Mr. MACKENZIE KING:

My hon.

friend promised he would read the statement.

Mr. MANION:

Well, that is nothing to

the promises the right hon. gentleman made in the last election. I may have to renege on that promise to-night because I cannot go searching through the book, but the right hon. gentleman promised, oh so many things. He was going to reduce taxation; he was going to lessen expenditure; he was going to retain the British preference, to bring about harmony and cooperation, to bring about social justice, to appoint an investment control board, to remove unemployment, to bring about prosperity, to wipe out third parties, or to bring about conditions which would cause third parties to disappear. He was going to bring about more equitable distribution of wealth, to control currency and credit, to set up proportional representation. And hon. members will remember the promises of the right hon. gentleman in earlier speeches to bring about senate reform. The older members of this house will remember how he rolled that promise from coast to coast, telling everyone he was going to reform the senate, to lower the cost of living and to wipe out trusts and combines.

Let me read what the right hon gentleman said on the night of the election. In the Toronto Daily Star of October 15 there are two or three pages of it, but I shall not read it all. He was going to banish poverty.

Mr. MACKENZIE KING:

Please read

that. I made no such statement, that I was going to banish poverty.

71492-4J

The Address-Mr. Manion

Mr. MANION:

Well, this is what the

Toronto Daily Star of Tuesday, October 15, 1935, said. The heading is:

A New charter of Liberalism in statement by Mackenzie King.

"Faith in the ancient and beneficent precepts that it is only by sharing each other's burden, and doing unto others as we would have others do unto us, that men and nations can serve their own interests and the common good."

Ottawa, October 15-From Laurier House, where last night he received returns of the overwhelming Liberal victory, the Right Hon. William Lyon Mackenzie King issued the following statement to the people of the dominion.

I am not going to read the whole statement, but I shall read one paragraph. It is headed, "Banish poverty and adversity."

Mr. MACKENZIE KING:

The hon.

gentleman states that I said I would banish poverty. I said nothing of the kind.

Mr. MANION:

Well, the heading is there,

the right hon. gentleman will have to quarrel with the Toronto Daily Star. I shall read it, and perhaps the right hon. gentleman will be sorry he interrupted. These are his words; the heading may not be his; it is divided into paragraphs, and whether the headings are by the Daily Star or the right hon. gentleman I do not know. He is reported as saying on the night of the election:

In the new era which dawns to-day the struggle for the rights of the people will, in the realm of economic liberty and security, be carried on as never before. Poverty and adversity, want and misery are the enemies which Liberalism will seek to banish from our land.

Mr. MACKENZIE KING:

Yes, "seek to banish".

Mr. MANION:

The right hon. gentleman now falls back on the words "will seek"; in other words, they sought but did not find. They were only going to seek; it was just put out for the benefit of the people.

Then he goes on:

They have lain in wait at the gate of every Canadian home during the past five years, and their manacing mien has served to destroy the souls, as well as the minds and bodies, of an ever increasing number of men, women and children in our land. We take up at once, as our supreme task, the endeavour to end poverty in the midst of plenty; starvation and unnecessary suffering in a land of abundance; discontent and distress in a country more blessed by Providence than any other on the face of the globe, and to gain for individual lives, and for the nation as a whole, that "health and peace and sweet content" which is the rightful heritage of all.

With those words I have no quarrel at all, but I should like to know what the right hon, gentleman has done to implement those promises. What has he done? With every word of it I agree, but he says now that he

was only going to seek to wipe out poverty and adversity. Well, the people of this country are still seeking to find anything done by him to do away with poverty and adversity. Was this just some more ballyhoo, just some more of the propaganda that has been so prevalent since this government came into power? Was he just attempting to fool the people? He says now he was going to seek; did he not expect to find? What have they done for the youth of this country who are without work, who are estimated by the youth council of Toronto to number 400,000? What have they done for the security of the people? What have they done to bring about social justice? What have they done for the fishermen or miners of Novia Scotia? What have they done to cure unemployment generally? What have they done for Canada generally?

Let me read apother little extract which is not a political article at all. The Canadian Welfare Council issued a statement on January 5 last, just the other day. They show this, as far as Canada is concerned-and they are not a political organization; they are not criticising the government but merely setting out the facts:

Relief costs $900,000,000 since 1930.

Of all the factors in the situation at the present time the most disturbing is probably realization of the fact that by the end of March 1939 Canada will have disbursed in nine years approximately 900 million dollars on direct aid, works and projects for the relief of unemployment and agricultural distress, and at the end of that time has more dependents on public funds voted for this purpose than when she started.

A little further down:

The discouraging fact is that after all these years, in part because of the clashing jurisdictions of the dominion and its provinces, Canada still lacks long term legislation, comprehensive planning, and any integrated and adequate program for a fundamental attack upon the serious national ills which have occasioned these heavy expenditures.

