Mr. ZAPLITNY:

I appreciate the hon. member's attempt to patch up a bad speech, but this is not the place to do it. He will have another opportunity and I hope he will use it. I hope he will quote from Hansard what the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario said, because it is in the record.

Mr. JACKMAN:

No one knows better than I do what the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario said. There is no greater humanitarian in the house.

Mr. ZAPLITNY:

I wish to say that when these gentlemen refer to the middle class as being the backbone of society they should study the human anatomy a little more closely. If they do they will see that there is more to the human body than the backbone. The backbone of itself would be functionless and useless unless it had a few other attributes.

Mr. JACKMAN:

The head and the belly. What the hon. member is saying is primary school stuff.

Mr. ZAPLITNY:

If the hon. member wants to talk about the belly he may go ahead.

Mr. MacINNIS:

That is all he is thinking of, anyway'.

Mr. ZAPLITNY:

If we are to talk about the backbone of this country, meaning thereby the main class of people who are necessary' in the country, we cannot pick and choose because all the people who lead a useful life, who produce anything by means of their

The Budget-Mr. Zaplitny

hands or their brains, are a part of human society. To say that some mystic middle class is the backbone of something is simply to exhibit one's ignorance both of the human anatomy and of society as a whole.

I now wish to refer to another serious matter.

Mr. MAYHEW:

I am pleased to hear that what the hon. member has just said was not serious.

Mr. ZAPLITNY:

I said "another serious matter". I am glad the Minister of Finance has a spokesman in his place who may be able to answer some of the arguments I am using. If the parliamentary assistant disagrees with this, he will have an opportunity to contradict it.

I say very plainly that the present Minister of Finance is more responsible than anyone else for having wrecked the price control system in this country. No one denies that.

I sa3r also that he has been aided and abetted in doing so by hon. members on both sides of the house. Not all the reactionaries are in the official opposition; although the opposition are blessed with a good percentage, there are some on the government side. Also there are some progressive thinking people on the government side. Some of the back benchers on the government side-

Mr. JACKMAN:

Don't forget to add us.

Mr. ZAPLITNY:

Yes, I shall be glad to include the hon. member's party later on in the right category. There are some progressive thinking members on the Liberal side of the house who have brought to the attention of the government the seriousness of the scuttling of the price control system and have warned them that it is time to do something to make good their pledges of a new social order.

Listening to the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Benidickson) yesterday afternoon I was pleased with that part of his speech in which he advocated that the government do not sit around and wait until the Drew-Duplessis axis makes up its mind what it is going to do, to make agreements for social security with the other provinces. But unfortunately the reactionaries on the government side occupy the front benches at the moment. What has happened is that there is confusion not only in the cabinet itself but on the whole Liberal side of the house. Watching their difficulties I am reminded of a poem written by Macaulay entitled "Hora-tius". Hon. members will remember the epic story of how three men held the bridge to Rome while the hordes were trying to attack it, and there was a point at which the attacking hordes were badly confused-which puts

me in mind of the way the government is acting today. I will quote this verse, and I think there is much point to it:

Was none who would be foremost To lead such dire attack:

But those behind cried "Forward!"

And those before cried "Back!"

And backward now and forward Wavers the deep array;

And on the tossing sea of steel,

To and fro the standards reel;

And the victorious trumpet-peal Dies fitfully away.

The Prime Minister sounded the trumpet peal in 1942 when he said the era of freedom will be found only when social security and human welfare become the main concern of men and nations. I am afraid that bugle peal has died fitfully away.

Now I want to go on with what I was saying about price control. Although the government is responsible for having destroyed the price structure in this country, nevertheless all of us in this house have a certain amount of responsibility for the advice that we give to the government, in so far as they carry it out. To that extent the official opposition is responsible for the advice it has given to the government, and which I am afraid has been too well carried out. In checking over some of the clippings I have saved up I find that, on the question of price control, the official opposition appear to have taken three different stands. I think they are to be congratulated on having added something new.

In the first place the leader of that party, the hon. member for Neepawa (Mr. Bracken) speaking in the Portage la Prairie by-election and appealing to the voters of that constituency for their support of the candidate who is now the member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Miller), used these words to appeal for their votes on the question of price control, as reported in the Winnipeg Tribune of October 19, 1946-a paper which I am given to understand is not opposed to the Progressive Conservative party. He said this:

Mr. Miller's election will have no effect whatever on government controls, because his views, stated on every platform, are in entire accord with the government's stated plan.

There is one stand on which he appealed to the voters.

Mr. MERRITT:

What is the date of that?

Mr. ZAPLITNY:

October 19, 1946.

Mr. KNOWLES:

It is authentic.

Mr. ZAPLITNY:

His appeal to the voters was that the Progressive Conservative price control policy was exactly that of the government, I wish to quote from the hon.

The Budget-Mr. Zaplitny

member for Portage la Prairie, as reported in the Portage la Prairie Graphic of October 18, 1946, as follows:

Mr. Miller emphasized there was no difference between the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives on price control and inflation.

Surely that makes it clear; the candidate himself declared that there was no difference whatever between the Progressive Conservatives and the Liberals on the question of price control and inflation. They were both for inflation, and the leader of the opposition, in supporting the candidate, endorsed that. That is one stand, and on that basis they appealed to the voters of Portage la Prairie and won the by-election, I must admit.

Mr. MERRITT:

The hon. member's party did not do very well.

Mr. ZAPLITNY:

We preferred to conduct our campaign on the policy that we stand for rather than on shifting sands.

Mr. MERRITT:

The hon. member is pretty holy, isn't he?

Mr. ZAPLITNY:

But in this House of Commons it is plain to everybody who has ears to hear that one member after the other in the official opposition, this session and in other sessions, rose in their places and attacked the government, and abused Donald Gordon for having maintained the price control system. They thought it was the most iniquitous thing in the world. One hon. member suggested that we take a sawed-off shot gun and go on a man-hunt for the officials of the prices board. [DOT]

Mr. LOCKHART:

I still say so.