Mr. STIRLING:

It did) not suit them to.

Mr. NEILL:

They declared war the moment it favoured them.

Mr. A. W.. ROEBUCK (Trinity): I hone that the hon. member for Comox-Alberni (Mr. Neill) will not expect those who follow him in this debate to take part with him in his discussion of the Japanese question, and certainly not to follow him in some of his logic or attitude. It seems to me that the hon. member loses a little of the influence he might otherwise possess in this house and in the country by too evident a dislike for the subject of his remarks. What he fails to appreciate in the policy of the Prime Minister is that it is guided not by likes and dislikes. We all have a right to like whom we please; kissing goes by favour, but statesmanship is based not upon favour but upon justice. I caught the words from the hon. gentleman himself that the way to treat the oriental is with strict justice. Of course that is right. It is not whether we like the Japanese or dislike them; they are human beings and have certain rights, and those rights must be respected, not for their sakes but for our own sakes.

Mr. CRUICKSHANK:

Why will not

Toronto take some of them?

Mr. ROEBUCK:

I think Toronto has a

number of Japanese-Canadian citizens. They are not Japanese; they are Canadian citizens of Japanese origin.

Mr. CRUICKSHANK :

Your province will not take them.

Mr. ROEBUCK:

Our province has not the power to do otherwise than to take them, and there are a fair number of Japanese Canadians, and some who are not Canadians, in the province of Ontario at the present time. I am not going to defend the Japs, but I find it difficult to imagine that anyone can be so bad as the bete noire of the hon. member for Comox-Alberni. It may be so, but it does not make any difference whether they are good, bad or indifferent; our job as legislators, the Prime Minister's job as a statesman guiding the affairs of this country, is to deal out evenhanded justice to everybody. When it comes to immigration into this country we have a right to say that this one shall come in and that that one shall not. The Prime Minister is within his rights when he says that there shall be no more Japanese immigration to this country, but when it comes to dealing with Canadian citizens born in this country or nationalized by us in a solemn way by legal

process, that is another matter. These people are Canadian citizens and have a right to be treated as Canadian citizens.

Mr. O'NEILL: Will the hon. member permit a question?

Mr. ROEBUCK:

Certainly.

Mr. O'NEILL: Would the hon. member

consider that a person born in this country and holding dual citizenship is a good Canadian citizen?

Mr. ROEBUCK:

All you have to do is to show that and you can cancel the Canadian nationality of the individual; but you must not punish'the innocent because of the guilty. There may be some who have dual nationality, who owe a loyalty to the emperor of Japan and who attempt to show the same attitude toward the king of England. It cannot be done. If you can show that, there is no difficulty at all in cancelling the British citizenship, and I rather think you could) cancel the nationality of even a person bom here, although I am not so sure about that. My point is that you must not do these things by rumour and assumptions. Even-handed justice requires that we prove such charges against the guilty individual and not in a broad way assume that all must be guilty because of some national characteristics. I have found even in my short experience that usually characteristics attributed to large sections of a community, to groups, to nationalities, to races and so on, have very little foundation in fact. They are usually fictions. For instance, there is a fiction that the French are excitable, the English phlegmatic, and so on; I could mention many more. Usually these are not based upon facts but upon assumptions. The French are often phlegmatic and the English excitable. So that perhaps it may be with those of Japanese origin who have had the benefit of long years of association with Canadians and of Canadian training. It may be that they are not quite so bad as, say, the military clique who guide the destinies of Japan. It is not my intention to-night to argue the question of the Japanese or to constitute myself their champion.

Mr. CRUICKSHANK:

You sound like it.

Mr. ROEBUCK:

I am the champion of

democracy, of justice and of right, applied to anybody; and I am not going to imbibe here the violent prejudices of the hon. gentlemen from British Columbia.

Mr. CRUICKSHANK:

Oh, nonsense.

Mr. ROEBUCK:

I have listened with a

great deal of pleasure, Mr. Chairman, to

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the discussion carried on to-day on the broad questions of foreign policy. There was a time when we Canadians found it very difficult to discuss our own national problems, because in the minds of some people, whenever we asserted Canadianism we were in some way anti-British. Nothing of the kind. As Canada gradually emerges to nationhood; as the complex of the little man disappears and we become powerful and influential in world affairs; as our position becomes more clearly recognized abroad, we are approaching our national questions with a little more sanity and reason. The only vast difference that I see between the Canadianism I have heard expressed from across the floor, particularly by hon. members of the Progressive Conservative party, and that held so firmly on this side of the house is this. While we are all for Canada, there seems to be some doubt across the way as to whether or not we have grown up. They are still in the Kipling age: "Daughter am I in my mother's house, but mistress in my own." That_was a very catchy and descriptive phrase when it was written by Mr. Kipling, but that was a good many years ago. The day has gone by when Canada is daughter in anyone's house, though undoubtedly she is mistress in her own. Those were the days when Canada's right to guide her own foreign affairs was still in doubt. Then we were daughter in our mother's house. To-day, however. we are peers in the British commonwealth of nations, in which none is in any way inferior to the other in any aspect of our domestic or foreign affairs. In that attitude I -beleive we are far stronger than in that advocated from across the aisle; that is to say, an adult nationhood but in some way subservient to some other nation.

