What about the hon. member himself?

Mr. SPENCE:

I was an importer for years, but I kept up a big warehouse, employing ten to twenty men as a rule, and had a big overhead. I am talking about the man who has no overhead except the rent of an office. They are the men who are helping to kill industry in this country. I was in the wholesale fruit business and I have knowledge of the difficulties of the fruit and vegetable growers to-day, competing with growers in a country in which climatic conditions are so much more favourable. There are many states in the union in which two or three crops a year can be grown; that cannot be done in Canada. Some may tell us that they do it in British Columbia, but I do not know any place in this dominion where it can be done

successfully. In Canada to-day the duty on fruit and vegetables is only 10 per cent. That should never have come about. Back in 1930 it was 30 per cent, and even then growers of fruit and vegetables had a difficult task.

Mr. EULER:

Surely it is more than that now in certain seasons.

Mr. SPENCE:

Under the new treaty it is only 10 per cent. When the Prime Minister went to Washington and signed the former treaty the duty on fruit and vegetables was cut in half, to 15 per cent, and then by this treaty hon. gentlemen have cut it a further 5 per cent, which leaves only 10 per cent. That is no protection whatever to Canadian growers who have to compete with growers in a country in which climatic conditions permit the growing of two or three crops a year. Before the Fordney-McCumber tariff was put into effect in the United States in 1923 we had a good market in Detroit and some of the other neighbouring United States cities, particularly for Leamington melons, tomatoes and all kinds of early vegetables. But that tariff which the United States saw fit to put up against our people shut out practically everything. Then came the Hawley-Smoot tariff in 1930, which entirely closed the United States market for our dairy products as well as fruit and vegetables. How can a country get along under such treatment? It is ridiculous. True, we are now getting some advantage on potatoes, but we are giving the same advantage. Our hon. friends have allowed the Americans to set a quota on potatoes going into the United States, and as someone said, one county in this country could produce enough potatoes to supply that quota. Do not ever think that the United States are not looking after themselves; I have dealt with the business people there; they will always give you a sandwich if you give them the pig. We should never have negotiated this treaty. We were in no position to negotiate a treaty at the time when this one was negotiated, because our duties were all too low compared with theirs. And if the treaty applied only to the United States, as it purports to do, it would not be so bad; for after all the United States are good friends and we want to be friendly with them. But under the most favoured nation clause our concessions apply also to countries that are no friends of Canada. I shall not mention names, but there are several of them.

There is no one in this house who can paint a better picture with figures than the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Euler), or the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner). They are both dandies at that sort of thing. But

The Address-Mr. Spence

the hon. gentlemen have been in politics and sitting in this house so long, not associated with business, that they do -not understand the effect of the treaty and have no vision of the results which may flow from it. Canada should have retaliated when the Fordney-McCumber tariff was imposed, and the Hawley-Smoot tariff-

Mr. STEWART:

Countervailing duties.

Mr. SPENCE:

Oh, countervailing duties

have meant nothing. We know that congress has control; no matter how friendly the president appears to be to this country, he cannot reduce- the duty more than 50 -per cent, and he might well do that and still have -higher duties against us than we have against them. So what position were we in to negotiate a treaty with them?

At six o'clock the house took recess.

After Recess

The house resumed at eight o'clock.

Mr. SPENCE:

Mr. Speaker, just before six o'clock I had made certain references to some ministers of national revenue who at times had not given the trade with which I was associated a square deal. In justice to the present Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Ilsley) may I say that a few weeks ago I did hear that he was now getting more familiar with customs details in Toronto, and with customs transactions generally, and that a better deal was being given to everybody concerned. I have not been associated with the trade for the last two or three years, so I believe it is only fair to say that opinion seems to be that he is getting more familiar with it.

Since I have been in the house I have known only one trade treaty which has had any beneficial effects on this country, and that was the Canada-United Kingdom agreement brought about in 1932 by the Right Hon. R. B. Bennett.

Oh, oh.

Mr. SPENCE:

Hon. members may laugh as they like, but if they are not stupid they should know that is the only beneficial trade treaty we ever had. Under it we received a preference of 4s 6d per 100 pounds on apples. A few days ago the hon. member for Queens-Lunenburg (Mr. Kinley) was trying to defend the government in its negotiation of the [DOT]present treaty. He said that Nova Scotia still had a good deal on apples. The deal they get is that in the present treaty their duty is cut *from 4s 6d to 3s per 100 pounds. That is what they lost.

And what about wheat? When any hon. minister will say that a loss of six cents a bushel on wheat does not make any difference, surely he is not familiar with the business. A loss of six cents a bushel means what? It means competition in the old country market. That preference was a profit in itself.

Let us turn our minds back to the French treaty of 1923. That was another treaty negotiated by the party now in office. I remember well that it was another knock for the fruit and vegetable business, more particularly for the fruit business. In the Toronto market we had been selling thousands of baskets of the best cherries in each cherry season to the extract men of Toronto and other parts of the dominion, for the purpose of making extracts. The French treaty killed that cherry market because it allowed Italy as well as France to ship cured cherries in here at a price less than the producer in Canada could accept. The result was that thousands of big Montmorency cherry trees were pulled out of the ground, because their fruit was worth nothing. The cherry market has not come back yet. That was another trade treaty which hurt the fruit and vegetable business.

Is it any wonder that people become alarmed when they try to do business at all? I claim there should be more cooperation between business and government. If business were consulted I am satisfied the people in it would be fair with the government. In the United States both industry and business were consulted in connection with the trade treaty we have just negotiated. But in Canada our departmental officials are supposed to know more about everything than men who have been trained in their own line of business. Such rot! It could not be possible, no matter how brilliant our young men in the departments may be, to know as much as the men who have been trained in a particular line of business. So I repeat that we did not get a fair deal.

The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) has said that unemployment is not the greatest problem. He has said that if peace were assured, we would be able to sell our wheat abroad, and that we would have a great recovery. Let me say, Mr. Speaker, that I consider that nothing but a smoke screen. The present government must be entirely out of touch with -business. They ought to know that the real issue to-day is that in the last nine years we have spent $900,000,000 on relief. Surely this indicates that unemployment is the real issue. I say again it is an indication that the government must be both deaf and dumb, and they have nothing to suggest to improve conditions. They are just drifting, along, taking the advice of commissions.

The Address-Mr. Spence

It is unfortunate that they have not more courage. I consider that the growing of wheat to-day is not as important as it was in years gone by, because countries to which we sold many years ago are now growing their own wheat. Nearly every month of the year wheat is ripening in some part of the world, so we need never hope for the same sale of wheat as we had formerly. If it were not for the fact that our Canadian wheat is superior to any other on the world market, it could not be sold at all. The people who buy it have no love for the treatment they received back in 1927 and 1928, when we killed our wheat market. That, however, is out of the question now, and has nothing to do with the present situation.

What has Canada done to help the motherland to protect the movement of our crops to large industrial centres in the British empire and, again, to protect those areas from bombing planes, which might destroy the market forever, so far as Canada is concerned? I am glad to see the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Mackenzie) is proposing to spend money now to defend our country. He will find no opposition from this party, so long as we are sure that the money is being spent to advantage. We have to trust somebody, and we might as well trust the present Minister of National Defence as anybody else while he is in power.

An lion. MEMBER: But.

Mr. SPENCE:

Yes, there are some "buts."

Butts on the guns.

Mr. SPENCE:

The Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) said that third parties grew while the Conservatives were in power. I do not take any stock in that at all. He made the further statement that the treaty of 1935 was satisfactory, and that no one could criticize it. He said it made a wider market, and created employment for thousands. We all know it has done nothing of the kind. We know it has destroyed the market, and we have lost, as a result.

It takes a man with a great deal of courage to make a wild statement like that. Sometimes the Prime Minister has courage, because he has a wonderful debating power when he makes a statement of that kind. He must have courage to make it. Let us go back to the years between 1921 and 1930 when the government led by the present Prime Minister was in office. More combines developed and more mergers were created during that time than in any other period of the history of Canada-and no effort was made to stop it. Gradually money got into too few hands. We did not have as fair a distribution of wealth

as formerly obtained. Nothing was done to look after the interior business of Canada, a business which should have deserved more consideration.

Mass buying has been encouraged by the party now in office, a procedure which has driven out individual merchants by the hundreds. That is the beginning of our trouble in Canada. If the mass buying proposition had been tackled at that time we should not have had the condition where so many people have gone broke-as they are doing to-day.

Some hon. members are good at rising in their places in the house and painting pictures of distress. In the best of times there were always some who painted such gloomy pictures. I could paint such pictures in regard to my own constituency, but I do not think it is good business to advertise the country adversely on the floor of the house, when we know what is said here may go all over the world.

My advice in connection with the budget is that it should be brought down much earlier than last year, so that the wheels of industry will not stop altogether. From now on everybody knows business will be lagging, and will continue to lag until the budget is brought down. For those reasons I wish the government would give the matter special consideration and bring down the budget in a hurry. I hope and pray that there may be no lowering of the tariffs for either farm or factory. A change in tariffs, whether they be raised or lowered, always creates trouble in the business world. I do not, and never did, believe in high tariffs. But I believe we have to protect the growers on the farm and the people in industry. There is no use in growers producing stuff unless the workers in the industrial centres have money to buy the goods. That is one of the important points to remember. Then, in Canada we have spent millions of dollars in educating the youth of Canada to develop the industry of the United States. That was done in those good old days when this dominion should have been growing by leaps and bounds. For years Canada was simply an incubator for the United States. Now our people cannot go over there, and they do not want to. Those who are there were treated well in the early days, and Canadians were always welcome.

Meddling with business and tinkering with tariffs in Canada brought business to a bad condition in 1930. Some hon. members have said that fifty per cent of the farmers are broke. Let me say that over fifty per cent of people who were in business in 1930 are out of business and penniless to-day. That is a worse condition than that of the farmers.

The Address-Mr. Spence

Many of these people in business cannot even make an assignment. I heard someone say that there are fewer assignments to-day than there were a few years ago, but the only reason for that is that many of these business men are in such bad condition that the trustee or assignee will not undertake the job because he is not sure of getting his money for looking after the estate.

Mr. SPEAKER:

I am sorry to have to notify the hon. member that his time has expired.

Mr. SPENCE:

It is not often that I take up the time of the house in saying anything.

Go on.

Mr. SPEAKER:

With the unanimous

consent of the house.

Mr. SPENCE:

The hon. member for North Battleford (Mr. McIntosh), for whom I have a great deal of regard and who is a personal friend of mine, has on the order paper another motion with regard to a new Canadian flag. At a previous session he was good enough to withdraw a similar motion. This is a trivial thing to bring up to-day when world conditions are what they are, when we have so many international troubles with which to deal. The hon. member for Quebec-Mont-morency (Mr. Lacroix) also has on the order paper a resolution asking that the word "viceroy" be substituted for "governor general", and that the name of this country should be the "Kingdom of Canada" instead of the "Dominion of Canada." What a lot of nonsense taking up the time of this house with resolutions of that kind! I cannot understand why hon. members put motions like that on the order paper. It is such motions that create unrest, disunity and misunderstanding. I do not suppose the hon. members I have named intended that their resolutions should have that effect, but I think all hon. members should use better judgment in these times of trouble and tribulation. I appeal to both hon. members to withdraw their motions in the interests of this house and this country.

Some hon. members advocate reduction of taxes. They say that the sales tax should be eliminated; that the stamp tax should be discontinued and that other taxes should be wiped out. Then, before they sit down, they advocate the granting of more money to the provinces and the municipalities. How do they suppose the government is going to get money when all taxes are eliminated? You can get only what you take from the people, and no

government can be blamed for that. Personally I should like to see all- nuisance taxes abolished. I hate having to put a three or a six-cent stamp on every cheque I write.

My contention is that every effort should be made to study possible means of economizing. I have had to economize all my life. There was no other way in which I could get along. Economy should be studied in every branch of the service. The cost of administration in this House of Commons is entirely too high. A business administrator could save possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars in running this house, but he would not be very popular. It would be pretty difficult to practise economy around here.

The number of publications issued by the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Euler) and the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) should be curtailed. Thousands of publications are sent out through the country, when, I should imagine, hundreds would do. What happens to them after they are sent out? The mail men in the city of Toronto and other centres are getting humps on their backs from the loads they have to carry. Much of the stuff sent out from this house and from the different departments is simply carried in through the front-door, possibly kept about fifteen minutes, and then sent out through the back. These publications are simply a waste of good paper and good printing. I said the same thing to the hon. member for Melville (Mr. Motherwell) when he was Minister of Agriculture, but he did not agree with me. He felt that the publications sent out by his department were more important than those sent out by the Department of Trade and Commerce. Each department feels that its publications are very necessary.

Hon. members and others outside the house have been kicking about the cost of government, but no one has had the back-bone to suggest what should be done to reduce this cost. I would start with this house. If the British North America Act would allow it, I would cut the membership from 245 members to 150. The membership of the provincial legislatures should be cut in half, if not eliminated altogether. The number of county councils could be reduced, although I sometimes think these county councils are of more value to the country than the provincial legislatures. I know quite a bit about county councils.

How about the

senate?

Mr. SPENCE:

I am not talking about the senate because it is out of my jurisdiction. I do not know whether my suggestions will

The Address-Mr. Spence

meet with approval. I notice the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) is smiling. He thinks I am jesting, but I am not.

Mr. LAPOINTE (Quebec East):

I agree with most of what the hon. member says.