Mr. TUCKER:

They take the attitude now that this item is too low and-

Mr. TUCKER:

The members of the Conservative party take one position one minute and another position the next. They complained bitterly that we were not getting a low enough tariff on goods we shipped into the United States, and now the hon. gentleman who has been speaking for the Conservatives-

Mr. W. A. TUCKER (Rosthern):

Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to detain the house very long, but I want to bring to the attention of hon. members the situation in which we find ourselves as representing this dominion. Every hon. member who has spoken to-day has endorsed the principle of this resolution. They agree that those who have been unfortunate enough to lose their sight are deserving of some assistance from their more fortunate fellow Canadians. It is admitted that something should be done at once, but nearly every hon. member who has spoken has brought up the question of where the money is to come from. As I listened to the

speeches of hon. members I was reminded of David Copperfield. In that book mention is made of a person who was trying to write a history but who could not get around King Charles' head. It kept coming up and coming up. This problem of where to find the money keeps coming up in connection with every proposal made in the house. It is agreed that it is desirable to do something, but the contention is that we have not the money. We all know that if we were faced with war the necessary credit would be forthcoming. Great Britain considers that she is faced with the danger of war and she is able to make an immediate appropriation of $1,500,000,000. We know that if Canada were in the same danger we would have no difficulty in finding the necessary credit to carry on any defence plans deemed necessary.

The hon. gentleman (Mr. Ryan) who has just spoken has indicated that this resolution has been used by some hon. members as an excuse to make an attack upon the bankers.

I think the hon. gentleman has misconstrued the attitude of that increasing number of men who count themselves as monetary reformers. They do not attack the bankers as individuals; they attack the system which has grown up during the last fifty years. They do not suggest that the bankers are any less devoted than is anyone else to the best interests of society, but they do say that the financial system is not working in the best interests of the people. I would point out that some of the greatest economists in the world to-day have come to the definite conclusion that in the twentieth century we are trying to do business under a financial system that, while it may have done fair service in the nineteenth century, is just as much out of date to-day as is the ox-cart when compared with the motor car. I hear member after member say that the financial system is too complicated for parliament to deal with, but I suggested that if they really want something done along the lines which have been just suggested, they should devote their study to the financial system and the banking policy.

It is a well recognized fact that the country is continually going deeper into debt. If we could not afford to do a certain thing last year, there is not much hope of our being able to afford to do it this year and there is less hope of our being able to afford it in the future. We are willing to speak soft words on behalf of and offer sympathy to the blind, but we have not the money to do anything for them. This reminds me of a certain saying in the bible: They asked for bread and he gave them a stone. It reminds me of the

Pensions jor the Blind

parable of the loaves and fishes at the time when the multitude were to be fed. The question was asked where the money was to come from, but the multitude were fed with bread and fish without money coming into the question. We as a deliberative assembly must devote ourselves to finding ways and means of doing what is physically possible, Tegardless of whether the financial system as at present constituted stands in the way. If we do not do this we are not doing our duty to the people of Canada.

What these blind people need is food, clothing and some of the other good things of life. If the financial system does not permit us to do those things which we as a Christian people realize we should do, which we know we have the ability to do, then it should be changed. If we refuse to study this problem can we say that we are as serious as we should be in our desire to do something for these people? That is the question I put to the house. This is the test that faces this House of Commons. Do we really mean these things? Do we want to have them done? If so, let us begin to study some of the ways suggested by the greatest economists not only of the English-speaking nations but of the world. Let us begin to give serious and sympathetic consideration to those suggested ways and means whereby in this twentieth century we may go forward and place at the disposal of these blind people the things that it is physically possible to put at their disposal. The things that are physically possible should be financially possible, and if under our present system they are not financially possible, although physically possible, then we are subordinating the best interests of the people to adherence to a system; we are refusing, by our adherence to an outworn system which no longer serves humanity to the best possible advantage, to benefit by the abundance which providence has given us. I am not now advocating any particular change in the system, but I know that every hon. member present would like to do something for the blind as well as for others who are unable to look after themselves. As the hon. member for Saskatoon (Mr. Young) has said, fifty-four per cent of what we raise in taxation is going towards paying interest on our debt. That is where the money is going and it is in that quarter that we should direct the searching gaze of parliament to find out whether we cannot there save money and thereby serve the best interests of the Canadian people.

Mr. TUCKER :

If we are going to deprive the farmer of practically all his money, if it takes all his earnings to pay interest, he can ill afford to pay a higher price for his farm implements. I thought the Minister of Finance would like to be reminded of those days when he pioneered in Saskatchewan, but as he does not want the time of the house taken up with these references I shall come back to the resolution.

The people .of Canada elected those whom they thought were the men likely to represent them best in this House of Commons. They hope tihat their representatives will do the best they can to figure out and solve their problems. During the next year they expect that something definite will be done to lighten their burdens and enable them once more to live the life which we expect ordinary Canadian citizens to live. The hon. member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Ross) has referred to the fact that these farm implement companies are raising their prices in the face of a reduction in the tariff. The right answer to that kind of action is: If you are in a position to raise your prices despite a lowered tariff, then we will take the tariff off altogether. It has been suspected that an international combine or cartel exists in connection with the marketing of oil and gasoline and perhaps one exists in connection with the manufacturing of farm implements. If it is found that the large manufacturers of the world are getting together to control prices regardless of tariffs, then I submit that the Liberal party has a policy well designed to deal with such a problem. A part of this policy is contained in the Combines Investigation Act.

Present conditions constitute a challenge to the intelligence and wisdom of parliament.

Over half our people have lost two-thirds of their purchasing power while the price of the articles they require has been rising. This is not my problem alone; it is the problem of every member of parliament. I commend most highly the hon. member who introduced this resolution (Mr. Johnston, Lake Centre). This problem should be submitted to some group of men who will examine into it and try to do something for the basic producers on the western plains who are endeavouring to do ail they can to get along under present conditions. I feel sure that hon. members from eastern Canada will give us their cooperation. They know that unless the great primary industries, such as the farming industry of Canada, are prosperous, the manufacturers of Ontario and Quebec will be in a depression and faced with unemployment. No matter whether a member represents an agricultural constituency in western Canada or a manufacturing constituency in Ontario, it is equally his duty and his privilege to study this problem so that half the population of Canada may be brought back from practically a poverty stricken level to that upon which we want Canadians to be. Once the farmers of western Canada are able to buy the articles they need the manufacturing centres of the east will be prosperous and the spectre of unemployment will no longer stalk through our land.

Mr. TUCKER:

My hon. friend asks where it came from. The whole tariff policy, and especially that of the Conservative party, has been designed to benefit the central part of Canada at the expense of the west and the maritimes. The financial policy of this country has been so designed that it causes interest to flow into the head olfices of the big financial concerns situated in Ontario and Quebec. If I were a representative from Ontario I would not draw the attention of the people of Canada to the fact that my province was so well off, or that they could pay so much in the way of taxes at a time when the rest of the people cannot get even enough to live on.

That is the situation. As fellow Canadians we say to them that if we were in their position and were able to look after ourselves as well as pay taxes we would be glad to pay the taxes they are paying. I am not forgetting what the rest of Canada has done for Saskatchewan, and especially that section affected by drought. We have appreciated the attitude of sympathy and help extended to us, and that feeling of good will has done a great deal to tighten the bonds which bind confederation. But I ask them to give us not charity but justice. Let us have not, a situation in which they are wealthy and we are poor, shall I say, orphans, but rather one in which we have equal shares in our common patrimony. Does any person suggest that under our present organization there are equal privileges for all and special for none? I draw to your attention, Mr. Speaker

and I am sorry I have not the figures in front of me-the state of affairs disclosed in a brief submitted by the present Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) to the government of Nova Scotia, wherein it was shown that owing to tariff regulations in one year Saskatchewan alone paid about $28,000,000 more for what it had to buy, $4,000,000 of which went into the pockets of producers in Saskatchewan and $24,000,000 into the pockets of producers in

Farm Implements-Mr. Tucker

Quebec and Ontario. That happened in one year. The sum of $24,000,000 in increased prices went into the hands largely of private interests and corporations from Saskatchewan alone. And then we have hon. members from Ontario suggesting to us that they should have some special consideration because out of that money which we are pouring into their corporations they pay the bulk of the taxes. That is a situation which I deplore.

In connection with the question of wages, to which a previous speaker referred, may I observe that from 1913 to 1930 the average price of nine Canadian farm implements has increased by roughly $51.82. The surprising fact about the analysis is that of that increase only $1.36 went into wages. I commend that fact to the consideration of the hon. member for Brantford city (Mr. Macdonald). Of the $51.82 increase in price during those twenty years only $1.36 went into wages, and those are actual figures from the price spreads report. The amount going into factory wages in 1913 was $4.97, whereas in 1933 it was $6.38, or an increase of around thirty per cent. What about factory expenses? We find that factory expenses increased from $7.63 to $26.42, or an increase of almost four hundred per cent. That is where a great part of the increased price occurred.

I do not wish to condemn anybody. According to the factories manufacturing farm implements they are making no money, but I must bring this fact to the attention of hon. members: Here is the great basic

industry of agriculture getting one dollar where formerly it got three dollars. We find that the burden of debt is weighing too heavily upon the farmer and that, after all year after year, the cream of his crop is taken away. Every hon. member knows that when a man gives one-third of what he produces towards the payment of interest on his private indebtedness, as a great proportion of the farmers of the west have to do to-day, in many cases there is not enough left to look after himself and his family. What hope is there for the thousands of people on the western plains living under those circumstances?

When I speak, Mr. Speaker, I am thinking of the part of this dominion from which I come. According to the census there were

728.000 farmers in Canada who, with their wives and children, made up a total of

5.473.000 of our population. If you are going to say to almost 6,000,000 people in Canada: We are going to put you on a basis where your purchasing power is down by

two-thirds, but where you are going to carry the same private debt and where you are going to pay public debts at one hundred cents on the dollar; which means 200 or 300 cents on the dollar; when you consider the appreciation in the value of money; when you consider that the attitude of the preceding government was that we were to follow a policy of sound money and that we were going to drive our people until they paid every cent; when you consider that that is being done at the expense of our own Canadian people, our own flesh and blood on those western plains; and when you consider that it has not been considered wrong for the greatest of nations in the family of nations, namely Great Britain, to do otherwise, then we have cause for reflection.

What did Great Britain do with regard to her war debt? The Right Hon. Stanley Baldwin, Prime Minister of England, came over to the United States in 1922, I think it was, and promised formally to pay the large debt which Great Britain owed to that country. What do we find to-day? I think it is three years since Great Britain has paid anything and it is well understood that nothing will be paid on that debt. Of all the nations owing money to the United States, Finland is the only one that has paid as she agreed. The reason given by England for not paying is that she cannot pay. It has been said that England can pay only if the United States will take goods in payment. Do hon. members think Mr. Stanley Baldwin did not know that when he promised that England would pay her debt? I submit that he did know, or that it must be presumed that he knew. If it is all right for Great Britain to say that she cannot pay without ruining her people, it should be all right for the people of Canada to say that there should be an adjustment of private and public debt in order that they shall not be ruined.

There is a sheer necessity for some logical approach to the solving of this great problem of public and private debt which is such a burden upon the people. I submit that it is not enough to say that we will ride out the gale; that somehow we will pull through. The situation in western Canada is very serious. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) has just entered the chamber, and I do not believe there is an hon. member who knows better than he conditions in western Canada. He homesteaded there and he knows the privations and hardships that face the western farmer. He knows how unfair it is to deprive any of these men of the fruits of his hard labour of twenty or thirty years. I

Farm Implements-Mr. Tucker

know that I do not need to appeal to the minister as I believe he has given this question his earnest consideration. I think he is aware that something must be done with regard to the burden of taxation as well as of public and private debt which rests upon the people. Is it fair or equitable that the dollar should be inflated in value to a point where it now takes three times the quantity of basic products to pay a debt contracted five years ago.