Mr. GRAYDON:

Who over here advocated that?

Mr. ROEBUCK:

My hon. friend came

very close to it.

Mr. GRAYDON:

That is not the same

thing.

Mr. ROEBUCK:

Well, there is no question that the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church) advocated it. If I understand the English language aright he desires some sort of centralization of power across the ocean. He is not satisfied that Canada should stand on her own feet, make her own decisions and, working in cooperation with Great Britain and the other members of the empire, go forward in unity, in concord and in cooperation. I heard the hon. member say that the strength of the empire is in unity, and of course with that statement I thoroughly

agree. The strength of the empire is in unity; but if that unity is to be brought about by subservience on the part of Canada to any other people, any other government or any other power, then that unity is bought at too great a price. The unity which makes for progress and influence and power is that which is manifest among free peoples, voluntarily associating in their own ways for the accomplishment of some common object.

It is obvious that we cannot have one voice for the whole empire. Each must have its own say in its own way. One is not a realist if he does not see that some of the questions which are important to Australia and New Zealand are not so important to us, while some aspects of our foreign affairs are of little interest to either Australia or New Zealand. We have a coast on the Atlantic as well as on the Pacific. So with South Africa; in her foreign affairs she would not be much interested in our relationship, for instance, with the great country of Russia. It is necessary that each portion of our great commonwealth live its own life in its own way, making its own decisions and expressing itself through its own representatives. In that way we shall develop a powerful empire.

The subject uppermost in my mind at the moment, however, is not the broad question of empire solidarity. On February 1 last I brought to the attention of the house an interesting and, I think, important subject; that is to say, the Palestine situation. A considerable section of our community is looking to me at the present time to say something about that subject, and to bring it up in the course of this debate. It is hoped that a policy will be announced by Great Britain and the United States, perhaps in the near future. I trust that it may be soon. One reason for thinking something of that kind may be in immediate prospect is the fact that Viscount Gort was recently appointed high commissioner of Palestine. Viscount Gort is known to have a sympathetic attitude not only to individual Jewish people but to the Jewish problem in general, and it is hoped that in consequence of his influence something beneficial may evolve. Unfortunately, however, there is also a rumour-perhaps it is nothing more than a rumour-that the policy to be announced will involve the partitioning of Palestine. Be it remembered that when the Balfour declaration was published it was understood to refer to Palestine as it exists to-day together with Trans-Jordania, making an area of some thirty-five thousand square miles. Somehow in the course of the years Trans-

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Jordania has been dropped from the argument that centres about the Balfour declaration. And so to-day there is involved an area of about 10,000 square miles, taking in the Jordan river and the Dead sea, right up to the north. The proposal made in 1922 for the partition of Palestine involved. the creation of two states, one Jewish and the other Arab. There was to be given to the Jewish state territory comprising some 2,500 or 3,000 square miles. Excepted out of that territory was the great port of Haifa, the valley of Jezreel, which runs across the north of Palestine, and the river and valley of the Jordan and the Dead sea. So that the agricultural territory which remained was without any flow of water, other than what would be obtained from wells. Quite obviously, the area was so small and the resources so limited, particularly the resources of water, that the portion which remained was an economic impossibility. That is the proposal which is again rumoured as a possible announcement from the two governments.

I place myself, and the very large Jewish community of this country, in direct opposition to any such proposal. I hold in my hand excerpts from a brochure presented by the Zionist Emergency Council to the state department of the United States on the 7th day of this month. With the consent of the house I shall read some excerpts from this somewhat remarkable document. The committee says:

Partition is no new proposal, as far as Palestine is concerned. The Balfour declaration, with its promise of a national 'home for the Jewish people, was originally intended to apply to the whole of historic Palestine, including Palestine east of the Jordan, or Trans-Jordan as it is known to-day.

In September, 1922, however, the League of Nations, at the instance of the British government, excluded Trans-Jordan from this area. More than two-thirds of the territory originally designated as the Jewish national home was thus closed to Jewish settlement.

Further partition of Palestine proposed in 1937 by the Palestine royal commission recommended the establishment of a Jewish state on an area of about one-fifth of Palestine west of the Jordan. The remainder, apart from a small British enclave, together with Trans-Jordan was to become an Arab state. In parliament this proposal was severely criticized, among others, by Winston Churchill. No proposal for the future of Palestine can be acceptable to the Jewish people which precludes the possibility of large-scale Jewish settlement and colonization. But partition would be a severe blow to the economic welfare of the Jewish state. It would be detrimental to industrial expansion and would greatly limit the possibility of absorbing a large Jewish population.

So far as agricultural colonization is concerned, partition would be fatal to any important project for close settlement and

100-374J

intensive development. For any conceivable partition of Palestine would necessarily separate the important water resources in the north from the irrigable land in the south which offers the greatest prospect of development.

Such a political separation of water and land would of course entirely preclude the development of Palestine in regional terms along these lines.

To-day Zionists are unanimous in their opposition to any partition. While some of those Jews who will survive the war will no doubt desire to return to their countries of origin, for very many emigration and in particular emigration to Palestine where alone they can claim to go as of right and will be welcomed by their own people, offers the best, if not the only prospect of a new and more hopeful future. In order to meet the needs of such a large-scale immigration it will be necessary to make use v of the possibilities as a whole, and any reduction in the area of settlement would be regarded as introducing a corresponding limitation on the numbers who may thus be rehabilitated.

The matter becomes of very great national and international importance at the present time because of the situation in Hungary. Before the war, Hungary had a very considerable population of Jews who had lived there for many centuries. The educational institutions of Hungary were known world-wide. Many of the leading Jewish people in communities all over the world have found their origin in Hungary, and their education in the institutions of that country.

When the war broke out there were about a half million Jewish people in Hungary. As the war progressed, the population of Jews increased, because of refugees. The Jewish population increased to nearly a million. I believe the figure was 900,000. To-day the Jewish population of Hungary is about 400,000. Five hundred thousand Jewish people have disappeared. Where they have gone we do not know. But we do know that 100,000 of them were deported at one time to be murdered by the nazis in Poland. We know that through Catholic sources, and also from the Polish government in exile. We know it, too, because the Pope sent a message to Admiral Horthy, Hungarian regent and head of the Hungarian state, protesting and pleading that deportations cease.

Mr. Hull, Secretary of State for the United States, as late as July 14, 1944, stated that the entire Jewish community in Hungary faced extermination. He threatened punishment to the state of Hungary if it persisted in violation of the most elementary of human rights. Partly as a result of what was said by Mr. Hull, partly because of what was said by His Holiness the Pope, and to no small degree because of the menacing Russian army near the borders of Hungary, a message has been received by the International Red Cross from Admiral Horthy that he is prepared to give

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an exit permit to any Jew who can show a visa to Palestine, and to any Jewish child under ten years of age for whom entry can be secured to any of the allied countries.

We can all express abhorrence of the barbarity of the nazis. We can repeat over and over that the whole world is outraged at what has gone on in Central Europe with regard to this unfortunate population. But I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that more outrageous is to express sentiments of abhorrence while, by our actions, showing ourselves willing to do nothing. The time has arrived when the united nations-which includes Canada-must take action in this matter, and it is easily taken. We must either be rescuers or accomplices. I note that at the Burma conference on May 19, 1943, Mr. Eden made this statement:

We shall do everything in our power to help these people.

The time has come to do the helping. Trains still run from Budapest to Istanbul, from Hungary to Turkey. With Turkey now breaking with Germany it should not be difficult to secure cooperation in the Turkish capital. There are trains running to-day from the Turkish capital to Haifa in Palestine.

We have not done so very badly during the last year. Some 9,000 refugees have entered Palestine. That is a trickle, it is true, but still it is 9,000; it might be worse. But there remain only 20,000 visas, according to the white paper'against which I spoke in February last, and these are being reserved for refugees from the occupied countries. It is time that Christian nations express in a practical way what they intend to do with regard to the plight of the Jews in Hungary and elsewhere.

There is no difficulty in absorbing large numbers of these people in Palestine. I understand that discussion are now going on between the authorities of Palestine and those of Egypt to bring in 15,000 Egyptian labourers in order to meet the man-power shortage in Palestine. Large numbers of these refugees could be accommodated in Palestine to-day if the British empire governments and the United States would insist that the door be opened, as it was intended to be opened at the close of the last war, and give these poor people the haven of refuge for which they have worked and struggled and which they now need so tragically.

I once had a remarkable Jewish friend, who used to say that the mission of the Jews was to bring Christianity to the Christians. It occurs to me that if there ever was a time in world history when Christians might bring a little Christianity to the Jews, that' time is now. I know our Prime Minister is sympathetic in this matter. He has never turned a

[Mr. Roebuck.}

deaf ear to any one in distress, and from his door no lame dog has ever limped unhelped. I appeal to him to give this matter the most effective handling of which his department is capable.