Then further down:

Energetic attack the need.

All in all, a weary country and a disillusioned people have been in a mood of drift, but there appears to be a growing realization that the situation cannot continue, that the attack must be basic, and much more than merely a matter of this or that relief policy, or the relative allocation of functions and costs among different units of government.

And finally:

. . . for it is possible that the threat to

Canadian well-being now lies not so largely in the actual sag in employment which we are facing as in the "let-down" of spirit and morale of the country as a whole.

The Address-Mr. Manion

That is the contention of the Canadian Welfare Council, which is not in any way a political organization. I read it because they describe the condition better than I can. May I ask my right hon. friend whether these statements of his before the election, and particularly his statement after the election, were merely flights of eloquence and a weaving of words and dreaming of dreams, or did he believe his own words? I find myself wondering whether the right hon. gentleman did believe them. If he did, why has there not been some action in regard to these matters? Perhaps it is all theory; perhaps the right hon. gentleman did not have-I do not think he did-in his early days sufficient contact with the difficulties of people who are poor, to realize how serious a picture he painted, and painted so well that one might think he understood, he really saw the picture that he painted.

I should like to ask the Minister of Labour: Is it just a coincidence that Canada, of all nations of the empire, is the least advanced in social legislation, and that this government, led by the right hon. gentleman, has been in power since 1921, with the exception of five years? Is it just a coincidence, Mr. Speaker, that Canada has practically no social legislation as compared with Great Britain, Australia or New Zealand? Is it a coincidence that the right hon. gentleman has been in power and that Canada has been so reactionary, despite the fine words and the weaving of beautiful thoughts by the right hon. gentleman, than whom no one can weave them better? I do not think it is a coincidence; I think it is largely cause and effect. During the last election the papers were full of " King or chaos " and the common joke throughout the country to-day is that we got both. Another slogan was " Vote Liberal and get action." Did we get action? We have got inaction, reaction, laissez-faire and do nothing. That is what the people are calling this government to-day, the do-nothing government, and the devil take the hindmost. That is the picture.

So far as I can see, neither the right hon. gentleman nor any of his ministers seem to know conditions in Canada. On occasion I have been struck with this thought, that the right hon. gentleman is too much interested in external affairs to be really interested in or understand internal affairs and the needs of the people. Does he know their needs? Does the right hon. gentleman realize that this country is made up of nine provinces? I find myself wondering if he really does. Since he became Prime Minister, has he visited the nine provinces, in order to get the viewpoints of these people? There is no answer. If I am not mistaken, the right hon.

gentleman since the last election has not been within a thousand miles of his own constituency. I am open to correction; if I am wrong I shall withdraw that statement, but I think I should have said fifteen hundred miles. I repeat, Mr. Speaker, that the trouble is that this has been a government of reaction, of inaction, a Micawber-like government. That is the trouble. You will remember the fine old character of Micawber in David Copperfield. I am very fond of him, because he had such a comforting philosophy. The old fellow was always in debt, you will remember, and when things got particularly bad and his creditors chased him, he would give them a promissory note and thank God that debt was paid. Many years ago I referred to the same picture and said then, as I repeat now, that the right hon. gentleman always reminds me a great deal of Micawber, because when he is driven too hard by the people in regard to the conditions that exist throughout the country he gives them another promise, another oration or a royal commission. No wonder the people call this a do-nothing government.

The real problem in Canada to-day, to my mind, is unemployment, just as much as it was the problem in 1935, and I admit quite frankly that that was the case then. It is the problem of giving opportunity to our youth. It is the problem of giving security to our older people. If we are going to justify this democracy of which we boast so much; if we are going to justify this system, we must compete with the dictatorships. In such countries as Russia, Germany and Italy they claim that they are keeping their people occupied. They are keeping them occupied, in a way; I think at too high a cost. They have taken away freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of religion, all of which we have in this country, thank heaven, under the British parliamentary system for which our ancestors fought for more than a thousand years. If we are to justify this democracy, and this economic system under which we live, variously called the capitalist system, the profit system, the reward system, the system of private property, of private enterprise; if we are to prevent our country from becoming a dictatorship of one kind or another, we must cure the defects of our system, and the great defect to-day is unemployment. I repeat to-night what I have previously said before various organizations in Canada, and what I said just a year ago before the Canadian Club of Ottawa, in the presence of my right hon. friend and some of his ministers: If we do not cure that defect, within

The Address-Mr. Manion

twenty years the democratic British parliamentary institutions in which we believe will be in very great danger of being completely wiped out, and our whole democratic system is likely to disappear. To my mind those who do not see this are blind. They are people without vision, and when the leaders of a country have no vision the people are in danger of perishing. More and more the well-to-do middle class are realizing the truth of that very statement, and after long, deep consideration I say solemnly that not since 1867 has Canada had a government that has so completely failed to realize the needs of the country or a government with more limited vision as to the methods by which we might cure the defects of democracy, such as unemployment, absence of security and lack of opportunity for youth-the cure for which must be brought about if we are to p.eserve not only confederation but our whole social system.

As everyone knows, youth is demoralized in Our country. Never has there been a time when our youth have been so completely demoralized, being fed by relief and, in many instances, driven to crime. We were criticized for putting the single unemployed men into camps. Where are they now? A great many are being put into gaol because they cannot earn a living. A great many have drifted into lives of crime. I say this is a national calamity, and again I am going to quote a published statement of the Canadian Welfare Council under date of January 5, 1938. I am going to quote this at some length because it expresses the danger better than I can. They say:

A Grave Danger

But now, as for the first sustained period in many years, there seems a breathing space, there emerges, in too many quarters to be disregarded, a danger as grave as the crisis which has shaken us. It takes its rise, in part, in the increasing docility and indifference reported among the recipients of public help in the face of continuing or threatened idleness. A "spiritlessness" and a loss of essential dignity perhaps could not but be by-products of our emergency mass treatment of individual human lives. But more and more, there are signs that the old, loyal and proud submission of the subject to constituted authority is giving way, in fear and insecurity, to a cringing subservience, and unwillingness to venture or to risk. The sense of uncertainty and dependency is sapping at the very foundations of individual initiative, of self-reliance, of an appreciation of the values of spiritual and intellectual freedom. Freedom, to-day, of itself is too generally regarded as a quantity to be despised and scorned as "fredom to suffer and to starve."

There are not wanting signs, in certain quarters, that authority is tightening rein and threatens to ride hard. Ruthlessness alone will not revive broken men. If through our mass {Mr. Manion.]

treatment of individual disaster, we have destroyed personal enterprise and independence, and if. realizing this, we fail immediately to take measures to retrieve and preserve these qualities, then there slips away the very bulwark of our democratic life. We are indeed a lesser people if the depression has taken from us our appreciation of our ancient liberties,-of thought, of belief, of speech, and of action,-as verities of greater value than life itself.

What did the right hon. gentleman do when he appointed the Purvis commission? That commission was appointed in 1936; that was one promise at least he partially carried out. This was to have been a continuing, administrative body, but instead of that the Purvis commission was dissolved about a year ago. Perhaps I have no right to mention this, but the fact that it. was intended to be a permanent body is obvious to anyone who takes a look at its personnel. Mr. Tom Moore, for example, was a well known labour leader who gave up a permanent position to become a member of that board. Did Tom Moore understand that at the end of the year he was going to be dropped? He thought it was going to be a permanent commission. Apparently that was the intention.

Mr. ROGERS:

May I correct my hon. friend? Mr. Moore was a member of the social insurance commission appointed by the previous administration, and while a member of that commission was transferred to the national employment commission.

Mr. MANION:

I am not quarrelling with that. I simply say that probably he would not have taken the transfer if he had thought that at the end of a year the Purvis commission would be dissolved. I believe he had a permanent position, but he transferred to this one because he was interested in social security, and thought he was going into a permanent position. I wish to make it absolutely clear that not in any shape or form am I quoting Mr. Moore. I am drawing that conclusion from my knowledge of Tom Moore.

However, the commission was dissolved, and their recommendations have not been carried out. I shall read twelve of them briefly, as I find them in their report. Only two of these or, at the outside three of them, have been touched. They are as follows:

1. A great national cooperative effort to end unemployment.

That was one of them.

2. Employment services to be national.

None of these has been carried out.

3. Commission to be administrative, not just

advisory.

4. A proper registry of unemployed and their classification.

The Address-Mr. Manion

I know of no such registry.

5. Local communities to help in the work through local committees.

6. Wiping out dole, which was to be replaced by rehabilitation measures.

7. Slum clearance.

Nothing done about that.

8. The national body to be succeeded by a small administrative committee to be helped by an interdepartmental committee to prevent

overlapping.

9. Financial provision for and administration of unemployment aid should be the responsibility of the dominion government.

10. Apprenticeship and learnership.

11. Youth training.

12. Housing plans.

I do not know whether apprenticeships and learnerships would be included in youth training. I do not know anything about that. Perhaps the Minister of Labour could tell me?

Mr. ROGERS:

It would be included to some extent.

Mr. MANION:

It is partly carried out, then. Youth training is partly carried out, and housing has been partly carried out. Those are the only three that have, to some extent, been dealt with, out of the twelve recommendations. There may have been more, but those are the recommendations I saw as I read the report.

For the moment I shall leave unemployment. I am sorry to be taking so much time; I have never committed that crime before, and I hope I shall not do so again.

