Mr. POULIOT:

Speaking to the point of

order, Mr. Speaker, a statement may give rise to a point of order or a question of privilege raised by the member concerned; for example, that a member has made a declaration which is untrue and that, while he himself knew it was untrue. The hon. member for Parry Sound has just declared that an hon. member of this house made a statement that was untrue, and it was his perfect right to say it was untrue. The hon. member for I do not know where-

Mr. VIEN:

Mount Royal.

Mr. POULIOT:

[DOT]-has not even read the rules of the house, or if he has he does not understand them. It is the privilege of any hon. member to deny a statement made by any other member. Assuredly the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George was speaking in good faith when he repeated something that was not true; he believed that it was true; that was a mistake on his part. But I submit that the hon. member for Parry Sound was perfectly in order in using the language he did.

Mr. SLAGHT:

Let me set at ease the mind of the hon. gentleman who raised the point of order, as to the truth or otherwise of the second-hand statement listened to in London, by telling him that the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George went on at the same page of Hansard to say-and I shall give only the effect of it out of deference to my hon. friend opposite-that that correspondence had never been produced if it ever took place, and that evidently if it did take place it was excluded from the state papers of the United States. Somebody in London told him that it was supposed that Theodore Roosevelt, then president of the United States, had written a letter to the British ambassador, and then the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George goes on and says that if the correspondence ever took place it was excluded from the state papers of the United States. What is he doing there? He is charging the then president of the United States, since deceased-he died in 1919-with having threatened Canada with armed force over the question of the boundary and with then having, in effect, falsified the state records of the United States of America to cover up his threat. Surely it is time the people of Canada were told that we of the House of Commons are not in accord with that type of vile traducing of the head of a neighbouring friendly country, dragged into a debate for purely political purposes.

This is the spectacle provided by hon. gentlemen who have a record in this country, a record of government for the five years from 1930 to 1935. We find that the leader of the opposition has taken as his second lieutenant the hon. member for Kootenay East (Mr. Stevens), a gentleman whom he indicted in his book, in language which is already upon Hansard, as having deserted his party for the sake of the emoluments of office which he hoped to gain. I have no brief for the hon. member for Kootenay East, but I do not believe that the leader of the opposition, who stuck to a party whose policy well-nigh ruined Canada, and put a man ahead of principle, can throw any stones at the hon. member for Kootenay East, who said in effect, " The man does not matter; his policy-the Manion-Bennett policy-is rotten, and I am going to get out." Choose if you will between the two men if you are looking for a higher moral philosophy of public life in Canada.

Mr. MANION:

I do not think we shall look to the hon. member for it.

Mr. SLAGHT:

Well, my hon. friend's retort discourteous must be overlooked.

The Budget-Mr. Slaght

An, hon. MEMBER: It was no more discourteous than yours.

Mr. SLAGHT:

Well, I will overlook the remark of the second hon. gentleman.

Mr. PERLEY:

It could not 'be more discourteous.

Mr. SLAGHT:

I leave to the judgment of the people of Canada what they think of the type of abuse showered by the present leader of the opposition upon the hon. member for Kootenay East, whose contributions throughout the session have, to my mind, been better reasoned, better mannered, and much more thoughtful than the contributions of the leader of the opposition himself. That, however, is a matter of opinion.

Mr. MANION:

I agree with that.

Mr. SLAGHT:

My hon. friend agrees with me. Now that we are in accord, let things go along nicely from now on. I just want to say this to my hon. friend. I do not use the word " gang " offensively, and I think I should pause here to pay tribute to the high qualities of the leader of the opposition personally, because he knows that I admire him and admire them. My remark is political only, in the sense that I differ from him. But are the people of Canada going to be fooled again by the old gang?

No.

Mr. SPEAKER:

Order.

Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver):

Make it unanimous.

Mr. MacNICOL:

The gang on the opposite side of the road.

Mr. SLAGHT:

The old gang have done

as they did in Ontario. They have put up a new front man; they did not dare to go back to the old leader. In Ontario the hon. member who sits behind his present leader, and for whom I have the greatest respect, was also thrust into the gap, but there it was a case of the old gang with a new front man, and we see the same thing across the house [DOT]to-night. Most of them are still there, and they want to come back and repeat the disastrous government to which they treated this country during the five years they were in office. If my hon. friend has repented of some of his narrow nationalism which he has repudiated to-night, why did he not come out and support a trade agreement which has lowered the cost of the necessities of life for the fishermen of my district, for the settlers of my district, for the men in the towns, for the women in the household? Why

did he not support the lowering of prices through the removal of the excise tax and the tariff negotiations consummated in the trade agreement? No, he could not forego his philosophy that the duty of an opposition is to oppose. Let me point out to him, if he takes any satisfaction from the vote against that trade agreement which has helped to cement Great Britain and the United States and Canada, that when it went to his house leader in the senate, the Right Hon. Arthur Meighen made some remarks with regard to it, to the effect-again with deference to my friends who do not like quotations-that he thought the treaty was something which it was his duty to support, and in the senate every Conservative but one voted for the treaty.

Order.

Mr. SPEAKER:

I do not think the hon.

member has a right to refer to things which happened in the other chamber, or to any statements made by members of that chamber.

Mr. SLAGHT:

Let me regret that I referred to anything in the other chamber.

Mr. CASSELMAN:

You have it on the

record.