Mr. RYCKMAN:

If it means that the more highly processed goods are to bear the lowest duty, surely it is placing a premium on unemployment. What is the explanation? Will the minister state why goods in the rough should be preferred to goods processed?

Mr. DUNNING:

This was the result of a continuous discussion which lasted for a long time between the different classes of manufacturers. These items are all manufacturers' concessions-perpetuations in many cases of existing manufacturers' concessions. Secondary industries have been built up on the basis of the rates then existing. One of the problems, as everyone knows, in dealing with the iron and steel schedule is that you start with a primary product, and the finished product of that industry becomes the raw material of the next in line. Days and weeks of discussion, when these secondary and primary manufacturers met each other face to face and argued the matter out, resulted in these compromises -which they really must be when men face each other, each knowing that his advantage lies in one direction, whereas the other's lies in another. I must say that, as anyone who reads the record of the hearings will see, there was a manifested degree of cooperation and compromise, which was quite remarkable and a testimony to the Canadian industries concerned.

Mr. CANTLEY:

That is sarcasm, pure and simple.

Mr. DUNNING:

I have not had a single complaint about them.

Mr. CANTLEY:

You are getting them

now.

Mr. DUNNING I am from my hon. friend, but I have not had any from the industry, because these items were the result of men in the primary and secondary developments in the same industry sitting down together and frankly examining the other's position. That is the reason they are not complaining to-day about what is here.

The CHAIRMAN:

Item 381.

Mr. CANTLEY:

You have not passed item 380?

The CHAIRMAN:

Yes, I called it and it has been passed.

Mr. CANTLEY:

I did not hear it called I want now to make an emphatic protest in regard to this item. Here are plates, not more than 40 inches in width, which it is proposed under the British preference we should allow in at $2 a ton. I make the assertion that there will be no plates of that kind sold by any mill in eastern Canada while this tariff is in force. Why do I say that? Because this material will come in from Great Britain. The fact is that the important iron and steel producing

Ways and Means-Customs Tariff

districts of the old country are situated at Middlesbrough, at Glasgow, and in Wales-all on the seaboard. These plates can come out for one third the rate of freight to Montreal at which they can be brought up from Nova Scotia to that point. With a duty of $2 that market will be captured absolutely and entirely by the British people. It makes no difference to us in Nova Scotia whether we are forced to the wall by American plates or by English plates; the same result will follow. This tariff has not been framed on proper scientific lines, and I wish to assure the minister that it will fail absolutely to meet the requirements of the industry as it exists in Nova Scotia.

Customs tariff-381. Sheets of iron or steel, hot or cold rolled:

(a) .080 inch or less in thickness, n.o.p.: British preferential tariff, 74 per cent; intermediate tariff, 12J per cent; general tariff, 124 per cent.

(b) More than .080 inch in thickness, n.o.p., per ton: British preferential tariff, $4.25; intermediate tariff, $6; general tariff, $7.

Mr. CANTLEY:

This item is worse than

the previous one. In the province item plates over 40 inches in width are free. How is it possible for plates under items 380 and 381 to be produced in this country under conditions of absolute free trade?

Mr. DUNNING:

There is no mill in Canada to-day rolling them over 40 inches in width.

Mr. CANTLEY:

A mill was built in Sydney a few years ago, at a cost of a million dollars, to provide plates up to 12 feet in width, and that mill exists to-day. It would be producing plates to-day if sufficient protection ware accorded to it.

Mr. DUNNING:

It has not produced

plates for years. It has had the opportunity of starting on narrow forms. The narrow forms to which my hon. friend refers have been imported to the extent of $1,630,000 worth, and of that total $1,580,000 worth came in from the United States. The duty is the same from Great Britain as it was under the old item, and my hon. friend now expresses the fear that Great Britain will swamp the Canadian market, although the rate is exactly the same.

Mr. BENNETT:

From Great Britain?

Mr. DUNNING:

Under item 380 (a) at

Mr. BENNETT:

The hon. gentleman was talking about item 380 (b).

Mr. DUNNING:

I am speaking of item

380 (a). The two items are related, in connection with what my hon. friend had to say. The plates under 40 inches in width now come in very largely from the United States. They can be and are being manufactured in Canada. The rate of duty against Great Britain is the same as it was before, but hon. gentlemen will notice that the rate against the United States is increased. With regard to section (b) of item 380, none of the wider plates are being rolled in Canada, and it is not expected that they will be rolled here in the near future.

Mr. CANTLEY:

They certainly never will be under this tariff.

Mr. MANION:

The minister has said that the duties are the same. Under the old schedule that item was divided into three items, 379a, 381 and 382. Item 382 carried a higher duty than is proposed now.