our population? In the hope of success at ways running from the East to the West in the polls, they sometimes overstep the the course of a few years. In the year 2000 mark. Is it not time for us as a people to there will probably be more railroads runbestir ourselves, to show the best that is ning from the East to the West; therefore I in us, rather than the worst. We know do not think it is absolutely necessary that in the House of Commons parties have for anybody to go back on the third of by speeches or otherwise played the game railway, even supposing that some not be according of politics. There is a great field, however, the proposals may for work for the Senate to do. The Com- to our minds. mittee of Congress will, 1 understand, on recommendation by this Interstate Commerce Commission, or some other commission, that if on investigation it is found there is too much duty on one article, take it off; if too little duty, some will be added; if none is needed, then all will be taken off. Farming people are also to be subjected to the same commission, as to what their farms can produce. It is confidently expected that an independent commission, such as the Interstate Commerce Commission or our Railway Commission, with power to add to their members, and with the power of the more continent and of both Governments behind them, can bring about such a condition in a few years that the best to be found in every person, instead of the worst, can be obtained. Strikes will now disappear, our country will come together, capital and labour will in future respect and believe in one another; at present farmers can rise up and say to Parliament or Congress what they want, and the refusal to do so would mean disaster. Railways Companies would not be able to dictate the routes upon which they should run; the east and the west and the north and the south would be all the same. Our commission would be able to say what would be the best for the country, and the country would in time bring that about. The commission would do the best always, under all circumstances. Every one would be given an opportunity, and each would depend upon himself whether he would succeed or fail. If the United States, a great country with 100 millions of people, will try this, as they are going to do, then why not our country, Canada? We are to a certain extent dependent upon the United States for trade, for commerce and for many It may things. They are the same kind of people, they speak the same language, they have a great many things in common with us. at first look formidable, but it is not particularly so. Look at our country. It is growing fast; soon we will need more than three Transcontinental lines; we hope to see three; we hope to see four; we hope to see half a dozen rail We have the East and the West and the best land on the continent of America, and plenty of it. The countries across the ocean are over-populated; a great future is now before this great Dominion, and the dawn of that year 2000, 0 which I have spoken, will see many people inhabiting, not only our great prairie lands, but being absorbed in our towns and cities throughout the country. Ministers of the Crown, although they are generally the best men we can get, are not always infallible in their judgments. They should appoint to office under them those who can be depended upon, men who will look on their work as a responsibility they owe to the people at large, men who can render an independent judgment under all circumstances. If any senators or any of our Ministers of the Crown have seen that resolution which is now before Congress, and which will become law, because it comes from the President of the United States, I hope they will ponder over it. I am not dictating anything to any minister, or to the House here. I am only referring to this as an item which I have seen in a newspaper. I am personally interested in this matter. I have always been a manufacturer and am one to-day, but I found when I was in the House of Commons there was always some people from the West who talked free implements. I can give the House the name of Sir Hugh John Macdonald, at that time I could give the name of a gentleman from Regina also, and others on the Opposition side at that time who talked free implements. I can give you the names of men on the Liberal side also, who have also talked free implements. I would like if possible to see all these different interests, that have grown up side by side, running their business in such a way that an International Commission could possibly make all satisfied. We ought to be a united people; we are a loyal people; our industries and our farmers and workmen, and men behind the counter, and in all classes of work feel that through some occult influence there is a power that makes for justice throughout the country. And whether we are Conservative or Liberal we should have these if they were favourable to a treaty of reciprocity in natural products with the United States. The election was waged as between the Liberal party that stood for unrestricted reciprocity, in order to obtain limited reciprocity in natural products, and the Conservative party which was ready to bargain with the United States for a treaty in natural products. That was how the battle was fought in the election which terminated on the 5th March, 1891. I contend that on that date the whole of the electorate of Canada voted in favour of restricted reciprocity with the United States. Hon. Mr. WATSON-Hear, hear. different elements throughout the Dom- the willingness to discuss a treaty of reciinion harmonized, so that no one would procity in natural products. This was the be dissatisfied or discontented or felt cause, some say the pretext, of the dissoluthat any part of their industry or any tion of the House in February 1891, which part of their life work has been wiped out was a premature dissolution, for the purthrough some Act of Parliament, or by pose on the part of the Conservative Govspeeches of men who perhaps knew prac-ernment of asking the people of this country tically nothing about the business. We know that the United States Government are taking this subject up; we should take it up also. As far as I am concerned I would not care whether it was Liberals or Conservatives who took up the subject. We should do away with the animosities and antagonisms, which at present occupy the minds of the people to a much larger extent than hon. gentleman have any idea. Hon. Mr. DANDURAND-I crave the indulgence of the House for a few minutes to answer some of the remarks of the hon. gentleman from Wentworth, who has spoken of the variations of the Liberal party on the trade question. The hon. gentleman claims that the Liberal party during the last 30 years has often shifted its ground, and has spoken of the battle waged by that party up to 1891, in favour of unrestricted reciprocity with the United States. I shall admit that since 1891 the views of the Liberal party-their official views as well as those held perhaps by the majority of the leading Liberals in the country-have changed on this point, and that 20 years after that election of March 1891 the Liberal party would not have been disposed to go as far as it did then. If the hon. gentleman will recall the struggle of 1891 he will find that the two parties in Canada at that time held views to which neither of them clung 20 years after. In 1891 the Liberal party was in favour of unrestricted reciprocity with the United States, because it was convinced that what it wanted more especially, reciprocity in natural products, could not be obtained from the United States, except at that price. What the Liberal party wanted, especially in 1891, was the United States market for natural products. What was the position of the Conservative party, at that time holding power? It was and I speak in the presence of one of the members of the Cabinet of 1891-that if we could obtain reciprocity in natural products with the United States it would be a most welcome advantage for Canada. And what did take place in 1891? Sir John Macdonald's Cabinet dissolved Parliament for the reason, officially expressed, that Mr. Blaine, the Secretary of State of the United States had expressed Hon. Mr. DANDURAND-The Conservative party which received the majority of the vote of the electorate, obtained the sanction and mandate of that majority from the electors of Canada in favour of a bargain in natural products with the United States. Those who differed with them only differed because they wanted to go further and sanction an unlimited treaty of reciprocity, but mainly for the reason that they could not obtain the United States market for their natural products without that sacrifice. These were the conditions in 1891. I observe Sir Mackenzie Bowell), shaking his head my hon. friend from Hastings (Hon. in dissent. I say that Sir John Macdonald dissolved the House with the sanction of my hon. friend from Hastings in 1891, for the express purpose of consulting the people on the opportunity of making a treaty or bargain with the United States in order to have a free exchange of natural products. The Conservative Government at the time felt that the farmers of Canada needed, to such an extent a wider market, that there was peril in going to the people without showing a laudable effort on their part to obtain that United States market, while at the same time telling the manufacturers that the tariff would not be touched as far as it concerned them. That was the stand of the two parties in 1891. Sir John Macdonald carried the election. What did he do the next day? He sent a delegation. I have not the names of the members of the cabinet and 1 am not quite sure whether my hon. friend from Hastings was one of the deputation. REVISED EDITION. was. Hon. Sir MACKENZIE BOWELL-Yes, I have a profound conviction that if the Conservative party had been in power in 1911, and had been offered a treaty of reciprocity Hon. Mr. DANDURAND-And I remem- in natural products, they would have jumpber that there were a couple of representa-ed at the offer. I have that profound contives in the Cabinet from the Maritime pro-viction because I was present in the House vinces who accompanied the members of the when the then Minister of Finance (Hon. Government to Washington. Mr. Fielding), laid before the House the details of that bargain, and I could see the Hon. Sir MACKENZIE BOWELL-Sir John Thompson, Hon. Geo. E. Foster and members sitting to the left of the Speaker myself. jumping up from their seats and applauding of the declaration of the Minister of Finance Hon. Mr. DANDURAND-They went to carry out the promise made to the electorate in trying to obtain a treaty or arrangement with the United States, in order to have a free exchange of natural products between the two countries. They went to Washington. What remains in my mind from the result of that visit was that our official repre sentatives were not very sympathetically received. Of course, I was perhaps mainly reading the press in opposition, but I heard that they had been treated so coldly that it really was tantamount to a snub. We were told at the time, perhaps it was through the tive members sitting to the left of the channels of the Liberal press, that the Un- Speaker. ited States Government was not quite satisfied with the use of the name of Mr. Blaine by the Government of the day, Sir John A. Macdonald's cabinet. When the matter was discussed in the House in the following session, Sir John A. Macdonald had to admit that that offer of a treaty of reciprocity in natural products had filtered through the Canadian High Commissioner in London. Sir Charles Tupper. I am simply speaking. from memory, and I have not refreshed my memory on those facts. I am stating what has remained in mind ever since 1891, all this going to convince me that the Conser vative Cabinet at the time had seized upon a very flimsy pretext to go before the people, and to tell the farmers of this country "You Hon. Mr. GORDON-Does the hon. genteman know the reasons why. Hon. Mr. DANDURAND-Because of the happiness they felt at the advantage the people of Canada would get from this treaty. I do not believe my hon. friend was in the House at the time. Hon. Mr. GORDON-I was. Hon. Mr. DANDURAND-I may say I saw that from the galleries with my own eyes. In fact, if hon. gentlemen would look at the speech made by Mr. Fielding made at the same time, they would see the interruptions, but they would not hear the clapping of hands which I heard, whe: I was there, coming from the left of the House. Well the Conservative party met, and the party decided to oppose this arrangement. It was their right. They could plead changed conditions, and put up an argument in favour of it, and it would have been their absolute right. I am not recriminating as to that, but I say that when every elector of Canada twenty years before was invited by the leaders of both parties to look towards the United States for improved market conditions, and when every elector of Canada voted for a freer entry into the United States, of our natural will have the United States market, because we have a strong conviction that we can make this bargain with the United States.' Well, 20 years passed and during those 20 years, I affirm, no representative of the Conservative party in either branches of Parliament, inside or outside of Parliament, has told the people that an arrangement with the United States by which we could obtain the opening of that market freely for our products, would be disadvantageous to this country. No man of any of the different parties of the country, officially or otherwise, allowed the people of this country to believe during those 20 years, that the opinion held in 1891 by both parties in Canada was not products-nearly half of them voting for a still the opinion of everybody in Canada. I freer entry of industrial products-that it ill-became some leaders of public opinion in this country to raise the cry and stampede the people on the loyalty cry, and to ask them Under which flag will you live?' This is the point I want to make: My hon. friends of the Conservative party were perfectly entitled to change their minds, the Liberal party had also changed its point of view. In 1891 we had asked for unrestricted reciprocity; in 1911 we were moving to the ground held by the Conservative party in 1891 and saying: 'What the Conservative party was asking in 1891, what we all desired in 1891, we have now obtained;' because as a matter of fact if you look at that treaty, you find that it was on all fours with the hopes and expectations of the Conservative leaders of Sir state of dissatisfaction in this country that the Canadian farmer would ask for annexation. This is the argument I saw in print; this is the argument I heard on the stump. Well, the Americans have done the trick; they have reduced their tariff; they have put on the free list most of our natural products, which are going to their market where they get a better price. The horrible consequences which were put before the electorate of having established a state of things by which we would be in the hands of the Americans, who could close their market upon us and create a movement in favour of annexation, is at our door. After our farmers had free entry for some certain the fear was expressed, a fear shared by the number of years into the United States-so could play the trick and put new duties on majority of the electorate-the Americans natural products in order to create dissatisfaction with the condition of things in Canada, and bring about the movement for annexation. Well, to me, those arguments were all clap trap, and yet it is on such arguments that the electorate voted against that reciprocity pact. Hon. Mr. WATSON-The Americans are annexing our cattle now at a high price. John A. Macdonald and his Cabinet in 1891. In 1911 the Conservative party did shift its ground in a far more accentuated way than the Liberal party. In 1891 the Liberal party only wanted more especially, the exchange of products with the United States-the freer entry of our products into that country. In 1911 we still wanted that. I still want it now; I still believe that it would be a very great advantage to Canada to have that market with all its towns and cities, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. But I claim that, in reality, the Conservative party always desired it, and still desires it, and boasts at this moment of hav-has come about. It has already arrived, and ing obtained it without paying anything it will always go on increasing. It took men in return. What did we hear at the elec- with very faint hearts to believe that with tion in 1911 amongst the arguments that a few more bags of potatoes going to the were made against that treaty or arrangeUnited States, our hearts would go also. ment? It was alleged that there was no Of course, we are a peculiar people in the use hurrying into this bargain; that the province of Quebec, but it has never occurrDemocrats were about to win the elec-ed to a French Canadian mind that a greater tions in the United States and that the market would be open without any quid pro quo being required in return. Some hon. GENTLEMEN-Hear, hear. Hon. Mr. MURPHY-Was that not right? Hon. Mr. DANDURAND-But I draw my hon. friend's attention to this fact, that it was alleged that if we made the bargain with the United States, and if we allowed the free interchange of products between the two countries, we would establish a certain condition of things which would be most advantageous to a certain part of the population. Then it was argued that, once that interchange had taken place, and this market had been secured, the American would recall the treaty and close the door on our products in order to create such a Hon. Mr. DANDURAND-As I said, the trade returns will show that the fearful danger of trade running north and south interchange of products with the United States would ever affect our political status. I am quite sure that the majority of those who did utter such a thought, did not take very much stock in it. While on this sub ject I might say that I am amazed to hear men like Sir John Willison, who represents the London Times' in Canada, and others, constantly speaking to the British electorate and to British public of the danger of the Americanization of this country. Those men are possibly creating, or risking the creation of the condition which they fear. Talk about such nonsense as the Americanization of Canada-which I take for granted would mean a desire to withdraw from the British flag and adopt the one to the south of us-is the most dangerous kind of talk that can be made. It amuses me to see how excited, how nervous prosperous, and prices have been good. But notwithstanding the prosperous farming, backed up by those two other important industries, we have depression. That does away with the theory that we are bound to have prosperity when the farmers prosper. We must look somewhere else, and I can tell you in two words where the trouble is. is British public opinion over the fear that | In addition to that, our fisheries have been Canada may slip slowly towards the United States. My only fear is that those gentlemen in London who are so much concerned over the future of Canada, may interfere in our local affairs to such an extent as to bring about dissatisfaction. If Canada is left alone to follow its own inclination, and develop on its own lines without any interference, our children and grandchildren will still cling to the link which binds us to Great Britain and see the British flag flying over this country. Hon. Mr. POWER-Hear, hear. Hon. Mr. DANDURAND-I am in sympathy with the resolution of my hon. friend from Halifax (Hon. Mr. Power). I believe that we can express our opinions in this House on these questions, which are important questions, though we cannot implement them by legislation in this Chamber. I would not like that, after thus expressing our views on these large and important questions, the Senate should divide on such questions. When they are questions affecting the programmes of both parties we do not need to divide, for we know in what schools we have been respectively brought up, and we know and could practically make lists of the senators who would vote one way and those who would vote the other way. It seems that these discussions may have some good effect, and it is not unbecoming that we should express our views in a calm way, standing by facts and theories as we believe them to be true, but I would deprecate the idea of bringing this question to a vote, in order that we should count noses, when we know exactly what the result will be. Therefore, I would urge my hon. friend the member for Halifax, not to press such a question to the vote of the Senate. Hon. Mr. POWER-Hear, hear. Hon. Mr. CURRY-Idle workshops. Very few people in this country realize the proportions to which our manufacturing has attained. For instance, we had a gentleman before us yesterday, in the Committee on Banking and Commerce, a mining engineer, who is at the head of the mining institute and mining fraternity, and so little did he know of manufacturing that he made the statement that mining had now become the second industry and was next to agriculture, and that the mining output was over $140,000,000. Three years ago the output of Canadian factories had reached the sum of $1,500,000,000, and they had $1,250,000,000 of capital invested. I presume that a year ago we were manufacturing at the rate of $1,700,000,000 or $140,000,000 a month; that is, the factories were turning out as much in one month as the mines were turning Speaking of mines, out in twelve months. which include gold, silver, nickel, lead, iron, coal, oil, gas and all others, they produced only as much in twelve months as the factories produced in one month. The falling off in work this year involves the loss of $400,000,000, a sum probably greater than the total farm crops in Canada west of the great lakes. This falling off accounts for the present depression. I could form a pretty good opinion as to why and how this falling off came about. Our merchants, smal! Hon. Mr. CURRY-I do not propose to traders, salaried men, and wage earners were make a speech, but I offer this thought for locking up too much of their money in land the consideration of the farmer and free and other things where they could not realtrader-why is there a depression in Can-ize on it, to such an extent that the banks ada to-day and why does it not give way began to call in their loans. Also, our to prosperity? It is claimed by many farm-towns and cities in the West were developers and free traders that if the farmer has good crops and sells the same at good prices we must have prosperity. We have had good crops in this country for a number of years, and the prices have been so high that many householders complain of the high cost of living. In addition to our good farm crops, our mining has been prosperous and has grown to a very large proportion. tng faster than they should, and the financial men became afraid and would not put up the money for further extension. This meant that the salaried man, the wage earner, the small trader had to retrench in their living. They must buy less goods, and those goods were practically all manufactured goods. The same applies to the towns of the West. They had to stop |