Hon. C. H. CAHAN (Secretary of State):

I beg to lay on the table of the house the interim report made to His Excellency the Administrator of the government in council.

dated March 6, 1931, by Errol M. Mc-Dougall, Esquire, a commissioner appointed to investigate and report upon illegal warfare claims and reparations payable in respect thereof.

With the leave of the house I beg to move, seconded by Mr. Ryckman:

That five hundred copies in the English language and two hundred copies in the French language of the interim report to His Excellency the Administrator of the government in council, dated March 6, 1931, made by Errol M. McDougall, Esquire, a commissioner appointed to investigate and report upon illegal warfare claims and reparations payable in respect thereof, laid on the table of the bouse this day, be printed forthwith, and that standing order 64 in relation thereto be suspended.

Explain.

Mr. CAHAN:

Mr. Speaker, this is a bill

to amend section 13 of the Naturalization Act, chapter 138 of the revised statutes of Canada, 1927, which provides that the wife of a British subject shall be deemed to be a British subject and the wife of an alien shall be deemed to be an alien.

In 1923 a select committee of the parliament of the United Kingdom reported in favour of an amendment to that clause. It arose out of the fact that women who were British subjects and who had married American citizens were placed in an almost impossible position by reason of the enactment of the so-called Cable Act by the United States congress, passed on December 22nd, 1922, which provides that an alien woman who marries a citizen of the United States does not by virtue of such marriage become an American citizen. On the other hand, the law of the United Kingdom and the dominions is that the wife of an alien shall be deemed to be an alien. As a result there are in Canada some hundreds of women who were British subjects and Canadian nationals, but who, having married American citizens, did not thereby become American citizens, but who by the very fact of such marriage ceased to be British subjects and Canadian nationals. Consequently they are unable to obtain passports in the United States or in Canada to go abroad.

The late government in order to rectify this disability became parties to the nationality convention adopted at the Hague in

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1930, of which certain articles were submitted to the last Imperial conference and then approved by the representatives of the Imperial and dominion governments. This bill is simply intended to carry into effect the articles of the Hague convention which were then approved.

Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.

Mr. STEWART (Edmonton):

We realize that.

Mr. BENNETT:

Some people act as though they did not realize it. May I, in rising to resume the debate, congratulate the mover (Mr. Cormier) and the seconder (Mr. Porteous) upon the addresses with which they made the motion that now stands on the order paper. It is always pleasing to congratulate new members upon their speeches, especially on an occasion such as this. The fact that the mover was born in the province of my own birth adds something to the joy with which I felicitate him upon the speech which he delivered in two languages, and the thoughtful speech of the hon. member for North Grey indicates that he too is alive to the problems that confront this country at this time.

I was somewhat surprised, shall I say, that the right hon. leader of the opposition, with his experience, should have made even a slight criticism of the fact that one of the hon. members did read from his manuscript, but in that, as in everything else with whicn the right hon. gentleman has to do he was not quite consistent, for he proceeded to read the major part of his own address. I may explain that it is not my purpose to traverse at any great length the preelection address of the right hon. gentleman. He has, however, overlooked one thing which I think he should remember. That is that in every part of this

Dominion, from east to west, I told the electorate that there was one thing of which they could be perfectly certain, and that one thing was that if our party were elected to power, at the very first opportunity we would enact legislation that would deal not only with unemployment but also with the question of affording to Canadians an equal opportunity with their competitors to carry on the development of Canada, and that they should have fair competition in the work in which they were engaged.

That was dealt with in part at the short [DOT]session of last fall. It was dealt with in part only because it was realized that the time was not sufficient to enable it to be dealt with in full. It was dealt with in part because it was realized that unless it was dealt with immediately the disaster to industry would be such that it could not be overtaken. In the nine years during which the right hon. gentleman presided over the destinies of this country the result was stagnation in industry with which it became necessary to deal at that session. I fling back to him the positive denial that it was not done because of any promises given to the so-called special interests, but because of the promise that was given to the people of Canada from one end of the country to the other that this would be done if we came into power, tariff legislation would be passed.

I desire further to say to the right hon gentleman that if he has the courage to make direct statements let him make them; do not insinuate them. If he desires for a single moment to suggest that because of any understanding or agreement with so-called special interests certain legislation was introduced in this house, then let him make the statement, for if any man living should know what the hold of the special interests was upon the government, it should be the right hon. gentleman who presided over the last administration. When the true conditions with respect to financial and other matters in this country are made known during the progress of the session he will realize fully just what that means and he will have ample opportunity then to give effect to the promise he made yesterday, that the business of the session would not be hurried through. It will not be hurried. There will be ample time to investigate these very matters to which he has referred, and I do not think either he or the gentlemen who sit behind him will then be making statements of that kind in this house by innuendo rather than by direct statements, by inference rather than directly, for apparently they lack courage to make them directly. They think that by the old means, at which

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they are experts, they will be able thus to delude the people of this country into believing that they are their custodians, that they are the guardians of their happiness, that they and they only are the people who care for the well-being, as my right hon. friend said yesterday with tears in his voice, of the labourer and the farmer.

When the right hon. gentleman spent so much time yesterday in dictionary definitions of the word "humbug," I could not but think that he probably defined the word so clearly in order that the people of Canada and the members of this house might have a clear understanding of just what was meant by it as applied to himself and his government during the past nine years. There we had them, free traders, the death-knell of protection, a tariff for revenue, all bunched together, appealing in the east for the one and in the west for the other, and then yesterday we had a grand plea for national unity. Why, sir, we all heard the pathetic appeal for national unity made yesterday by the right hon. gentleman opposite, and the covert insinuation at the close of his speech with regard to a navy. Did you realize what that was for, Mr. Speaker? Was there a man in this house who for a moment did not realize what my right hon. friend was again endeavouring to do? We all remember the cry of the La Presse newspaper in the days before the election; we remember the cries of Taschereau and the appeals to the passion and prejudice of the people of this country, designed to arouse the people of Quebec to the thought that I was trying to create a navy. This is the right hon. gentleman who talked about national unity yesterday, and then lightly dealt with one of the most difficult problems confronting the Canadian people to-day in connection with Russia. This is the right hon. gentleman who says there is nothing we will not do; that we are ready to support our appeals in the name of patriotism, self interest and in the name of religion itself. This came from the right hon. gentleman who in 1927 passed an order in council terminating our relations with Russia and sending its minister out of this country because, he said, their fifteen cases of posters and literature did not satisfy him that what they were doing was not inimical to the public interest. Then a few minutes later in his address he turned to the people of this country, through this house, and said " A man does not live by material things alone; there are things of the spirit as well," and this two minutes after he had been talking about the material advantage of Russia to

Canada. Thus my right hon. friend illustrates in his own person and his own speech the real meaning of the word "humbug."

As I have said, I do not propose to traverse at great length the measures which we offer to this house for its consideration. These measures of necessity must be considered as the business of the house proceeds, and it would be wasting time to anticipate the discussion of them because, as I have said, they will be discussed upon the second readings, in committee and on third readings if necessary, so there will be the fullest possible opportunity to consider every phase of every measure that may be brought forward. Therefore I pass them by, except to say that the measures which will be submitted to this house are measures which it is believed by the administration will advance the interests, the welfare and the well-being of the Canadian people. We commend them to this house and to the investigation, consideration and discussion of members of the house, certain that if they are approached from that angle, and that angle only, they will meet the requirements I have mentioned.

Now let us proceed to a matter to which the right hon. gentleman directed the major part of his address. After all, four and a half hours is a fairly reasonable time in which to make up for a silence of six months. When one thinks of the enormous amount of toil that must have been involved in this analysis of all that has gone by, and this gazing into the future with the eyes of a would-be seer, but after all with the vision of nothing more than a very poor prophet, one wonders what the four and a half hour speech was all about. What was it all about? He said that the speech from the throne divided itself into two parts, the sermon and the diagnosis. Well, upon the sermon he founded diatribe and abuse of a character seldom heard in this house, while upon the diagnosis he performed a surgical operation that resulted at least in disaster to those about him.

Why is it that present conditions prevail in Canada? Do you realize that this new land, in the present world-wide depression, should have been able, had its policies been adequate, to escape such results? Do you realize that if this country had been making thoughtful provision for the future, if its leaders had been looking into the future with eyes of vision, there should not have come this , disaster to the Canadian people? Do you realize that this government has been in power eight months and that whatever conditions prevail in Canada to-day are attributable, not to it but to the governments

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that preceded it? What would the right hon. gentleman have said if, eight months after he came into power in 1921, he had been charged with responsibility for the conditions that then existed? What did he then do? What did he say? What was his position? He freed himself from all responsibility and declared that his predecessors had been responsible for the conditions that then prevailed. And now he comes before the Canadian people and says to them that this government, having been in power seven or eight months, having inherited the conditions that confronted them when they took office, are responsible and alone responsible for those conditions. Do you think any man in this country, thoughtful and fair-minded, has any such opinion? Do you think any people in Canada who approach these problems with an attitude of just criticism have any such idea?

Let me ask my right hon. friend and this house this question: Where would this

country have been had it not been for the session last fall which gave employment to upwards of two hundred thousand people? Study if you will for a moment the figures of industry. In eight months new factories cannot be equipped and built, but they can be commenced, and the numbers that have been commenced in this country during those eight months are more than those during any other similar period in recent years. New factories? How many men in the counties represented by hon. gentlemen opposite are now finding full time employment against the short days and poor rations preceding the 28th of July? How many of them? What about cotton mills? What about woollen mills?

Oh, oh.

Mr. BENNETT:

My hon. friend from Antigonish-Guysborough (Mr. Duff) knows less about cotton mills than about cotton sails.

Mr. DUFF:

Excuse me, I did not open my mouth.

Mr. BENNETT:

Then I entirely withdraw the remark.

Mr. DUFF:

I am listening attentively to my right hon. friend.

Mr. BENNETT:

Then I will say that

my hon. friend from Antigonish-Guysborough knows far more about cotton sails than about the cotton industry.

Mr. DUFF:

I have a question on the order paper now.

Mr. BENNETT:

When it is asserted by

the leader of the Liberal party that you can secure a governor general's warrant to provide for unemployment and agreements with the provinces, that is a nullification of the whole principle of the responsibility of representative institutions. It never has been done and I trust never will be done in this country. There had to be a session of parliament, as there was, and it gave employment to upwards of two hundred thousand people. So that, with the industrial life of this country stimulated, with improved conditions with respect to employment, with the added employment of hundreds of thousands in the way of unemployment relief, I say that conditions in Canada, bad as they are, are not comparable to what they would have been had we not taken the action that we did. What is more, that is an opinion very generally held by thoughtful people in this country.

What about agriculture?