Mr. ARMSTRONG (Lambton East):

What amount of money was spent by this government each year during the last five years at Belle River, Ontario, including bridging and construction work?

Mr. J. E. ARMSTRONG (East Lambton):

Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to present a petition from the celery growers in my constituency which reads as follows:

To the honourable the Senate and the House of Commons of Canada, in parliament assembied

The petition of the undersigned celery growers of the constituency of East Lambton, Ontario, humbly showeth: That we desire to have an embargo piaced on celery coming from the United States into Canada similar to the embargo placed on this product going into the United States from Canada by the government of the United States, from October to February of each year.

Wherefore your petitioners humbly pray that your honourable House may be pleased to grant the prayer of this petition, and as in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray. May 18th 1926.

The explanatory note is very short. It reads as follows:

Thedford, Ont., May 18, 1926.

J. E. Armstrong, Esq.,

Member of House of Commons,

Ottawa, Ont.

Dear Sir:

Enclosed find two copies ol our petition for the Senate and the House of Commons.

For your information the duty on celery entering the United States is twenty-five per cent and an embargo has been on for years against the celery from

C.N.R.-Minister's Statement

Canada entering the United States on account of the com borer which to date has never bothered celery but is used as a handle to stop exportation.

We would appreciate it as a body if an embargo was on from October to February 1st each year, so as to allow the local supply to be consumed before the southern states flood the market.

This resquast is asked not as a handle to boost prices but to allow the home grown product to have the market and work off the supply before foreign goods come on.

Thanking you in advance and trusting you will be successful in our cause,

I remain,

Yours very sincerely,

Chas. Kinmerley.

I may say that the crop grown in the district in 1924 consisted of over 250 carloads.

Mr. J. E. ARMSTRONG (East Lambton):

Mr. Speaker, it is not my intention to follow very closely the remarks of the hon. member for Willow Bunch (Mr. Donnelly) but there are a few of his statements to which I will refer for a moment. The hon. gentleman said that we ought to look after our own affairs, and not the affairs of the coun-

The Budget-Mr. Armstrong (Lambton)

try to the south. I ask my hon. friend how can we look after our own affairs better than by giving reasonable protection to our farmers and to our industries.

Mr. J. E. ARMSTRONG (East Lambton):

Mr. J. E. ARMSTRONG (East Lambton):

Mr. Speaker, before the order of motions is disposed of, I beg to move:

That the resolution of the House carried on Tuesday, April 13, concurring in the first report of the seilect standing committee on Agriculture, be rescinded.

My reason for asking that this resolution be rescinded is simply that the report does not contain a correct copy of the proceedings be-

Agriculture Committee

fore that committee. First I will read the resolution as presented to the House:

Mr. Kay, from the select standing committee on Agriculture and Colonization, presented the first report of the said committee, which is as follows:-

Your committee recommends that it be authorized to have its proceedings and such evidence as may be taken, printed from day to day for the use of .the members of the committee and of the House, and that rule 74 as relating thereto be suspended.

Now what actually occurred in that committee I shall show by reading to the House from the proceedings of the committee as they appear on the records of the clerk of the committee, Mr. A. A. Fraser. Here is a copy of the motion taken from the proceedings of the committee on Agriculture and Colonization at its meeting on April 14, 1926:

On motion of Mr. Armstrong, seconded by Mr. Letellier, the chairman was instructed to report to the House recommending that the committee be authorized to have its proceedings and evidence printed from day to day, and also' to have printed such addresses by government officials as may be presented and as it selects.

That, Mr. Speaker, is a very different statement from that which appears in the report that was accepted by this House. I need hardly say that we have had two meetings of that committee. The Deputy Minister of Agriculture attended the first meeting of the committee and spoke for about two hours, giving an address that should receive the widest possible publicity. At the next meeting of the committee, Mr. Archibald, director of experimental farms, gave a most excellent address, covering a period of nearly two hours, in which he dealt with matters pertaining to the different experimental farms and illustration stations throughout the country. Surely copies of these addresses should be available not only to the members of this House but for general distribution as well. That is my reason for asking that the resolution be rescinded and represented in the form in which it passed the committee.

W. F. KAY (Brome-Missisquoi): I think that my hon. friend the member for East Lambton has followed the wrong procedure in the motion which he has presented to-day. Had he done me the ordinary courtesy of speaking to me privately and telling me his troubles I think the matter could have been arranged most satisfactorily. However, I will make a statement of the circumstances touching this matter.

The motion which my hon. friend made in the committee on Agriculture and Colonization was not presented in writing as it should have been. The hon gentleman moved a motion at the end of our meeting

and the clerk of the committee took it down. I think the report which I presented to the House contains the gist of that motion which was a very short one. The motion, as far as I remember its tenor, was that I should be instructed to make a report to the House requesting that the committee should be empowered to have its proceedings printed from day to day for the use of members. The report presented to the House was drafted by the chief clerk of committees and he thought, after consulting with me as to what my hon. friend desired, that it would cover the hon. gentleman's idea. As chairman of the committee, my desire is to present a report which shall embody the substance of any motion which is passed by the committee. The report in question was presented on the 9th April and concurred in on the 13 th. It gives the committee power to decide what number of copies of the addresses made before it shall be printed. That is, the committee can decide at the end of a meeting whether it wants 500, or 1,000 or 10,000 copies printed. There is no limit contained in the recommendation. I think the hon. member for East Lambton, in the few words he uttered at the last meeting of the committee, stated that 10,000 copies should be printed. Another member suggested 100,000 copies, and a third very enthusiastic member suggested that the number of copies printed should be a million. There is no question but that the addresses delivered before the committee so far have been very interesting and very instructive to members of the committee and the House alike. One was an address by Dr. Grisdale, describing in brief form the work of the Department of Agriculture, and the other was an address by Mr. E. S. Archibald dealing with the activities of the experimental farm system. Now, I submit to the House that while these addresses are very valuable to the members of the committee, they are not such as should be printed and distributed throughout the country to the extent of 100,000 or a million copies. The Department of Agriculture issues a number of concise and illustrative pamphlets which in reality contain all the information to be found in these addresses. I am not sure from what my hon. friend from East Lambton has said to-day what he really wishes to be done. He has moved that the report of the committee which was concurred in be rescinded. I submit that he can achieve the result which he desires by making a motion at the next meeting of the committee that 10,000, or 100,000 or 1,000,000 copies be printed. That could be done and would be in perfect conformity with the report in which

Agriculture Committee

the House has concurred. I may say that since the report was adopted by the House the committee on Agriculture has met once and my hon. friend made no motion on that occasion. I submit that the proper procedure for him to have followed was to have made a motion at the last meeting of the committee-