Mr. Macdonnell:

But one of the things that we wanted to do is to try to inform ourselves. I am well aware that the subject of national defence is a very very difficult one but we do want to try to understand the problems involved, to see whether any savings could be made there, as the hon. member for Esquimalt-Saanich suggested there could.

Mr. Harris:

Yes, the hon. member for

Esquimalt-Saanich proposed a different form of contribution to the NATO forces than that which we have been making. I know that the hon. member for Esquimalt-Saanich, as well as other hon. members, over a period of the last eight or nine years have spent a great deal more time in investigating the affairs of national defence than has been true of any opposition in any commonwealth country.

Mr. Macdonnell:

With limitations.

Mr. Harris:

But in all that time they have not been able to come up with a better idea than the government policy nor have they been able to come up with any suggestion for saving very much money.

Now I want to refer briefly to the comments that I was supposed to have made in Toronto and which were quoted-I do not recall the exact words but I take my hon. friend's word for it. If I made the issue or, at least, stated the issue to be in that form, it may be that I was echoing to some extent the sentiments of my hon. friend himself as stated in this house. I can well recall my hon. friend as well as other members of the opposition constantly appealing to the public not to vote for party but to vote for principle; not to vote according to tradition -because of course that would mean they would vote Liberal in most cases-but to vote on the conduct of government. And this is what I was saying in Toronto. I was giving my hon. friend an opportunity to make some hay perhaps; I was suggesting "Don't let us just have Conservatives voting Conservative" because in any case there would not be enough of them to be of any use to my hon. friend. I was saying, "Let us forget all about partyism; let us see whether we have a competent and capable government or not." I was confident that if I could make that the issue we would be returned to power.

If these are the sentiments of someone who is urging a one party state, perhaps my hon. friends will take it as a reflection of their own conduct. It was only today that some member opposite complained that the hon. gentlemen on this side voted by party; the Leader of the Opposition himself used the words-I do not know if it was a quiescent minority or a quiescent group on the government side which voted according to party without any quibble or any thought whatever about the consequences.

Mr. Macdonnell:

Well show us your real liberals and we will be content.

Mr. Harris:

Well, real liberals long since left my hon. friend's party-if they ever belonged to it. Real liberals know that my friend's party over the years has followed a policy in trade and in many other respects including even finance, which if I were to call it reactionary would be describing it correctly. I say this without complaint about your conduct on other matters. Let me put it frankly: The real liberal today is a man who is concerned about the future of parliament; he is concerned about the future-

Mr. Diefenbaker:

He would need to be.

Mr. Harris:

He is concerned about the conduct of all political parties. They will uphold the traditions of democracy as we know it. My hon. friend has no real monopoly on this. There are hon. members on this side of the 82715-219

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house who think as deeply on these subjects as I know he does, and I believe he has spent a lot of time considering the subject-

Mr. Macdonnell:

They are strangely silent, then.

Mr. Harris:

This of course is just another indication of misunderstanding in my hon. friend's mind as to the difference between understanding and speech. We do not have to parade our sentiments on every occasion to remain loyal to them. They are in our hearts; they are there and will be brought out when needed and we do not have to be talking about them every day.

My hon. friend has made a point on the whole question of parliament and he has harked back to the pipe line debate. If necessary in the campaign we will deal with that matter but I have an idea that my hon. friends would not want it as an issue, because in a general way I think they will agree that if there were things that happened last May and June which are to be deplored, this party and this government cannot be held solely to blame. I would not want to attempt to admit any conduct on anyone's part should be deplored or magnified, but I do say this: If my hon. friend or his party want to make the pipe line or the conduct of the debate on the pipe line in this house an issue, it will suit the Liberal party just as well as it will any other party.

I come back for a moment to some of my hon. friend's other remarks about budgetary and finance matters. In every speech that has been made by the hon. gentlemen opposite they have talked about greater expenditures than ever before; today we had one speaker in the opposition compare expenditures, I believe in 1946 or 1947, with those of the present time, completely overlooking the fact that our population has increased by about 35 per cent in that time and that the government always lags behind in providing services for industry and the population generally. Industry goes ahead with its plans and its expenditures and government comes along behind to provide the services. It must inevitably be behind demand, because the demand must first arise and the result is that there comes a time when business may possibly be slowing up; expansion may not be as great. However, government is catching up with the demand and then it appears to be spending more money, relatively, than business may be in that particular year.

