Mr. WARREN:

I am rather at a disadvantage, Mr. Chairman; I came into the house

while the hon. member for Lanark (Mr. Thompson) was speaking, and certainly I was unaware that there was to be a speech of this kind dealing with this question. I realize that the riding represented by the hon. member for Lanark is more interested in the question of cheese than the riding which I represent. We do a good deal of dairying in Renfrew county, but principally in connection with the manufacture of butter rather than cheese.

Because I was not aware that this question was coming up I have none of the figures before me, but I must take very strong exception to the view that has been expressed by the hon. member for Lanark. Particularly must I take exception to an hon. member of this house adopting the attitude that the farmers of Canada ought not to bother their heads about the marketing of their own products. If there is one thing the farmers of this dominion ought to learn it is to pay some attention to the marketing of their products. We have been given, not only by the Department of Agriculture but by the farmers' organizations themselves, a great deal of education with regard to the proper grading of our products. During the past few years we have learned to sell our eggs on a graded basis. We have learned to a certain extent the proper type of hog to produce for the British market. We are learning that we ought to have our cream in proper condition so that we may produce the proper quality of butter for our markets. All this sort of education has been of great benefit not only to the producers but also to the consumers throughout Canada. Now we have reached a stage in the cheese industry, as far as grade is concerned, where there is not very much opportunity for improvement. Something happened last year, of course, that caused our grade to go down to some extent, but two years ago, if I remember correctly, our cheese graded something like ninety-eight per cent No. 1.

Here we have an effort on the part of the farmers of Ontario to get together in an organization of their own, financed by themselves, receiving a small grant from the federal treasury, and to improve the marketing of this important product. We must remember that in regard to cheese we are almost entirely dependent upon the export market. Our home market is very limited; we do not appear to be a cheese eating people. The situation is very different in regard to butter; we consume practically our total production of butter, but we must sell our cheese in outside markets. Here we have farmers representing every county in which cheese is manu-

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factured. These men get together and form an organization, which is surely a democratic organization, with directors appointed for each county. These men get together to-study the whole question, and they make an -effort to improve matters in connection with the selling of this product, to my mind with very considerable success as a beginning. It is true that they had a man in England last year, and I believe that this feature of their work is not being carried on this year. Even at that they are experimenting and studying the whole question. Yet we have the spectacle of a member of this house who represents a dairying section of the country objecting to farmers getting together and doing something for themselves in connection with the sale of their own product.

I submit that the farmers are entirely within their rights when they get together and say, "We are going to impose the small tax of one-tenth of a cent per pound, or five cents per hundred pounds, in order to make our contribution towards the organization." We must remember that that organization is in its infancy. They are experimenting and trying to find out how they can improve the market for and the sale of their own product. Yet this hon. member who comes from a farming community objects, contending that the farmers ought to attend to the production end and leave the selling to somebody else. That "somebody else" would mean commission houses; certainly they will take care of their own profits. The farmers, I repeat, are entirely within their rights in making an effort along these lines in order to better the selling of their product. If the Department of Agriculture is willing to give assistance to the organization by way of a small grant I am sure such assistance would be appreciated by the farmers of the province.

I have discussed the work of the organization with the heads of the Department of Agriculture and I find they are in complete accord with what is being done. They believe the efforts of the organization will be of considerable value to the farmers. I am entirely in favour of farmers getting together at any time to improve the marketing of their own products, and certainly to my mind there should be no objection when they are willing to finance the scheme by imposing a small tax on themselves.

Mr. WARREN:

Can the hon. member

suggest, with, say a five day week and a six hour day, and a high rate of wages in industry, how anybody could be kept working on the farms?

Mr. WARREN:

As a new member of this house I have had very little to say, but I have listened-sometimes with interest, and sometimes otherwise-to a great many speeches since coming here. We on this side have been keeping rather silent regarding this question of unemployment, but we have heard innumerable speeches on it from the opposite side. Anyone who is fortunate or unfortunate enough to be getting copies of Hansard would form the impression that this dominion is teeming with unemployed men and women and with men, women and children who are not properly clothed or housed or fed.

Mr. WARREN:

How do our boys get work? They just drift away and get jobs anywhere they want them. I can tell you that as far as North Renfrew is concerned there was not an employable unemployed man getting relief for the last six months of last year.

Mr. WARREN:

That is what we are up against. Hon. members may laugh. They talk as though this government has not done a thing. The other night I was at a farmers' meeting. One of the farmers said to me, "Have you done a single thing since you went to Ottawa?" He kept repeating his question, asking what we had done. I said, "Well, I shipped your hogs when you got $6.20 for a two-hundred pound hog. You give us a two-hundred pound hog to-day and we will give you S20 or $21 for it. You sold your butter fat for 15, 18 or 20 cents a pound. Now you can get 38 cents a pound. Has there been no improvement?"