follows the course of least resistance. He sows flax, or he sows wheat, and from the proceeds of that crop he establishes himself. But gradually, slowly-perhaps more slowly than some of us would like to see-the process of mixed farming is being adopted. Agriculture is being built up year by year on a more sound and permanent basis as the result of the keeping and feeding of live stock. In Saskatchewan we had 100,000 acres seeded to corn last year,

a fact which may be rather a surprise to hon. gentlemen in this chamber. As I have said, field crops, particularly wheat, are a very important contribution to the prosperity of Canada. Now, we have in Saskatchewan an organization vrhidh, as a single unit, is perhaps one of the greatest organizations to be found anywhere in the world.

Political?

Mr. SPENCE (Maple Creek):

I will tell

my hon. friend about that. We have a marketing organization known as the wheat pool. Affiliated with it are two other units, the Alberta pool and the Manitoba pool. The three are amalgamated in selling the wheat of the growers of western Canada through a central office. There are something like 100,000 growers in these organizations who will market this year 200,000,000 bushels of wheat. Just think of it I I am speaking of this because I wish to show that we have been leaving no stone unturned in the direction of putting our business of farming on a sound economical basis. We have organized ourselves in such a way that we have to a great extent eliminated much of the waste and inefficiency in distribution. Thanks to the services of our various activities, governmental and otherwise, we have been able to put our production on a very high plane indeed. It is only quite recently that we were able to follow that work up by putting our system of distribution on the same basis also. Now that work is going on, and to-day I do not know of a single farm commodity that is not marketed in that way. We have the wheat growers; the live stock men are organized; the poultry and egg producers; in fact, as I have already said, commodity organization is applicable to every farm commodity. We have been unremitting in our efforts to benefit our condition and have had marked success. Thanks to a beneficent Providence we have had for the last three or four years good crops which we have been able to market at good prices. The hon. member for South Wellington (Mr. Guthrie) saw fit recently to make an allusion in that regard and perhaps I may be permitted to read exactly what he said:

I say that Providence has blessed Canada during the past season with a wheat yield in the western provinces unsurpassed both in quality and quantity, a yield which is to-day commanding a good price in the markets of the world and this fact constitutes the most important feature of our commercial success.

I am glad that the hon. member referred to that matter and stated that the crops, particularly wheat, and agriculture as a whole, gave the greatest contribution to our com-

>IJ COMMONS

The Budget-Mr. Spence (Maple Creek)

mercial success. When I come to the point, I wish to relate the great business of agriculture to the industries of manufacturing and mining. I think perhaps agriculture has not been brought forward in this House to such an extent as its importance demands. In my own province of Saskatchewan we have, roughly, $300,000,000 coming in from our wheat crop alone, and about one-half billion, in round figures, for all field crops. We have one billion and a half dollars coming into Canada as a whole from all agricultural products. An enormous amount of money comes pouring into the country in payment for the products of the land. We have three million people engaged in agriculture. We have the enormous amount, approximately, of three billion and a half dollars in actual money invested in the land in the western provinces. I am sometimes inclined to smile a little when I hear my hon. friends talking about industry and its importance. They speak of some shoe factory employing a few hundred men, or some automobile manufacturer employing a few thousand men, and turning out a few hundred thousand dollars worth of automobiles. It may not be common knowledge to hon. members of this House, but our dairy industry alone is worth more than the products of all the mines, gold and silver, and all the oil and gas wells in Canada. The amount of money received from dairy products exceeds the products of the mines and wells by a hundred million. The old brindle cow, chewing her cud on the farm in Saskatchewan, represents more wealth than all these other industries I have referred to.

Mr. MANION:

Does the hon. member not mean the old brindle cow in Ontario?

Mr. SPENCE (Maple Creek):

I mean

the brindle cow, no matter where she is. I have referred to the volume of business, and I wish to speak now in regard to its quality. I am proud to be able to tell this House that in fifteen international exhibitions we won eleven sweepstake prizes for our hard spring wheat. At the International show, in Chicago, we have won prizes with our cattle and horses, and I think our quality of production along some lines has been on a par with the quantity. To give the House an idea of the contribution our province has made to the wealth of the country, I may say that the proportion of registered wheat for all Canada was 49,000 bushels, and Saskatchewan's share in that registered hard wheat was 30,000 bushels. We have found a market for registered wheat in the distant Argentine. We sent 2,000 bushels to the United States not-

-rMr. George Spence.]

withstanding a duty of 42 per cent. I would like to see a trade commissioner or an ambassador appointed to Washington, to represent the interests of the grower of high grade registered wheat as well as to look after the interest of the live stock man. There is a demand for high grade spring wheat in the United States, and the fact that we can sell two car loads in spite of that high duty clearly indicates that there is a demand for it.

This leads me to the point where I will briefly touch upon the fiscal policy of the Dominion of Canada. As a result of our great agricultural development coupled with the fine exhibits of Canadian products in other countries, 60 per cent of our exportable wealtl is represented by agriculture. Someone says, "We are going to protect industry." The right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) has said-and I listened very carefully to what he said-"We will build agriculture into the protected structure of industry." That is a nice mouth filling phrase but that is about all it is. It simply cannot be done. Here you have a golden harvest of wheat pouring out during the marketing season, miles and miles of trains running day and night, employing hundreds of thousands of men, you have ships coming into the harbours of our principal -sea ports to load with the wheat which is carried to Europe, and which is selling there in competition with the whole wide world. That source of revenue is equal to three-quarters of a billion of wealth in gold to this Dominion, and that gold, as a result of the production of that wheat, is coming into Canada. To make my point clear I will give the House a little illustration. I lived in the Yukon country, the Elondyke, for three years. Our banner year of production in gold was $24,000,000. Men were very anxious to go to the Klondyke, and if you are able to go over the trail to-day you will see bleaching on the hillside the bones of those who tried to get there and could not. Our banner production was $24,000,000 in one year, and it dwindled down to $2,000,000 or $3,000,000. In the section of Saskatchewan from which I come there is a line of railway 100 miles long, and during the last six years taking the average, we shipped a million and a half dollars worth of grain at every shipping point, these shipping points being only seven or eight miles apart. That meant that that amount of money was coming into that section of the country. That line goes through the constituency of the hon. member for Willow Bunch (Mr. Donnelly) and my own constituency. I wonder where the money goes

The Budget-Mr. Spence (Maple Creek)

to. It is a veritable Klondyke; yet no one is rushing to get there. No one is leaving his bones bleaching on the prairie in an effort to get there. It is not a spectacular thing, but it goes on year after year, and we are not mining it all out at once; it is a potential source of wealth that appears to be inexhaustible. The fertility of our soil is a great natural resource and, I repeat, agriculture is the greatest central factor in Canada to-day and you cannot protect it. We hear talk about building agriculture into the protected structure of industry. Here we have this great arch, this great keystone, and hon. members are going to fit it into a little footbridge. "Brick for brick," our hon. friends of the opposition say: "brick for brick," the leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) says, "brick for brick"! Not even as good a bricklayer as the hon. member for Portage la Prairie could build that kind of brick into the protected structure of industry. It is not a brick, it is the corner stone, and the stone that this builder-the right hon. leader of the opposition-has rejected is yet the head of the corner.

Our policy must be one for wider markets, for world markets. The domestic, the home market, means very little to us. The previous speaker referred to what we could do in the way of finishing products at home, but I have listened to that old chestnut before. How are we to finish our steers at home? We can picture ourselves with a row of sausage factories extending all the way from Calgary to Halifax! It would require a population of fifty million people to consume the cattle we are raising in this country at the present time.

I did not speak on the Address, and during all the debate that has taken place in the last two or three months, I have listened carefully, I might almost say with painful interest sometimes. I have come to the conclusion that we are being gradually forced into a false position. It has been stated that the government are doing certain things for certain people, particularly for western Canada; that they are building the Hudson Bay railway for western Canada; that they are lowering the tariff for western Canada and for Saskatchewan particularly. That assertion has been made. I want to offset it with this argument, that the only thing the farmer gets with which to buy the necessities and luxuries of life and to support himself on the land is his margin of profit between the cost of production and the price he ultimately gets in the markets of the world. Anything that will tend to lower that cost of production

confers a benefit on agriculture, and anything that confers a benefit on agriculture confers a great benefit on Canada.

Let us not take things out of their proportion. Let us consider things in their order; let us put first things first. We are not asking for the Hudson Bay railway because we are going to get some particular thing out of it. That railway is going to be built because it will be a means towards cheapening our production. We want rural credits for the same reason. If we can get money a little cheaper, our cost of production will be lowered. If we can get our wheat on the markets of the world cheaper, our cost of production will certainly be lowered. If we can get our-ploughs, harrows, wagons and other implements of production cheaper, our cost of production will be lowered and we shall have more for distribution, more with which to buy automobiles on which the tariff has been lowered, and more with which to buy necessities and some luxuries maybe. As I have said, it is this balance that affects prosperity in Canada, which makes the wheels of the factory go round, which keeps the bankruptcy sign out of the show windows of our places of business, which keeps the balance of trade on the right side of the ledger, which keeps the man on the land and which will attract other people to the land.

I have a great deal of material in connection with the period through which we have passed. Along with others, I was one of the victims of that howl of blue ruin that went to high heaven during the election campaign preceding October 29 last. I do not object to gentlemen propounding their doctrines, because that is what we are here for. I am here to convince hon. members if I can that the farmer must have his raw material at the lowest possible cost, and therefore I want duties lowered on farm implements and all other material that enter into the production of farm commodities. That is my philosophy. I have no particular objection to offer if hon. gentlemen differ with me in that; I am prepared to discuss the question with them without resorting to personal abuse.

Personal abuse is not argument. We have been called the "cubs"; one of us has been called the "crown prince"; we have been called "reds" and "annexationists," and the leader of the opposition called us the "Saskatchewan colony."

As regards our being Reds, it is only necessary to answer that argument by saying that we own property. Did you ever see a Red who owned property? I never have. As regards our being a colony, the leader of the

u COMMONS

The Budget-Mr. Spence (Maple Creek)

opposition who made the remark was pretty much in a colony himself when there were six out of the nine provinces in which he did not have a single representative. If we are a colony, we are growing in size and importance and I am glad our hon. friends recognize that. I do not object to hon. members propounding their philosophy, but I object to the manner in which they do it-crying blue ruin, and then criticizing the government about not being able to bring people into this countiy. I have in my hand the trade returns of every important institution in Canada; I am not going to bother reading them to the House because a great deal of it has already been put on Hansard and the hour is getting late. But I can show that bankers' associations, great financial institutions, presidents of railway companies, all tell the same story that we are around the corner and getting along splendidly.

I have come to Ottawa to resist this policy of high protection and I am going to resist it with all the ability which I possess. I believe this country can grow and prosper only if agriculture is prosperous. As regards the effect on industry in general, when we have a bad crop in western Canada, it is well known how blue and pessimistic people in the east get. The great financial institutions of eastern Canada to-day have their foundations laid right on the western prairies.

There is another fault which I have to find with hon. gentlemen opposite who propound their philosophy of high protection. High protection establishes industry on the artificial basis of legislation, rather than on the basis of natural products which enter into the manufacture of commodities. Iron, coal and proximity to markets are the chief factors in industrial development. And when you introduce the element of protection you add something that is uncertain. Any industry that cannot stand on its feet merely because the tariff has been lowered to the small extent, of seven and a half per cent does not deserve to exist.

Mr. MORAND Is the hon. member in favour of removing all tariffs on goods coming into Canada?

Mr. SPENCE (Maple Creek):

Not necessarily.

Mr. MORAND:

How about shoes and

clothing?

Mr. SPENCE (Maple Creek):

I am not at the moment discussing shoes and Clothing, but farm machinery.

Mr. MORAND:

Only farm machinery?

Mr. SPENCE (Maple Creek):

I am discussing the raw materials that enter into the finished product of the farm. The manufacturers want their raw materials free. Now, I will ask the hon. member when he addresses the House to define the term "raw material.'' Just what does he understand raw material to mean? What is one man's finished product is another man's raw material, so that the binders, ploughs, wagons and even motor trucks and motor vehicles which the farmer requires are to him only raw materials.

Mr. MORAND:

Do not the farmers weai

shoes and clothing?

Mr. SPENCE (Maple Creek):

Yes, some

of them at any rate.

Now, coming back to the budget, I have this observation to make in regard to the reduction in the duty on automobiles. In the daily press I read headlines to the effect that this and that factory has suspended operations and that t'he workmen will be turned out on the street. This virtually amounts to a threat to the parliament and the people of Canada, and if that sort of thing continues I would suggest that we reduce the duty still further. I am not a lawyer and therefore do not know whether we have any power in the matter, but in my opinion we should have an investigation into the books of these gentlemen.

Mr. LADNER:

Will the hon. member explain why the subject was not referred to the tariff commission which the government proposes to have investigate this matter?

Mr. SPENCE (Maple Creek):

There are

things which a child can understand. We two million people in western Canada are not all fools. Nor are the people fools in eastern Canada, and we all believe that the automobile manufacturers have been enjoying altogether too much protection. They have abused the privilege.

Mr. LADNER:

Does the hon. member

suggest that he understands the situation himself?

Mr. SPENCE (Maple Creek):

I do. Let me say for the information of my hon. friend that I believe in a tariff board.

What for?

Mr. SPENCE (Maple Creek):

Let me

finish what I am saying. I look on the tariff a good deal as a medical man would look on a patient. The patient is exceedingly ill and the doctor upon examining him finds that his heart has almost stopped. He administers just a drop of brandy.

Oh, oh.

Mr. SPENCE (Maple Creek):

This apparently pleases hon. gentlemen. He administers a drop of brandy; the patient revives, and thereafter the proper remedies are applied. In time the patient gets well. This was a skilled physician who knew what to do. In the same way there are times when perhaps a little protection in tariff matters may nurse an industry over a difficult period. And that is perfectly all right. But suppose to take the illustration I have just given, the physician had been unskilled and had given the patient the bottle. What would have happened? Like our manufacturers of automobiles, he would have become totally intoxicated instead of recuperating into a healthy state.

Every article smuggled into Canada is more or less a protest against the protective tariff. We are having considerable difficulty in the matter of smuggling and this could easily be stopped by putting such articles as are smuggled on the free list. The trouble is that protection interferes with trade, and there is no kind of interference that I know of that does not interfere. If you interfere here you are bound to interfere there to equalize things. The leader of the opposition (Mr. Meighen) to whom I am almost afraid to refer seeing that he has been so often misquoted and misunderstood, has said that he would build a tariff on ^he principle of retaliation. If other countries put up a tariff against us he would do the same.