Another important question is that of national understanding and harmony. Everyone sees the need for harmony. I do not think it is the prerogative of any individual to know the need of what is called by some, national unity, and by others, national harmony. But I say that to-day there is less national harmony and less harmony among our governments than there has ever been, without any exception, in the history of Canada.

I am sorry to see these family quarrels going on, but at the same time I do not intend to get into them, because after all the family quarrel which did start was finished by what one of the newspapers called a comical caucus, where the whole result was that the members from Ontario passed a resolution of confidence in the right hon. gentleman. Did they need to call the members of Ontario by telegram to attend a caucus to find out if they were loyal to the right hon. gentleman.? I should have thought one might have taken that for granted.

However, that is not what I intended to say. One side of the quarrel which struck me as rather strange was the statement put out by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner). He made a statement, which I have before me, in which he suggested that he had seen. Mr. Hepburn in an attempt to bring about peace in the troubled family. And he said, apparently in an effort to keep Mr. Hepburn quiet, that he suggested that judges, senators and cabinet ministers might be recommended. The implication was that Mr. Hepburn could name them. I believe he used the word "recommendation," or something of that sort. If Mr. Hepburn only recommended them, and the recommendations were not going to be acted upon, it would not be much of a reward for Mr. Hepburn. However, I do not care how many senators or cabinet ministers he recommends. But I do think that recommendations for judges by anybody but the Minister of Justice, particularly by anyone like Mr. Hepburn or myself, who is not a lawyer, is a serious matter.

Our judiciary has always been kept on a high plane. It has always been chosen largely -there have been exceptions-through merit. That is one of the great advantages we have over the United States. Many of us believe that a great deal of the criminal activity in the United States ,is due to the election of their judiciary, due also to the laxity in their courts and to the fact that the judges are elected rather than selected through choice because of merit and good conduct. Our courts have been the bulwarks of justice and fair play. Our whole national life in a large sense depends upon fairness and justice in our courts. The appointment of judges has been the highest prerogative of the crown. The Prime Minister appoints them on the recommendation of the Minister of Justice, and the appointees hold office during good behaviour.

Yet the Minister of Agriculture in a published statement suggests that he has advised Mr. Hepburn that-he does not put it in these words-if Mr. Hepburn will recommend some judges for this country, they will probably be appointed.

Mr. GARDINER:

Did you never recommend any?

Mr. MANION:

Did I?

Mr. GARDINER:

Did you never recommend any?

Mr. MANION:

I do not think I ever

did. Anyway, I am not a provincial premier. If I did recommend any, I was a member of the dominion cabinet.

Mr. GARDINER:

You are rather an exception, then.

The Address-Mr. Manion

Mr. MANION:

Possibly so. But I submit that the recommendation of judges by a premier, and particularly by one who, like myself, is not a lawyer-and I say that without intent to reflect on anyone-is an extraordinary offer to make. The minister, in a certain statement-not in the same one, I believe-says that he discussed the matter with the Prime Minister, and then he went back to Mr. Hepburn. He does not say that the Prime Minister raised any objection to this course of action.

I do not wish to go into the matter further, but I submit again that such a suggestion by the Minister of Agriculture was one of the most extraordinary suggestions ever made in this country, namely that the premier of one province should have the right to nominate judges. As a matter of fact, if Mr. Hepburn were to have the right to nominate judges, what about the premiers of the other eight provinces? Were they to have a like right?

Mr. GARDINER:

That is not in the statement at all. This is about as near the truth as what the hon. member has been saying all evening.

Mr. MANION:

Well, the hon. gentleman had better be more careful of his own statements. He probably knows better than any other hon. member how far away from the truth people can get. Let me quote his words:

I went down to Toronto to attend the Royal Winter Fair on November 16 and 17, and not as an emissary from dominion government authorities to offer "concessions" to Mr. Hepburn.

And then, farther on:

In the meantime, at noon on the 16th, Right Hon. W. L. Mackenzie King, finding I was in Toronto but having no previous knowledge I was going and wishing to leave for Washington to sign the trade agreement, telephoned to get my comment on a certain feature of the agreement. After completing this he stated he would be pleased if I would consult some of our friends regarding the results in the South Waterloo by-election.

I do not blame him. And then the hon. member goes on:

I stated I was likely to see Mr. Hepburn, and inquired as to whether there would be any objection to discussing it with him. Mr. King replied, "Certainly not, by all means do so."

And then, farther down in the same article:

Mr. Hepburn states, "I was told I could have some say in Ontario appointments."

Then the Minister of Agriculture goes on to Bay:

My memory is that in justifying certain things which happened in Waterloo, Mr. Hep-

burn took very strong exception to certain actions of the dominion government including certain appointments. I replied that I could see no reason why he should not make recommendations as other Liberal leaders do indicating that there are certain senatorial, judicial and possible future cabinet vacancies to be filled but making it plain that I had no authority from anyone to make proposals.

A little later on he says: