pose to point out, they have taken the full population of 6,500,000. If the strings had Some hon. MEMBERS. Hear, hear. Yes. An hon. MEMBER. What about Kent county, New Brunswick? the since I had the honour of knowing them or knowing the way in which the country was being conducted under their regime. There is a provision in the estimates of $3,000,000 to assist in the maintenance of the navy, but that is being proposed by the government. I am not in favour personally of contributing any sum of money by way of cash contribution to imperial defences. I believe that is against Liberal policy and against Liberal principles. I am opposed to that for two reasons. I believe that no British people should provide money to be expended except under their own supervision, that there should be no taxation to be expended by other people. It violates a broad principle that actuates this government and the people of Canada, and I do not believe that the country would be at all satisfied if a contribution were made by this government to the imperial government for the purpose of building Dreadnoughts. I attempted to show that we still have that in the development of these now unin this province great mineral wealth, and explored regions, we will be able to show the people of the world that Canada is as rich in minerals and other valuable natural resources, as we are sometimes fond of stating. We do know that the Cobalt district is the richworld, and I hope of its character, in the that in the country yet undeveloped there will opportunities for the uncovering of minbe eral rocks that have been moss covered and weather beaten for ages and that we will have more than one Cobalt district in this country. est district our great resources. The area in the three sections mentioned from Moncton to Quebec is seven or eight times as large as Prince Edward Island. That is a territory of some importance to the people. And when we consider the great territory now being opened up west of Winnipeg by the Transcontinental, we find that over 200,000,000 acres will be made available for grain-growing, The hon. member for North Toronto stated the other day that in 1900 we had from the west 32,000,000 bushels of grain, in 1907 160,000,000, in 1908, 230,000,000, and in 1909 the crop amounted to 313,000,000 bushels. The hon. gentleman endeavoured to point out that the farmer, not Fielding, had brought these good times. But I would like to ask the hon. member, were he in his seat, who put the farmer in a position to give to Fielding the revenue that gave to the government the opportunity to present the budget we are now discussing? The hon. gentleman says that the increase produced by the farmer is worth $50,000,000 and may be more, and he asks what particular praise and honour are due to the government for that? And I say, the honour is due to the government for their foresight in the administration of our affairs, for adopting a policy when they came into power that has brought about the conditions we see to-day. Praise and honour are due the government for the wise immigration policy they adopted. In 1895-6, we received from Dominion lands $219,326.14. But what did this government receive last year? In 1908-9, our receipts from Dominion lands were $2,175,214.31. In 1900, the product of the west under the govern ment of that day was 32,000,000 bushels. I Coming to the administration of our do not know what it was in 1896; we have natural resources generally, I believe that no returns to show. But, as I have already we should adopt a policy that will give to said, the crop in 1909 was 313,000,000 bush- our own country, all the development it is els. Deduct from this the 32,000,000 bushels possible for it to have, that we should produced in 1900, and we find an increase manufacture into the completed state all in nine years of 281,000,000 bushels of grain. the iron and steel and pulp wood and And if we are able to induce the same in- nickel that it is possible for us to do in flux of population into the west as has been this country. By quoting a figure or two, going on-and I hope and believe they will I will be able to show the House-and I am come in far more speedily-we shall be speaking only for myself and not at all able to demonstrate that which we have discussing the question of any export duty said so often, that Canada is the granary-what amount of money we are permitting of the empire. Hon. members opposite de- to leave our country by allowing our timber precate expenditures; they criticise every to be exported in the condition it now is. appropriation made by the government to At the same time, I believe that that percarry on the affairs of the country. Well, haps can be better regulated in another my experience is that there are no angels parliament than this. A cord of pulp in the management of worldly affairs, but wood, whether in the tree or on the wharf, I believe the government are doing all they is worth from $2 to $7 a cord. In low grade possibly can. They are liable to make mis- paper, it is worth from $38 to $45 a ton, takes, and the mistakes liable to our and when it is made into high grade paper common humanity. But, on the other it is worth $50 to $100 per ton. The quanhand, if there are any angels on the tity of pulp wood exported last year was other side of the House, they have 794,986 cords of a value of $4,356,391, or taken good care to disguise them- about $5.75 a cord. If that were made selves, for I have not found them into paper at $50 per ton it would amount to $37,749,300, a difference of $33,000,000 in favour of having it manufactured into paper in this country. That would be a ninefold increase. If in the next 10 years we exported 1,000,000 cords at $5.75 that would be $57,500,000. Taking the same quantity manufactured into paper at $50 per ton it would realize $513,750,000, a difference in favour of Canada of $462,250,000. That difference represents the gain between exporting raw products and manufacturing them to their completed condition - the employment of labour and industrial gain in the building and operation of machines. If we take 1,000 feet board measure of pine lumber and have it cut, it would have a value of about $18 to $20 per thousand feet. The labour in that would represent about $7 or $8. Converted into paper, a similar quantity of pulp wood its value would be about $31.50, the labour being about $12. The proportion of investment would be about $5 in a sawmill to $41 in a pulp mill, so that from the point of view of investment of capital, there is an advantage in favour of the pulp mill of about $36. This will demonstrate to the people of this country that if we adopted a policy of having our pulp wood manufactured into paper,-I do not say for the government to do it, that is not my intenntion or desire-we would benefit our national industries to an extent almost beyond computation, that in allowing raw pulp wood to be exported to other countries we are sacrificing the great advantage it would be to Canada to have it manufactured here. If we allowed to be exported in the next ten years the proportionate quantity equal to the present export, we should only realize fifty-seven and a half million dollars. If we manufactured at home the same quantity of pulp wood into paper at the small value of $7.50 per ton, it would amount in round numbers to five hundred and fourteen millions of dollars. Deducting fifty-seven millions, the value of the raw material, from the gross value of the manufactured article, we have four hundred and sixty-three million to represent the positive gain to Canada by this manufacture of her pulp wood. I desire further to impresse on the House that our chief natural products, such as silver, nickel, iron and steel, steel being in my judgment a raw material, should, where it is at all possible, be converted into the manufactured article within the borders of Canada. I desire to see the equipment of the defensive sea force or, if it is necessary, the offensive sea force, manufactured in this country if it is at all possible. We have in one portion of the province of Ontario to-day, the Collingwood Shipbuilding Company. That company has done and is doing a great deal, and with proper encouragement, might become a a stil more important industry. It can build ships for our inland waters and for our seas as well. The hon. member for South York, this afternoon, endeavoured to make, as he usually does in his newspaper, scoop. He presented to the House a policy which I wish to discuss. It has been said that in the coal fields of the eastern provinces, we have the steel and the coal lying alongside of each other and I think it was Mr. Schwab, President of the United States steel corporation, who said there was coal and iron lying alongside each other in Nova Scotia, sufficient to last for 100 years. We have the same conditions on the Pacific as on the Atlantic, and we have similar conditions in the intermediate portions of Canada. I would like to see the government of the Dominion endeavour to have created in Canada a ship building industry that will give the people of Canada opportunity of commencing to build their own fleet, their own navy on the soil of Canada. an As we have marked our great Transcontinental railway from the Atlantic to the Facific with steel rails made in Canada, so I hope we shall have a navy with the same brand upon it, 'Made in Canada.' If this can be done, it would be a very satisfactory state of affairs. We see to-day a great Canadian combination of iron and steel capitalists, perhaps the greatest combination that Canada has ever seen, and yet I believe that combination is for the benefit of the people of this country as well as of those more immediately concerned. I hope that the government will call the attention of those great capitalists to the fact that it is possible to establish the nucleus of a ship building industry in this country that will give to our manufacturing establishments an impetus they never had before. The ship building industry of England was not created in a day; it was like Topsy, it 'jest growed,' it was like the British constitution, it was not created, but it grew. I suppose that Great Britain, if it were necessary, could turn out all the Dreadnoughts that she requires. I am not one of those who fear the downfall of England. I am just as loyal a British subject as any other member of this House, and I have no fears of England's bulwarks falling to pieces, and I have no fears that this Dominion and the other colonies will not do the best they can, and will not go as far as the people of this country desire them to go, in assisting in naval and imperial defence. I am satisfied that when the policy of the government is made known, the country will find that the government has done all that it is their duty to do. There is one other question I desire to touch upon, and that is the expenditure in connection with Crow's Nest Pass railway. When the hon. member for North Toronto was telling what the government had done, he forgot to say that this government had expended $3,500,000 in endeavouring to give the railway accommodation that is required in the country traversed by the Crow's Nest Pass railway. If he will turn to the customs receipts, he will find that from the territory served by the Crow's Nest Pass railway the customs receipts have amounted to three times over the cost of that railway, as far as government aid was concerned. I believe this government has done the best they could for the country. Of course they are human, and like every one else they will make mistakes, but I believe they have done the best that could be done. This country is increasing its expenditure, but at the same time it is growing rapidly in wealth, and I think in the main all the expenditure has been justified. I do not know that, having in mind the relations and record of the government in the matter of expenditure of public money for public purposes, I could say anything more suitable in closing than to repeat the remarks made by Sir Charles Tupper at a political meeting in the city from which I come, when he said: Although this country is increasing its debt, it is being incurred in the erection of those triumphs of peace-in public works that will stand for ages as the monuments of an energetic people who laid the foundation of Canadian nationality amid the wilds of North America. I am sure that this utterance of Sir Charles Tupper, made thirteen or fourteen years ago, was justified, and would apply with greatly intensified force to the conditions of to-day under the present administration. I think it is the very general belief throughout Canada that we have never had in the history of this country a government that endeavoured more faithfully to act fairly and squarely by all the provinces, by all the varied interests of this country, than the government which we on this side have the pleasure of supporting. Mr. ALEXANDER MCCALL (Norfolk). It is not my intention to criticise at any length the speech of the hon. member who has just taken his seat (Mr. Stratton). The hon. gentleman strove to make it appear that in the great prosperity and development this country has enjoyed in recent years, the Conservative party had done nothing and that it was all due to the Liberal government. He intimated that the increase in population of this country has been due to the Liberal party, assisted by immigration. Does he really think that the Conservatives of this country have done nothing towards building up this country and towards peopling it? For my part I do not wish to be denied the credit of having done something to promote the prosperity of this country, and I am sure that my Conservative constituents also claim credit for having done something to bring about the prosperity which Canada now enjoys. That style of argument in which the hon. gentleman indulged is one well known throughout this country, and has been heard in every schoolhouse during the last eight years. It is just such an argument as one may hear in a corner grocery among politicians who sit around the stove. Sir, I think we have got beyond that, at least in this House and at this day. Now I must make some reference to the claim he and his friends make of having discovered New Ontario. If they discovered New Ontario they were a long time doing it. They were in power since 1873, and only during their last eight years did they make an effort to find out what New Ontario really was. When the Conservative government came into power they found the pulp wood areas parcelled out among a few friends of the government, a country equal to several of the smaller kingdoms of the old world, with an area larger than that of Belgium or Denmark, kingdoms containing a population of 3,000,000 or 4,000,000. These pulp wood areas were divided up and held until the change of affairs came. Then the concession was very promptly cancelled and the pulp wood was put on the market and sold to the highest bidder. The same thing is true with respect to the timber areas. Sales of timber were made in the closing days of the Ross administration in large blocks, townships and areas of 36 square miles at prices which did not exceed one third of the prices obtained by the present government by the method of putting timber up in small parcels and allowing the small jobber or mill man to come in, make his bid and get his limit. I venture to say that there was not a limit sold under the Ross regime that brought over $5 a thousand feet. Sales have since been made under the present regime at $13 per thousand feet, with $2 dues added; so that the reference to the methods that prevail in Ontario is not happy. Mr. STRATTON. No timber was sold in Ontario under the Mowat government, the Hardy government or the Ross government except by public tender or public auction. Mr. McCALL. I would ask the hon. member for Nipissing (Mr. Gordon) to say if he knows any thing about the burnt lands along Sturgeon river and if they were not parcelled out among the friends of the party and cut under permits. If I chose to take the time I could cite a number of other instances but I do not know that this really belongs to the discussion. Reference was made again to the Trent Valley canal. This is an old scarred veteran of many an election campaign and many an election speech. The hon. gentleman was mistaken in saying that more had been done upon that work since the Liberal party obtained power than had been done in forty years by the other party. But, he will bear me out in saying that the Trent Valley improvement was a provincial work and was carried on as a provincial work until quite recently; so that whatever fail ures or successes were achieved belong not to the old Conservative party alone. Objections have been taken in this House to the Trent Valley canal, but I shall not take up the time of the House in discussing it further than to say that in the estimates this year we find a very considerable sum provided for expenditure upon the Trent Valley canal, but we find nothing for the branch feeder known as the Newmarket canal. It is not unlikely that this has been hiding behind its big brother and so escaped observation. But, if the Newmarket canal is justifiable, and hon. gentleman say that no part of the expenditure can be pointed out as unwarranted, what is to prevent other towns in that vicinity from seeking the same facilities? Remember that these canals are called feeders. The hon Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Fisher) will appreciate this phrase-feeders. It represents a branch of the farm stock that is allowed access to the trough day and night; so that those communities that get access to the canals or railways of the country may be well termed feeders because they are upon the public treasury and will be as long as time lasts. I dare say that Aurora, Schomberg and other towns near Newmarket will be glad to have the canal extended to their limits. Doubtless appli cations will be made on the eve of the next election for an expenditure. These people will not be deterred from applying for public money because the distance is too great. They will realize that the longer the canal the greater the expenditure. It is about time we heard some thing about the Georgian bay outlet of the Trent canal. That question has been before the people of North Simcoe and North Ontario for many years, but it will be in order, in about a year, or a year and a half, for engineers to go through there again and set the old farmers guessing whether it is the canal again or whether it is the election. In discussing the budget, perhaps, like other hon. members, I have found it is a somewhat difficult matter to attempt to master all the details of our fiscal system and I will venture to say that an ordinary member like myself, coming from the com mon walks of life into this House, feels. to a great extent, that in our tariff and our transportation system there are a great many things that are of such a technical character that he cannot very well master all the questions that he would like to discuss intelligently. I acknowledge my in ability to master all these details and I have heard from a great many others that they are in the same position. As this country developes, by the grace of the Liberal party here, not by the efforts of the Conservatives, our tariff will become still more complex. Our transportation problems will become more complex, the social and industrial questions which we have to face will be more pressing and the question has occurred to me if there was not some method by which all these questions that are out of the ordinary character could be discussed by people who had special abilities in that direction. I might venture to suggest to the House a remedy that has occurred to me. If the Liberal party desire to adopt some general scheme of reform would they not apply to the Senate such a reform as would bring into that body talent specially qualified to deal with these more difficult and complex questions? I know that I am trespassing upon dangerous ground. My hands are trembling as I speak upon the subject. I dare not touch it except in this casual way, but would it not be possible to limit the appointment to five, six or seven years and, by a convention between the two parties, make it a condition that the class of men who had made a special study of the problems we have to deal with should be appointed-some of the men who bulk big in the eyes of the people of this country, the big financiers, the big transportation men, and the men who have made a special study of industrial, social and tariff questions that perplex us. These questions could be discussed and threshed out in the upper Chamber and then passed along to this House. In that way we would save a great deal. With reference to our transportation affairs we would save duplication of railways from one end of this country to the other. If we had had the benefit of the advice of such men as Sir Thomas Shaughnessy, Mr. Hays, and Mr. McGuigan it would have prevented the duplication of the Intercolonial Railway and the New Brunswick section of the Grand Trunk Pacific, it would possibly have prevented the duplication and paralleling of tracks all through the west. It certainly would prevent two rival canal schemes traversing the country. I do not know that it is worth while for a member on this side of the House to offer a suggestion to the government, but nevertheless I throw this hint out as to one way in which this parliament and future parliaments can deal with these questions as they come up. Now, the tariff is complicated; we have a minimum tariff, and a maximum tariff, and a free list, and a list of articles upon which taxes may be put on or taken off, and we have the British Preference surtax, and we have treaties with several countries, and when the ordinary business man tries to under |