Quote some more

poetry.

Mr. YOUNG (Weyburn):

I will:

I know not whether laws be right or whether laws be wrong,

All we know who 'lie in jail is that the wall is strong,

And that each day is like a year, a year whose days are long.

This too I know that every law that man has made for man

Since first man took his brother's life and the sad world began,

But straws the wheat and saves the chaff, with a most evil fan.

The cause of your trouble is the unjust laws that you have made. Why do men smuggle? Because you have denied man the inborn right to buy his stuff where he can buy it best. I had a friend one time who always said that if he started to break the law he would break it by smuggling because there, he said, ''I am not injuring my fellow man and I am simply taking back in an illegal way what nobody had any right to take away from me."

Mr. RYCKMAN:

Where is he now?

Mr. YOUNG (Weyburn):

He is where my

hon. friends opposite will never be. He is standing where they will never stand, standing where a man stands who thinks his own thought and is a free man. You pass a law and you say to the people of this country: You shall not buy goods where you can buy them best; you shall not spend your wages where you can spend them to the best advantage; you must buy from individuals named by us. Those individuals, the favourites of the government come and say to the government: The people are not buying our goods; they are buying goods from the United States; they are

smuggling them in. Pass a more drastic law; put them in gaol; put heavier fines on them. These are the things that make men smugglers. Your committee that was appointed to investigate those charges bring in recommendations to stop smuggling and ignores completely the cause of the smuggling.

Mr. KENNEDY (Winnipeg):

Does the

hon. gentleman know that all this has to be printed?

Mr. YOUNG (Weyburn):

The hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre has no kick coming about the number of pages of Hansard used by anyone on this side. A man that will talk for hours about amendments to the Grain Act after the matter has been all threshed out in committee, after the question has been practically settled, and fill I do not know how many pages of Hansard, has no kick coming about speeches by hon. members on this side. I might incidentally remark that he was not very well posted on the question he was discussing. Here is a speech which occupies twenty-six pages, delivered at about this hour in the morning by an hon. gentleman opposite and about one-half the space is filled with charges. Those charges were flung at the government on the eve of the Prince Albert election in the hope that the government would become frightened and resign, or that it would influence the result in that constituency before the charges could be replied to. But the hon. member who made those charges did not know the calibre of the Minister of Customs (Mr. Boivin); he made a complete answer to every one of them.

Oh, oh.

Mr. YOUNG (Weyburn):

Hon. gentlemen may laugh, but in the early part of this session I sat here for a whole month and heard them wasting time. The hon. member for Vancouver Centre opposed the six weeks' adjournment asked for by the government for fear they would take advantage of it to destroy letters of a damaging character, as he said they had done before, a charge which he failed to prove. Therefore he should now apologize to the government for the insinuation.

Hon. J. C. ELLIOTT (Minister of Labour):

There is no doubt that the work of the Customs inquiry committee is not completed, and it must be continued by some other body; that seems to be agreed by everybody. Now what is the difference between' the members of the committee on this question? First of all the majority agree that certain recommendations should be made to the House. I

Customs Inquiry-Mr. Elliott

think it will be agreed there has been a fair and honest endeavour to present to the House a report that would have a beneficial effect upon the customs laws of Canada and that would, to a large extent, meet the requirements of the situation.

Now I am bound to pay a tribute to the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens) for the industry and attention which he has devoted to the work of the Customs committee, and I would pay a similar tribute to all the -other members of that committee. A careful perusal of the speech made by the hon. member on February 2 against my hon. friend and colleague the Minister of Customs must lead to the conclusion that he was referring to the hon. minister's predecessor and to others; in fact, it is tantamount to an exoneration of the present minister. I ask what is the outstanding -charge that the hon. member -now makes against the Hon. George Boivin? I challenge the hon. member to make any serious denial of my statement that there is any other real charge against the hon. minister at the present time except that he failed to have Moses Aziz sent to gaol shortly after conviction.

Mr. STEVENS:

My hon. friend has challenged me. If he will be good enough to simply read the amendment which is now before the House he will find that it contains in precise language the charge which is made against the hon. minister. He will find there a complete answer to his question.

Mr. ELLIOTT:

That is not what I was

asking. I a-m in th-e judgment of every hon. member when I say that the only real charge against the Minister of Customs at the present time is that he did not send Moses Aziz to gaol as soon as my hon. friend thinks he should -have sent hi-m.

Mr. STEVENS:

My hon. friend asks me

what the charge is. The charge is set forth in the amendment, and if he desires to be fair he will read it now. I will recite it in my own language if he desires.

Mr. ELLIOTT:

No, my hon. friend knows the question perfectly well, and he knows the answer.

Mr. STEVENS:

Certainly I do, I have it here.

Mr. ELLIOTT:

And the answer is just as I have stated, that the only real, substantial charge against the Hon. George Boivin at the present time is the Aziz charge.

Mr. STEVENS:

My hon. friend I know

desires to be fair. The answer is simply this, and I will give it in the official language of the amendment that is now before the House:

The evidence further discloses that ministerial action has been influenced 'by improper-

Mr. ELLIOTT:

Mr. Speaker. I asked my

hon. f-riend if h-e could state any other charge against the Hon. George Boivin. Without reading over two or three pages he ought to know in his own mind and be able to state to this House what that other charge is.

Take your medicine.

Mr. ELLIOTT:

I will let you have yours.

He ought to be able to state to this House-*

M-r. STEVENS: Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of privilege and to a point of order, both. As to the point of order, the hon. minister -challenged .me to state what the charges were against the hon. Minister of Customs other than the -one regarding Moses Aziz. In response to his challenge I rise to give him -precisely what those -charges are, and I submit, Mr. Speaker, that in all fairness I am entitled t.o present those charges to the House.

Mr. ELLIOTT:

I submit, Mr. Speaker,

that the exhibition my hon. friend is now giving is the best proof to every hon. member that unless he studies pages of charges-