I am not suggesting that that is what is happening at the present time; on the contrary I suggested the opposite in my budget speech. I pointed out that the expected increased expenditure of this government

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this year is less percentage-wise than the investment program increase suggested by industry in February to the Department of Trade and Commerce. Therefore if my hon. friend is concerned only with the total expenditures of money he ought to complain about business expending greater sums this year as well as about the expenditures of this government. I know he would not do that; I know he feels the expansion of business is necessary and desirable and that he would not by any means restrict it. I have not suggested that they should be restricted, except in so far as a certain amount of restriction is necessary in those lines of endeavour in which there are signs that inflationary pressures may or probably would get out of hand.

Mr. Macdonnell:

I approve of what Mr. Gordon is doing.

Mr. Harris:

And for that reason we cut expenditure on construction by $105 million in our estimates this year, although I admit that the total of our expenditure has risen. But in addition to the main estimates, we have placed these supplementary estimates before the house, and in other speeches they have made, hon. gentlemen opposite have been careful to say: "We are wholly in favour of all of these; in fact there should be more in them than there is."

If the hon. gentleman were to be consistent he would say I ought not to have brought in those supplementary estimates. Instead of that he says there ought to be more in them. I am not sure whether he had in mind total expenditure, or whether he spoke solely of those expenditures which would affect inflation as we understand it at the moment in Canada. Let me point out that what I said almost a month ago still holds true: that there are signs that in some lines of industry prices will rise, demand will increase, and labour may be scarce. In other lines there is an indication of a moderation, and we are now in the same position as we were then, namely that there may be a price rise later this year and for that reason both the government and industry have to be careful that they do not take too much from the limited supply of labour and material.

Now there may be other lines of business in which caution need not be as great, for the reasons I have indicated. I must say I was astonished to find the hon. gentleman making a campaign speech on what is purely a financial matter. I listened to him with a good deal of interest, and I think I appreciated the points he made. Most of them are stale; most of them have been rejected by the electors at successive elections on the past two occasions.

I have heard about this so-called contempt of parliament ever since I came to this house, but I have no way of knowing what it means, because having had some experience in these matters, having studied the records of other parliaments, I assert, in the confident expectation that no one on the benches opposite can refute it, that this government in this parliament has given greater opportunity, longer time, and greater consideration to an opposition than has been shown in any other parliament in the world.

The Leader of the Opposition used to talk at great length about orders in council, and this used to worry me a little, because orders in council have a somewhat secret and, perhaps, unusual connotation. When I was a boy in school I thought they were terrible things because they caused a war in 1812. As I say, this used to bother me until I went to a political meeting and somebody asked me about orders in council, wanting to understand what they were all about. And before I could answer, the municipal clerk got up and said: "Orders in council in Ottawa are the kind of thing we put through in minutes at our municipal council here." At which the issue ceased to be an issue in my county for all time.

Mr. Fleming:

I suppose you know the clerk was wrong.

Mr. Harris:

I did not hear the Leader of the Opposition take up the question of orders in council today. After four or five years he has changed to something else, because he knows that the public instinctively learns what it is all about.

Mr. Diefenbaker:

Oh, no. You beat a definite retreat from orders in council.

Mr. Fleming:

You can thank the opposition for driving you into a retreat with regard to that.

Mr. Harris:

The hon. gentleman from Greenwood has suggested that the ministers of the crown will go out in this campaign clad in shining armour, putting forward the horrible proposition that they can do no wrong; and he quoted a couplet, from the Scottish psalter I was going to say but I do not think he quite got it from that source.

The Canadian people are a very sensible group of people and if there were any sham or any pretence they would be the first to see through it and reject anyone who was foolish enough to try to put it over. In the last two elections the government after four years of doing its best to administer the affairs of the country-

Mr. Fleming:

Did not get a majority of votes cast.

Mr. Harris:

-went to the country, and in no case that I recall was a cabinet minister defeated. If we took the hon. gentleman's suggestion seriously that we should try to make a pretence and try to tell the public that it would be improper to replace us, I suggest to him that the Canadian people would not stand for that very long.

The issues in the campaign will of course be fought out in the course of the next two months. I did not intend to take up this matter tonight; in fact, there are a great many questions which hon. members opposite have asked and which I intend to answer before we conclude this debate if I have an opportunity. But I can assure the hon. gentleman that having tried this speech out, and having heard my brief and impromptu comments on it, I do not want him to be scared of using it again because I think it is a most useful document and one which will come in handy for the Liberal candidate in Greenwood.

Mr. Knowles:

May I call it ten o'clock, Mr. Chairman?

Progress reported.

Business of the House BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE