Mr. BIRD:

My hon. friend is not acting

with his accustomed wisdom when he adapts that attitude. The dairy council of Manitoba ;s in this thing just as much as is the dairy council of Alberta. The officials of the Manitoba organization who attend the meeting of the dairy council of Canada are well known, and they have not been stampeded into this thing. The idea of protection is deeply rooted in the mind of the Manitoba farmer, as well as in the minds of the farmers in the rest of the Dominion, and they have to be dealt with. Why has the farmer taken this stand? It is because he has been disappointed with his politicians. For years past the farmer has been expecting the different governments to give him some relief, but they have been disappointed in that expectation. We may regret it, but we must face the fact that in recent years there has been a definite trend toward the idea of protection. The farmers to the south have been protectionists for years; the farmers of Dakota have been protectionists for years, so why not the farmer of Manitoba? The proper way to meet this evil is to face it, and the only way the Liberal party can meet it is to do it boldly. If that party desires to retain the support of the farmer there is only one way in which that can be done, and that is to prove to the farmer it is apprehensive of the conditions under which the farmer labours. I am not going to belabour mv Liberal-Progressive friends as some of my hon. friends have done; I do not think mutual interchange of that kind helps very much. The hon. member for Lisgar and his friends have a perfect right to be where they are; they represent their constituencies as much as I or any of my hon. friends in this corner do ours, but there is only one thing they must do, and that is show they are dealing with the evils from which the western farmer suffers. By their fruits they will be judged and not by any academic arguments of ours. I am content to leave the matter at that. I hope they can bring home the bacon. It is the bacon we want.

Mr. DUNNING:

I thought it was raisins

Mr. NEILL:

Ham and eggs.

Mr. BIRD:

The vitamin content is very

much the same. They whisper and say to us:

Australian Treaty-Mr. Bird

Well, admit the farmer is nosing around after protection, but his protection will not help him. The Consumers' League says: Protection will not help the farmer. Then why should the Consumers' League worry about it? The danger is that it does help the farmer.

Oh, oh.

Mr. BIRD:

It is an old saying that he

who postpones his laugh, laughs best, but this is the danger, the alluring feature about the matter: this is a commodity and practically the only staple commodity of which we have not enough by a long way for our domestic consumption. We are 25,000,000 pounds short Put a tariff of three cents, ten cents or maybe more on butter and see what happens. Of course this will benefit the farmer. That is the danger. That is the danger my hou. friends ought to be apprehensive of in the face of the attack from my right, but they do not seem to be aware of it. They seem to be sitting over there in a fool's paradise. Here is a bait that really is a bait, that really is attractive.

Mr. YOUNG (Weyburn):

We are not taking that bait.

Mr. BIRD:

Of course my hon. friend's

digestion is out of order. There is no bait that would appeal to him. As regards our consuming friends, I think the reason they call themselves consumers is that they consume precious opportunities without achieving very much. They say to us: What about your principles? I suppose by "principles" they mean the 1921 platform of the Canadian Council of Agriculture.

Mr. DUNNING:

Before my hon. friend

leaves the question of butter, I wonder whether he would mind following that to its logical conclusion. He spoke of dangers. Just what is the danger in connection with placing a duty on butter? I know my hon. friend knows the danger.

Mr. BIRD:

If my hon. friend will wait

awhile, if I have time that is a point. I am coming to in logical order. My hon. friends across the floor are so keen on logic that I must set an example of it in my speech, but I will come to that point. What about our principles? What about the platform of the Canadian Council of Agriculture? Our friends from Alberta say they have receded from that platform. I am not sure whether I can go all the way with them or not, but our consumer's friends over here say they have receded from it too.

Mr. GEARY:

The hon. member seems to

be becoming more lonely all the time.

Mr. BIRD:

I am not saying that I am

standing on the platform; I may be receding somewhat too. I do not think it really lies in the mouth of either one party or the other to talk about standing true to principles. I do not think that is the point at all. The old Canadian Council of Agriculture platform had a very unfortunate career. Nine years ago it brought a large number of people to this house and achieved certain results, but at the expense of the group that was, to a large extent, instrumental in doing so. I do not think we need to weep over it, but the Canadian Council of Agriculture is a thing of the past. Our United Farmers of Alberta friends have gone from it on the command of their provincial organization, and our friends from Manitoba have gone from it in another direction.