Mr. A. R. ADAMSON (York West):

Mr. Speaker, I consider this debate probably the most important that we could have in this House of Commons at this time, because the future' that we shall play in the world depends upon our external policy. I listened this morning to the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) with a great deal of attention; I listened for some statement which would show the awareness of our changed position in the shrunken world of to-day, but I did not hear it. In fact the Prime Minister said that -his policy remained the same, and with that I must earnestly disagree.

During a short time in the lifetime of most of us we have been by the side of England in three wars being fought outside the north American continent. The first was the South African war, and the second and third were the great wars against Germany and now against Japan. Those wars were fought to preserve the freedom of the world. It was said by Sir Wilfrid Laurier that when England is at war Canada is also at war. This has been proved true.. Ho matter what may be the clauses in the statute of Westminster the cle jacto condition is that if England is at war, Canada will also be at war.

Recent developments have complicated our position with regard to the United States, and I believe it is now also a fact that if the United States is at war with a major power, Canada will be also at war whether we like it or not. In any Pacific struggle where the United States is a major belligerent we must, from the very fact of geography, become involved. This applies with equal force to Japan, to China and to Russia. There is no use in trying to avoid the consideration of these unpleasant facts; they must be faced.

Geography which has given- Canada a false sense of security in the past is now, owing to the air routes pf the world, putting a definite end to our isolation. It has forced us right into the centre of world affairs. We are now at the cross-roads of Europe and Asia, and no longer are we merely -the stately mistress of the north, as we were called- in Kipling's poem.

If our domestic future holds anything, we can look forward to a population of 20,000,000 within our own lifetime. With a forceful development of our natural resources and with a population such as this our weight in

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empire affairs will progressively increase. It is not beyond possibility that in the near future we shall find ourselves with a population and an industrial output approximately fifty per cent of that of the United Kingdom. With that population together with our great agricultural resources we can no longer escape our destiny as an international force.

The day of little Canadianism is over for all time. Let us review what the isolationism of the past has meant to Canada. In the empire conference held prior to the war criticism was levelled at us because we would have no commitments whatsoever with regard to a unified imperial policy. Unfortunately, apparently, that still is the policy of the Prime Minister. He has said that we will not commit ourselves to a forward policy for joint defence, that he will not commit us to a joint agreement with the empire on security. He still adheres to the policy he announced on January 26, 1937, when he said:

I ought to make it quite clear that we will not necessarily become involved in any war into which other parts of the British empire may enter simply because we are a part of the British empire.

He stated that his government adhered to the moderate central point of view, neither imperialist nor isolationist, and that they would take account of the interests of all those with whom they might be associated, but that the interests would primarily be based on the interests of Canada in every situation as it presented itself.

That, from what was said this morning, is still the fundamental position to-day. In other words, we are still fooling ourselves that in a world of extreme practical reality, and because we have the statute of Westminster, which satisfies our own national pride, we believe that a predatory nation will take cognizance of this statute and because of it will not consider us as a belligerent.

I believe this is living in a fools' paradise. History again and again has shown that this is so. It amounts to this: we will make no commitments; we will not have a foreign policy with regard to the empire, we will participate in no permanent imperial council, we will have nothing to say until war actually breaks out, and then we will say it on the battlefield. It is on this point that I disagree with the Prime Minister's policy. It is unreal; it is impractical; it may be of political advantage, but it will certainly lead to another war which we as Canadians will have had no power to prevent. Because of our unique position-

Mr. MACKENZIE KING:

May I interrupt my hon. friend just a moment? I hope he will not feel that because I am not interrupting him I am agreeing that his representation of my position is what my position is. I want to make it quite clear that I stand by anything I myself have said, but I do not accept my hon. friend's interpretation of my words as at all representing my position.

Mr. ADAMSON:

This, Mr. Chairman, was my interpretation. I listened very carefully this morning, and I have taken a lot of trouble to read what the Prime Minister has said regarding external and foreign policy.

The point I want to bring out, and I shall try to do so as I continue, is that the policy which he has in the past followed has not prevented us from being dragged into two major world wars. I am suggesting that the policy which he still follows will not prevent a third major world war if it should unfortunately develop. I am trying to present my argument along those lines, and I believe that the Prime Minister, if he will follow me, will see what I am trying to develop.

Mr. MACKENZIE KING:

Well, as long as it is understood between us that the policy is as I have stated it in my own words and not as my hon. friend interprets it, he is free to say anything he likes, and further, if it is understood that I am listening to him and my only reason for not interrupting is not that I agree, but simply that I do not wish to interrupt my hon. friend.