Mr. POWER:

If you will stand up and

say you are for high protection I will stand up and say I am for free trade.

Mr. GRAY:

He fought a platform on it

-what happened?

Mr. ROWE (Dufferin-Simcoe):

Even the

hon. member for Parry Sound (Mr. Slaght) would not rise and make such a declaration. He knows he would not rise again in Parry Sound if he did. Will the hon. member for Essex East (Mr. Martin) rise and say he is for free trade? Why, Mr. Speaker, everybody knows that free trade is the greatest piece of political camouflage in Canada to-day. There is not an honourable free trader within sound of my voice to-night- not one. They are afraid to rise, because they know that by export restrictions, by all sorts of quotas, by the militant attitude of various countries that have their backs to the wall to-day, there can be no such thing, either in logic or in sound common sense, as free trade. My hon. friends are therefore, veering round to the old Conservative policy, trying to steal the idea that they have so long condemned.

May I say in conclusion that the farmers of this country-

Mr. SPEAKER:

Order. The hon. member's time has expired.

Go ahead.

Mr. SPEAKER:

With the unanimous

consent of the house.

Mr. GRAY:

Did the hon. member go

before the national convention of the National Liberal-Conservative party-

You have the wrong name.

Mr. GRAY:

Did the hon. member try

to get the convention?

Mr. MANION:

No, he did not; he was

helping me.

Mr. POULIOT:

It is surprising the hon.

gentleman was elected.

Mr. SLAGHT:

Will the hon. member for

Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe) permit a question with reference to his observation that his party will be successful in the next election. For the benefit of hon. members on this side of the house will he indicate whether, in the policy which I understand his hon. leader has been persuaded to adopt, he had a green light out for truth or a red light out for romance.

Mr. ROWE (Dufferin-Simcoe):

Mr. Speaker, may I be permitted to finish what I was about to say?

Go ahead.

Mr. ROWE (Dufferin-Simcoe):

I should

like to reply to the hon. member for Parry Sound. He is a genial gentleman for whom I have a great regard. But when he talks about the green light out for integrity and the yellow light out for romance, I would ask him to let his mind go back to the last provincial election in Ontario, and he will find that he had little romance and less integrity. He told the people of Ontario that if they voted for Earl Rowe their stocks would drop 15 per cent-

Mr. GRAY:

They did.

Mr. ROWE (Dufferin-Simcoe):

Yes, but

they did not vote for me; they voted for his friend; he was elected, and their stocks dropped 30 per cent. So when he talks about the green light of integrity he can get no comfort out of that, but he might find some out of the yellow light of romance.

In conclusion, I wish to urge this house to consider carefully, and I want to urge on the Minister of Agriculture, independent of politics-

Mr. TUCKER:

Is the hon. member against the bill?

Agricultural Products-Marketing

Mr. ROWE (Dufferin-Simcoe):

Yes, I am against the bill. I am against the bill because it is a goose-stepping plan for the individual rather than one to meet world competition. The minister should know, and if he does not there are in the gallery a number of officials from his own department who would tell him that our first duty in this dominion in the interest of agriculture is to find a way to meet world competition, to get rid of our agricultural surpluses rather than dance our people to an election tune to win votes. We must find means of placing our agricultural surplus. Every country in the world has subsidized its exports, and I will support the Minister of Agriculture in any legislation he brings down to establish an export marketing board and give a bonus-which will cost much less than this measure-to high grade quality only, equal to the best quality produced anywhere in the world, for that market. If he does that he will start at the right end, the economic end, and I suggest that he do that instead of playing politics.

Mr. JEAN-FRANCOIS POULIOT (Temis-couata): The oration just delivered by the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe) was most interesting. Of course something was hurt; I do not say someone, it did not hurt any one of our colleagues but I fear the hon. member hurt his desk badly by banging it so loudly and so many times. He spoke at length of "loss leaders" and also repeated the expression that we used to hear from the lips of his lamented former leader, "those within the sound of my voice." He repeated that so often that it probably gave him the illusion that he was someone other than himself.

There are of course great experts in agriculture in all countries of the world. I had the privilege of listening to one in England, the Right Hon. Mr. Morrison, a remarkable man who is now Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. I heard him prescribe two diets, one for peace-time and one for time of war. The peace-time diet was meat and the wartime diet was wheat. As the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe has no interest in wheat and probably is a great admirer of Mr. Morrison, who was a prominent Tory in England, it may mean that as we shall have no exclusive wheat diet for some time we shall have peace. As the wheat diet is the diet for war and as the hon. member is not for it, we shall have peace and a meat diet. This is just as serious as what the hon. gentleman has said.

The hon. gentleman says that he knows something of the province of Quebec. He does not know anything of it. He says he knows the people of the back country.

Mr. ROWE (Dufferin-Simcoe):

I was back there.