Mr. GARLAND (Bow River):

At whose

command?

Mr. BIRD:

As I said before, they have as much right to be where they are as I have to be where I am. It is not a matter of principle in that sense at all. The attitude I take is this: I stand where I did on the matter of free trade in food products, in all products, but I do not want to victimize myself by assenting to any one-sided arrangement as this treaty is. I am out for an all-round reduction in protection on all articles. While I know that one is easily imposed upon, there comes a point where the easiest of us will take a stand, even if it be at the expense of being insulted on account of one's principles. After all, principles sometimes have to be related to a momentary situation such as the one created by this treaty in which a onesided arrangement was detrimental to the producer to the advantage of the manufacturer. _

On the other hand, we have our friends to the right whispering in the other ear, making it difficult, almost intolerable for us, shattering our logic to a large extent. They say: Now is the chance of the farmer, now is the opportunity of the producer to get into the scramble. This is the door by which you can enter and share the spoils with the manufacturer. My answer to that is this: as long as I have been in the house I have never heard an hon. member of the opposition prove that we could protect the farmer in any effective way. The former leader of the opposition was a master dialectician; he often descanted upon this subject, but I call everybody present who was in parliament then to witness whether he at any time proved that you could protect

Australian Treaty-Mr. llsley

the farmer by a tariff. I will go further and say that the Right Hon. Mr. Meighen not only did not prove that but never attempted to prove it. He was too much of a logician to try to prove to an intelligent house that you could protect by a tariff an industry which sold the major part of its production in a foreign market.

Mr. J. L. ILSLEY (Hants-Kings):

Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a few remarks on the subamendment and the amendment before the house. The hon. member for Nelson (Mr. Bird), who has just taken his seat, stated that he would attempt to show that there was some rational basis for the amendment proposed by the group representing the United Farmers of Alberta. I have too much respect for the hon. gentleman to say that he has not done so, but after listening attentively to what he said I am still of the opinion that I held when the amendment was first read to the house, namely that no amendment that has been proposed in this house during recent years should be voted down more emphatically than that proposed by the United Farmers of Alberta at this time. I shall have something to say a little later as to the subamendment moved by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens).

As to what the hon. member for Nelson (Mr. Bird) has stated, it seems to me that his argument has been directed not against the Australian treaty as such but against its extension to New Zealand, a matter which has already been dealt with by the house at con-sideiable length; but because there is some little confusion on that point-not in the house, but in the country-I want to make very clear the difference.

During the last two or three weeks there have been many references in this chamber to the -New Zealand treaty," notably by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett) who on one occasion used the term a great many times m the course of a single speech. Strictly speaking there is no treaty with New Zealand, although there is a set of trade relationships between Canada and New Zealand based upon mutual concessions by the two countries which might somewhat inaccurately, but perhaps conveniently, be referred to as a treaty. In order to make that clear to the house, I want to read just one paragraph from a pamphlet entitled Empire Tariff Preferences on Canadian Goods, published by the Department of I rade and Commerce :

New Zealand since 1903 has been extending to Canada the benefit of all British preferential rates of duty brought into force under succes-^Veionjlff awf' , Canada, by order in council m 1904>

granted New Zealand the British

preferential tariff of that time, while the Canaan Tariff Act of 1907 (still the basic tariff) declared that the British preferential schedule would apply to New Zealand among other countries. The Canadian tariff concessions to Australia in the agreement of 1925 were extended to New Zealand by order in council made under a (provision in the ratifying act. Thus reciprocal relationship in tariff matters between Canada and New Zealand is maintained in the absence of a formal trade agreement.

I shall say nothing more about our trade relationships with New Zealand except this, that both the larger parties in the house seem to be agreed that it is desirable that the somewhat vague set of trade relationships which exists at the present time between the two countries should be committed to the form of a treaty, or rather, that a treaty should be made clearly setting forth what the obligations of each country are to the other.

As to the Australian treaty proper, the group representing the United Farmers of Alberta say that the Australian trade agreement of 1925 should be abrogated. That to my mind is a very serious step, a step which I think would not meet with the assent or approval of the country at large. Most of us in the house are pretty well convinced in our own minds that the reason why the United Farmers of Alberta want this done is that they hope to have a four cent a pound duty on butter coming in from New Zealand, instead of the present one cent a pound duty, and they hope by this indirect method to get what they want without inviting too much criticism on the ground that they have departed from their free trade principles. I think, Mr. Speaker, that that is pretty well understood among the members of the house, and that condition of affairs explains the inconsistency of the arguments of the United Farmers of Alberta as presented in this house. In one breath we have them saying that a duty on farm products cannot possibly be of any benefit to the farmer, and in the next breath we have them saying that when the late Mr. Robb reduced the duty on farm products coming in from Australia he was giving away a right of the Canadian farmer and depriving the Canadian farmer of a benefit that he otherwise would have. We have one hon. member stating that a duty on butter is no good to the farmer at all, and another hon. member from the same corner of the house stating that if anyone in the country is to have protection, the farmer should have his share of it. Therefore it is, Mr. Speaker, that the arguments put forward on behalf of this amendment by hon. gentlemen in that part of the house are inconsistent; and there is a reason for that which to my mind is exceedingly interesting.

Australian Treaty-Mr. Ilsley

I have always been under the impression that the members of the two older parties are under a disadvantage as compared with hon. gentlemen comprising the independent groups, in that sometimes we have to subordinate our views and opinions to those of the party as a whole, for the purpose of accomplishing something which it is considered will be for the general good of the country, although it does not exactly commend itself to the views of certain individuals in the party. I had always envied the independence of hon. gentlemen representing the United Farmers of Alberta until I heard their leader last night stating that when the convention of the United Farmers in Alberta passes a resolution, the members representing that group in this house are obliged to advocate the conclusions set forth in that resolution, and are obliged to argue for them and to urge them upon the house regardless of what they may have stood for in times past. I do not want to misrepresent the hon. member for Acadia. Here are his words:

The United Farmers of Alberta took the matter into their own hands, and when that organization in convention passes a resolution on any particular subject which may be a matter of debate in this house, or a matter which we will have to vote for or against, then we are under the obligation of supporting the attitude of the convention of the United Fanners of Alberta.

Mr. IRVINE:

Does my hon. friend know

that those are the people whom we represent?

Mr. ILSLEY:

I am simply saying that it

is a cast-iron discipline which is just as real as any discipline imposed upon the members of the two older parties by their party organization. Moreover, that when hon. members, representing, as I think they should attempt to represent, the people of the Dominion of Canada as a whole, trying, as they should try, to look at matters from the nation-wide viewpoint, take their instructions, so to speak, from conventions in Alberta, which professedly are looking at national problems from the standpoint of one particular occupation and of one particular part of the Dominion, they are going further than we in the older parties are ever asked to go; because when we compromise upon a policy decided upon in party caucus, that policy is certainly based upon nation-wide considerations.

I now come to the subamendment to the resolution. The Australian treaty, which came into effect on October 1, 1925, met with a great deal of criticism during the first two or three years of its existence. Members of the official opposition in particular stood in their

places and denounced the Australian treaty itself, not its extention to New Zealand, in the most unmeasured terms-

Mr. GARLAND (Bow River):

In the most measured terms, I should imagine.

Mr. ILSLEY:

Unmeasured terms is correct. In particular, the acting leader of the opposition at that time, the hon. member for South Wellington (Mr. Guthrie) in the very able speech which he made on the budget a year ago, stated that the treaty should be abrogated at once. I want to refer to that utterance because the change of front on the part of the official opposition this session is very noticeable, and is a striking tribute to the treaty itself and to the success that it has met with in promoting an increase of trade between Australia and Canada. This is what the member for South Wellington said on the occasion to which I refer, when he was the authoritative spokesman of the apposition. I am reading from page 751 of Hansard ol March 7, 1929:

Perhaps the greatest gold-brick that was ever handed by a government to anyone was handed the agriculturists of this country when the Australian treaty was passed. I understand the treaty was negotiated by the Minister of Finance himself, and it has proved to be probably the greatest direct blow that agriculture has had in this country in many years. I cannot understand why the minister does not denounce or give notice to and put an end to that treaty at once.

I remember the dramatic way in which he made that declaration to the house and the loud applause that came from the hon. gentlemen who were sitting behind him drinking in his words on that occasion.

Mr. DUNNING:

And alongside him, too.