Mr. King (Kootenay):

He would get a pension similar to the other pension.

Mr. King (Kootenay):

No, an old age pension.

That principle has been accepted right from the beginning. When one wants to amend legislation of this sort it is difficult to get away from its relationship with the old age pension.

Another point made was that the ceiling of permissible income should be raised. Here again there is the same relationship between the War Veterans Allowance Act and the Old Age Assistance Act-in both cases the ceiling is the same.

However, the act was amended last year by adding a new section 4 which, as hon. members know, permits the recipient of a war veterans allowance to take temporary employment, and then when that employment ceases go back on war veterans allowance without his earnings being considered as income.

Some criticism was offered on Saturday that this section 4 had not fulfilled the purpose for which it was enacted. One hon. member quoted a return brought down to the house which indicated that only 231 recipients of war veterans allowance had taken advantage of the section. I think hon. members will agree that there is a reason for that. That section came into effect only on August 1, 1952. The type of employment contemplated by the section would be mainly summer seasonal employment. Undoubtedly during the first few months of the operation of the section only a few veterans took advantage of it. However, the number is increasing slowly and the officers of the department are quite sure that during the course of this summer a much greater number of veterans will benefit by this section. In actual practice the section will permit a veteran to earn outside income for a period of a few months without it being considered income for the purposes of war veterans allowance.

I think it was the hon. member for Royal who read a letter or article to the house which demonstrated the impossibility of a recipient of war veterans allowance doing certain types of work. The case which he put before the committee was, I think, that of a veteran who had been offered employment by the minister of the local church.

Mr. King (Kootenay):

Yes.

Mr. Mackenzie King:

Oh, yes, he did; he would

regret having done it, and he would come to see the wisdom of an agreement being negotiated with that country. That prophecy came true. It is not like the prophecies of my right hon. friend. He shakes his head and says 'No." Then he explains his whole position, because he now makes it perfectly clear that he never actually intended to try to secure an agreement.

We go a little further and we find that later on when the house was considering the agreement itself Mr. Maybank, who was then a new member in the house, said this, as reported at page 818 of Hansard:

No; we do not have to worry about the balance of trade with any particular country. We all know now; we have learned to our sorrow in the last five years, that we cannot sell if we do not buy, and that people outside cannot sell to us if they will not buy from us. Naturally I shall support this treaty because it is the one bright spot in the fiscal policy panorama of this country for a great many years.

I go on a little further and I find that a vote was taken on the agreement. It will be very interesting to learn how that vote went. I do not suppose it would be permissible to put the names of those who voted against the agreement on the record, but I will read a few of them. Thirty-nine Conservatives voted against the agreement. There was Mr. Barber who was then the member for Fraser Valley; Mr. Beaubier, the member for Brandon; the Right Hon. R. B. Bennett; Mr. Casselman, the whip of the Conservative party; two or three other members from British Columbia; Mr. Graydon; Mr. Perley, the member for Qu'Appelle, and several other members from Ontario and from different parts of the country. Apparently the party voted solidly against that agreement. I thought it was worth while, Mr. Speaker, to put that on the record because we believe that that agreement of 1935 brought more by way of prosperity to Canada than any other single act that could have been committed by any government; but it was followed within a few months by fifteen more trade agreements entered into with different countries by the government of Mackenzie King. Our

prosperity and our economy went up and up. I have some figures here to show-

Mr. Mackenzie King:

-as a young member. Sir Wilfrid Laurier said that he thought my right hon. friend (Mr. Bennett) would live to see the day when he would regret having opposed a reciprocity agreement with the United States.

I could go on and read quite a bit more because there is a lot more here that is pertinent. Mr. Bennett then said:

Oh, no.

He did not regret it. I continue: