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* House of Commons ©ebatcs*

/.?«^--.

THIRD SESSION-SEVENTH PARLIAMENT

SPEECH OF SIR RICHARD CARTWRIGHT, M.P.

THE BUDGET

TUESDAY, 14th FEBRUARY, 1893.

Sir RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. At any
time, and under any possible circumstances,
the smiual exposition, or even tlie annual re-
affirmation of the financial policy of the Gov-
ernment, is a matter of considerable Inter-
est to all classes of Canada ; and, on the pre-
sent occasion, when, as the Minister cor-
rectly told us, there is an extraordinary feel-
ing of unrest and disqvdet pervading the
masses of the community, there is no doubt
that it is an occasion of more than usual in-
terest. I am not quite sure that I can cor-
gratulate the hon. gentleman on having en-
tirely risen to the level of the occasion ; but
to those who will take the trouble to read
between the lines of his speech, the speech
was undoubtedly significant enough. To us
who have been in the habit of listening to
that hon. gentleman and his compeers for a
great many years, there was a rather re-
markable absence of what I must call the
braggadocio with respect to the National
Policy, which has heretofore characterized
utterances from that side of the House. There
was also an almost complete absence of
those taunts which used to be fiung across
the floor to gentlemen on this side, bidding
them bow to the will of the people, and as-
suring them that the National Policy was so
rooted in the innermost instincts of the
people of Canada that our pimy efforts to
disturb it were hi vain. Sir, a change has
come over the spirit of the dream of my hon.
friend. He has had a vision. Possibly he
may have dreamed that he heard the pres-
ident of the young Conservatives of Toronto
declaring that they were being annexed in
job lota. Possibly he may have heard a
gentleman who was whilom designated as
the brains of the party, blaspheming the
holy tariff, and speaking evU words even
against the sacred gerrymander Itself. Pos-
sibly the hon. gentleman Is aware that the
farmers' histitutes, from one end of the coun-
try to another, are kicking against the wise
and merciful provisions of his tariff. Possibly
he Is also aware that there is hardly a siib-
sidlz^ed newspaper, or. perhaps. I should say,
an insufliclently subsidized newspaper, that is

not helping to swell the chorus. Under
these circumstances, I can well understand
that our political Vicar of Bray might be a
good deal puzzled as to what wa& the duty of
a conscientious public man. Of course, the
hon. gentleman knows that it is his duty to
obey the powers that be, but, on the present
occasion, the hon. gentleman is not quite sure
who are the powers that be.
Mr. POSTER. We know who are not
Sir RICHARD CARTWRIGHT. I do not
think the hon. gentleman does. Well, Sir,
under these circumstances, I hope the hon.
gentleman won't take It amiss if I suggest
that if he has not looked to Washington ex-
actly, ho has certainly looked to that high-
souled American statesman immortalized by
Lowell, whose policy, very like the hon. gen-
tleman's, was summed up in these beautiful
lines :

There may be men of greater talents.
Who can't sit stiddier on the fence.
Although, looking at the hon. gentleman's
performances, I may remind him that while
a fence may be a steady seat, a tight-rope
performance of the rather acrobatic character
we have seen to-night, is not apt to be so. Sir,
there is a sort oi. resemblance, if I may say
so, between the hon. gentleman and his
policy. If I may make the remarlt without
offence, I beUeve the hon. gentleman com-
menced his career as a professional philan-
, throplst. Now, I understand that the business
of a professional plilianthropist is to make
everybody else better, as it was the business
of the National Policy to make everybody
richer. Sir, I wonder if the hon. gentleman
ever heard his late lamented leader give hia
opinion of what a professional ptiilautliroplst
Is ? If he has not, I must gratify his curiosity
on the prosont occasion. It is tmown to some
hon. gentlemen in this House that in my green
and salad days, evfr so many years ago, I
was In the habit myself, sometimes, of sitting
at the feet of that estimable Gamaliel, and
I am bound to say that I have been the re-
cipient of not a little useful, and a great
deal of very entertaining, knowledge from
that hon. geniieuiaii. Now, Bii', I I'ecoUeot one

oocasion when a question came up for dis-
cusaiou touching professional philantliropists,
I rememlxir also that I spoke inadvertently
and somewhat slightingly of that valuable
class of men. Sir John took me up at once.
Professional philanthropists, lie assured me,
were an exceedingly useful set of people. He,
himself, always Uked to have one or two pro-
fessional philanthropists in his cabinet. They
were useful, he said, for the pui-pose of keep-
ing up the average of respectability, whicli,
he remarked— and I entoely agi-eed with Liiu
— was sometimes quite a desideratum ; but
he went on to observe, and I remember the
words well— possibly the hon. gentleman may
have heard them— that he had noticed tliiii
men who went in to get a living by
making other people better were apt, in
course of time, to re<iuire extensive moral
repaira themselves. Now, far be it from mo
to say tliat the hon. Finance Minister is In
need of extensive moral repairs. I depreciite
any such inference being taken from my
words. Since he has become Minister of
Finance it may be that his views on moral
questions have broadened and widened con-
siderably ; but I iun free to say that I believe
him to be quite as pure-minded now as when
he entered Parhament. But, as Sir John
observed, the reason of this Uttle
defect in professional pliil.mthropists was
that virtue had gone out of them ; and It did
appear to me, after listening to the hon.
gentleman's speech, that he likewise had come
to the conclusion that -virtue had gone out of
the National Policy, and that some other
device must speedily be souRi for the purpose
of circumventing people for their own good—
for their own good, you will understand. Mr.
Speaker— or else his seat and the seats of his
colleagues were Imperilled. Now. Sir, one
thing at any rate is clear from the
declaration of the hon. gentleman. By
his own express statement and admission,
which I will aUude to more at length lati'r on
—and let me say it was one of the most re-
markable statements I ever remember to
have heai'd or read of a Minister of Finimce
making on a similar subject^the whole fiscal
policy of the Government is now up for re-
view, the whole fiscal policy is to be examined
from the bottom up, for the hon. gentleman's
declaration meant that and nothing else. We
have had fourteen years of the hopeful experi-
ment of endeavourhig to make oui-selves rich
by Increashig our taxes. What has been the
result of that experiment ? Sir, there is, let
me teU the hon. gentleman, a very widespread
feeling that the whole National Policy has
been from first to last an egregious fraud.
There are men to-day in the street and in
the market place, in the shop and on the
faim, wherever men are gatliered to-day. aU
Canada over, who are recalling the predic-
tions and the promises by which they
were induced fourteen years ago to adopt
this same National Policy, and they are com-
paring those promises and those ni-wllo Ions
with the ascei-talnod facts which confront

every one at this moment It Is not my pur-
pose to enter minutely, at all events, into all
the petty minutiae with which the Minister
of Finance was obUged to fill a large part
of Lis speecih ; but there is one ro.ij4li and
ready test which every man, learned or un-
learned, can apply, which I have always felt
and always said was a test worth a hundred
tnoiisand or a hmulred thousand thousand
of all those petty percentages and all thoso
llTtle quibbling detidls which have l)oon pre-
sented to the House, if you want to asc rtain
whether the coimtry Is prosperous or not.
If a country is prosperous, people all over
the world will be glad to go there ; they will
1)0 glad enough to stay in such a counti-y, and
they will be loth to leave it. That is a rough
and ready test, I grant you, but it is one which
ov(>i-y man can apply, and the tnith of which
no human being who knows anytlilng of the
position of the country will ever venture to
dispute, and that test before I sit d wii I
propose to .ipply to the hon. gentleman's argu-
ments. We have to-night sundry fallacies
to deal witli, wt> have sundry, I will not call
them falsehoods, but statements without
foiuidation In fact to expose, and sundry con-
spiracies, I fear, to lay bare. Let us tjike up
the long Ust of broken pledges by means of
which hon. gentlemen opposite carried tlie
cotmtry against Mr. Mackenzie and his Ad-
nnnlstrathm hi 1878. Sir, I remt'inber wel,
perhaps the Minister of Financi> does nut,
because his parliamentary Ufe is rather short
compared with mine, how the people were
told that give tliose hon. gentlemen the right
to control the destinies of Canada and they
^^'ould stop the exodus, ihoy would pr vi le
a home market for everything our farmers
could raise, they would restore the bal-
ance of trade— they laid great empliasia
on restoring the balance of trade in those
days— they would enrich our people, they
would raise the value of land and raise the
value of farm products (but the hon. gentle-
man has got new light on that question
since that time) they would fill the North-
west from end to end with a teeming pop-
ulation, and, lastly, they would obtain reci-
procity with the United States. The bare
recital is enough. All those pledges and pro-
mises may weU match with Sir Charies
Tupper's famous declaration that in a few
brief years, and ten years have elapsed since
then, we would export 640,000,000 bushels of
wheac from Manitoba, and on 31st Decem-
ber, 1890, !i;58,800,00O would be paid into our
treasury, as profits from the sale of our pub-
lie lands, and the Canadian Pacific Railway
would not cost the people a sou. 1 shall
make a short review, and a very short one
of the way in which those promises have
been fTilfilled, I regret not to see the hon
First Minister in his place, because the First
Minister's view and mine with respect to the
exodus differs slightly, and there would be
given an opportunity on this occasion for the
.1.!.. -,, .1... ,,.„,, ,.^ leuccm Uiu pienge ne
partly gave that he would review and con-

trovert the argiimeots I advanced on a re-
cent occasion In opposition to some of his
statements. With respect to the exodus, I
want to call tlie attention of the House to
this fact : I am prepared to prove that so far
from stopping the exodus, the exodus during
the Inst ten years was double, and more than
double, the exodus between 1871 and 1881,
and it was three times as much as tlic exo<lus
which took place hi Mr. Mackenzie's time. I
have taiien the trouble to examine not m relv
our own statistics, but tlio United Stated'
statistics, and I have ascertained from them
that the total annual exodus In Mr. Mac-
kenzie's time was probably not more than
32,000 all told, from 1874 to 1878, and that
it certainly did not exceed 42,000, taking into
account the entire foreign-born immigration
which came to Canada during that period.
In the five years beginning 1874 and ending
1878, 148,000 immigi-ants, according: to our
own official returns, are stated to have com >
to Canada. Of those. 12,000 a year were
required to make up the death rate, to keep
up tlie nu..iber of hnmigrants to Oanida at
its former strength, and even If wo lest all
the remahider they would merely aggre-
gate 88,000 people. We have the Auier-
ican statistics for 1874-75-76-77 and 1878
For 1874 and 1875 they group all the
Americans together, north and .south
For 1876-77 and 1878 they give correct figures.
in 1876 the total Canadlan-ljom Immigrants
from Canada to the United States amoimted
to 22,471 ; in 1877, 22,116 ; 1878, 25,518. So
rar as it is possible to ascertain, the number
waa about 25,000 in 1874 and 1875, maMng
a reasonable deduction for the numb(>r of
hnmigrants from Mexico, the West lufil -s,
fcouth America and other countries included
mth the Canadians who went to the Unite 1
States. I do not ailege that that was due
entirely to the policy of Canada at the time,
for the snnple fact that during those five
years emigration to the United States
had almost entirely ceased, as any hon. gen-
tleman can see if he exambios the United
btates statistics. But how does that com-
pare with the emigration nnd.>r the regime
of hon. gentlemen opposite V As I have Sidd,
the maximum immigrntlon hi Mr. Macken-
zies s time was very little over 40,000 souls,
putthig together the foreign-bom immigrants
who came to Canada and tlie native-born
Canadians who left. What was the number
under the Admhiistration of hon. gentlemen
opposite ? Our own census returns prove
to a demonstration mat we have lost 440,000
of our own native-born population, and the
hon. gentleman's own statistics prove, unless
tiiose statistics are a lie, a fraud and a .sham,
ttiat we have lost of foreign immigrants 727,-
000 more. Put these two figures together
and you will find the loss to Canada of native-
born Canadians, by far the most valuable
class, and of foreign immigrants, amounts to
a total of 1,167,000, being at the rate of
116,000 per annnm during the last t(^v. voars
as against, hi Mr. Mackenzie's time, an ex-

treme number, an over-estimated number, of
40,000 a year from both those classes. Those
hon. gentlemen made every hustlugs ring In
1878 with their declamations as to how. if thoy
were only permitted to enjoy the control of this
country, u home market would be provided
in every town and village for everything the
farmer could raise. Our villages were to
become towns and our towns were to become
cities, and our cities were to become Svimetiiing
hardly ever dreanned of in this country before.
We were to have at our farmers' doors,
markets which \i'ould consume every vege-
table, every cereal, and every head of cattle
and poultry that they could possibly raise,
r do not think the hon. gentleman divre prate
to the farmers of their home market to-day.
They were to restore the balance of trade.
Well, to my poor Judgment, that was a silly
proposal, but what is the fact ? Do hon.
gentlemen want to know the figures ? Why,
.since 1878, the gross balance of trade Is
$.308,000,000 against us, an average of more
tlian $20,000,000 a year, and that was the way
the hon. gentlemen fulfilled that promise.
The hon. gentlemen were to enrich the
people, they were to raise the value of farm
products ; but tlie present Finance Minister,
havhig obtahied a little more wisdom than
his predecessors, tells us that no Government
can raise the price of farm cereals. I appeal
to all my hon. friends. I appeal to hon.
gentlemen opposite themselves who took part
in the el2ction of 1878, if, from one end of
Ontario to the other, and, I beUeve from one
end of Canada to the other— although the price
of farm products were double tlieu what they
are now— I appeal to them and ask if the
cry of hon. gentlemen opposite was not that
they could and would raise the price of every-
thing that farmers had to sell. They were
to fill the North-west with population. Well,
Sir, if ever there was a miserable exhibit on
the face of the earth. It is the exhibit which
is made to-day in that fine coimtry, under the
policy of these hon. gentlemen. Why, at
the present time, we have positively not got
one famUy to the square league of the fertile
lands of the North-west. We have spent
$100,000,000, more or less, In the last dozen
years, and I doubt. Sir, if we can be shown to
have added 10,000 familios to the popula-
tion of the North-west during the last dozen
years, by reason of that enormous expendi-
ture. But, above all, they told us that they
would obtain reciprocity ; as Sir John Mac-
donald put It : reciprocity of trade, or reci-
procity of tariffs. That, also, I miut deal
with hereafter. It would take me altogether
too long at this present moment to do Justice
to the strenuous efforts made by these hon
gentlemen, and by the Minister of Fhiance In
particular, on two memorable occasions, to
obtain reciprocity for the people of Canada.
Now, I notice three fimdamental errors hi the
speech of the Finance Minister, errors which
affect his whole policy and the wliole pohcy
of hfs GoTetuinoui and his party. That hon.
gentleman lays down, or did lay down, as a

proposition, that It was possible to Increaae
our collective wealth by Increasing our taxes.
I beg leave to tell the hon. gentleman that
I regard such a proposition as about the ne
plus ultra of folly in a country like CnnaOa.
When the hon. gentleman is able to pour
water into a sieve and keep it there,
when the hon. gentleman is able lo leap
from one of these bxuldlngs and sustain liim-
Belf in mid-air, by grasping his waistband,
when the hon. gentleman can take snow
in hlB hand and hold it before tlie fire
without its melting ; then, and not until
then, will the hon. gentleman increase
the col'fcctlve wealth of the community
by hicreasLng their taxes. Sir, we do
not look for grapes from thorns and
we do not look for figs from thistles,
but we had better do that than look for
prosperity to a policy, the veay key-note of
which Is to enrich one or two special classes
at the expense of the great bulk of the com-
munity. I tell the hon. gentleman that his
Government and his policy may indeed dis-
place wealth—that they have done to a large
extent— but they are helpless and powerless
to create it Then, Sb*, the friends of the
hon. gentlemBJi, and I think the hon. gentle-
man himself, although he alludecJ to it but
lightly, gave us to understand that because
protection had brought prosperity, as he
thought, to the United States, therefore that
protection would bring prosperity to Canada
also. I never heard that argument used by
anybody without putting down the man
who used it either as a charlatan who
does know better, but who desires to delude
the people, or as a man who is utterly and
hopelef»8ly ignorant of the very primary geo-
graphical conditions iu which tliis country is
placed. I have said often, and I repeat it
here— because the hon. gentleman has made
it necessary for me to go into some details in
dealing with these general propositions—
I repeat, that if an economist were called
upon to select two countries in one of
which the protective system would do
the maximum of mischief, and another
in which it would do the minimum of
mischief, he would select as the one
which was best able to bear a protective
system without injury, the United States of
North America, and he would also select
as the one in which a protective system
would assuredly do the maximum of mis-
chief to the whole inhabitants of the coun-
try, the federation of this Dominion. In the
United States you have met together every
condition which would counteract the evil ef-
fects of a high protective system. You have
a huge country, containing a population equal
to two flrst-rate European nations, produ-
cing every article, I believe, which any nation
can require to produce, having every variety
of climate, from the tropic to the pole, and
enjoying In itself a vast and most perfect
system of free trade among twenty-flve or
thirty nations called states. You have, on
tyjia sjfia of the border-, a- .'?rovin of countries se-

parated from each other by physical obstacles
of a very formidable kind separated from
each other by large tracts of inhospitable
country, producing almost identically the
same articles ; not a homogeneous people by
any means, with u veiy small population,
comparatively speaking ; and, in one word,
you have combined in Canada every possible
combination of circumstances which can
I make a protective system a huge and vicious
mistake. The hon. the Finance Minister and
his friends are In the habit of telling us that
we need not complain, forsooth, of the
amoimt of the taxes they levy upon us for
the benefit of the manufacturers, because,
he told us, the manufacturers are now able
to produce in Canada as cheaply as in any
other country. I doubt If a more impudent
claim was evei advanced- If they are able
to produce as cheaply in Canada as any-
where else, what right or what need have
they of protection at all ? But the fact is,
that as to many articles, it is impossible, ' hi
rerum nat\u^,' that you can produce them in
Canada at all as cheaply as you can hi other
countries. I take Issue in the most distinct
fashion with the hon. gentleman on t'>at
question. I may tell him that Canada at
present if essentially an agricultural country,
and next to that, it is a mhiing, flshhig and
lumbering country, and while I am not in any
respect disposed to depreciate the great im-
portance of the manufacturing industries
that exist, neither can I for one moment
allow the hon. gentleman to mislead this
House or to mislead the people into sup-
posing that Canada has any peculiar apti-
tudes for a great many manufactures. There
are certahi manufactures which may develop
naturally and fairly here, and if so. Sir, they
wlU need no coddling by a protective tariff or
in any other way. If our manufactures need
anything for the purpose of their full and
free development, what they need, and what
the best of our manufacturers know that they
need, is a larger market than they at present
po8ses&. I am well aware. Sir, that It Is the
habit of hon. gentlemen opposite to support
these false contentions by Impudently claim-
ing for themselves, in the first place, the
benefit of all the natural improvement which
must talce place in a gi-eat country like this,
and In the second place, of claim-
ing the benefit of all these wonderful
scientiflc discoveries Avhich from day to
day, I might also say from hour to hour,
are cheapening the process of manufacturing.
Sir, science, I grant you, has partly undone
the enormous mischief that protection has
caused ; but, Sir, what protection does Is this :
it Intercepts the compensation which is due
to our fanners and the other classes I have
named. The prices of all their manufactures,
their wheat, their beef, every article that
they produce, have been falling heavily, and
still more heavily, from year to year, until
this year, us the hon. Minister admitted in
his speech, the prices of most of our cereals
have touched the lowest figure known for

nearly half a century- The Ctovemment
may not be able to mitigate that ; but what
our Govermnent does Is at the same time to
enable our protected manufacturers to de-
prive our fi»rmerH of the benetit which they
oiight to derive from the pro<lucta of their
Industry. The Government cannot help tlie
farmers to get one farthing more for their
produce ; but It does prevent them from buy-
ing as cheaply as tlioy otherwise might.
Meantime, the hon. gentlemnn, backed by his
colleagues, continues to assert that all Is well,
and they give us proof, as the hou. gentleman
to-night gave us proofs, of the truth of the
assertion. He told us that the savings bauli
deposits had on the whole greatly IncreatNtl,
and that our bank dopoalte had likewise in-
creased ; he spoke of now railways, and 1 think
he spoke of the growth of certain of our
towns and cities. Now, I have no objection
In the world to the hon. gentleman bringing
forwaixl those evidences, which are go<xl as
far as they go. I grant you that it is a good
thing that the savings banlt deposits have
Increased J I grant you that it is a good thing
that our "hank deposits have increased ; '1
grant, if you like, that it Is a gootl thing that
certain ci Jes have grown and prospered ; but,
after aP, how far do all these things go ? I
repeat a the Minister of Finance what I said
some ilghts ago to his chief : that evidences
of dfot are not necessarily evidonces of In-
creasing wealth ; he tells us of the great
incrv^>ase in the savings bank deposits. Well,
Sir, where Is the money ? The hon. gentle-
man has not got it. If a run were made on
the savings baidi, he knows, as he tells us In
his own report which I hold In my hand, that
he would have to go to England to borrow
money to meet It What does the Increase In
the deposits in the savings banks prove ? It
proves that the people of Canada owe the sum
of money so deposited to a few Individuals.
Where Is that money ? A part of it, we
know, is hiterre<l in the Nortli-west rebellion ;
another part in interred in public works
on the principle of payhig $3,000,000 for
what is worth $2,000,000 ; another part is
going to pay railway subsidies for the
purpose of keeping some hon. gentlemen
behind the hon. Minister In good humour ;
and of the rest he can give as good an ac-
count of It as he pleases. With regard to
the bank deposits, I wish to know if the hon.
gentleman regards them as an unanswerable
proof of Increased prosperity hi the country.
It may or it may not be. It may go to show,
and to a certain extent It does show, that un-
der a protective system a much larger
amount of money is required to carry on a
given amount of trade than ever before. If
you add enormously to the taxes on imported
goods, there Is no doubt that a larger amount
of money will be required to carry on the
same amount of trade as before. But, after
all said and done, where are these same bank
deposits, and by what are they represented ?
They are represented chiefly by discounts.
The hon. gentleman knows that, although the

banks of Oanada have a good and hononrable

record, If there were a nm on those deposits
to-day, they could not pay them, nor for
that matter could the banks of any coun-
try do so. To a large extent these dis-
'ounts go to show that owing to the
unhappy disposition of people to forsake
the country for the town, there are
great many more men engaged hi trade than
tlie interests of the country reqtiire, and I
fear that they are ushig much less of thalr
own capital and much more of borrowed capi-
tal than ever before. But we will let that
pass. There is, however, one significant fact
that I am not gohig to let pass. It Is a fact
that I have brought time and agahi to the
attention of the memliers of tliis House, and
it sliows the utter hoUownesa and wortldess-
ness of these alleged proofs of the country's
prosperity. Sir, to-day, throughout the pro-
Aince of Ontario, I dare to say, there are
a hvmdred tcwns and villages In each of
which there are bank ottices having hun-
dreds of thousands and It may be miUlous
of dollars on deposit Go to any one of those
towns and villages and put up a house or
a farm for auction, and even if you are wil-
ling to take 50 per cent of its real value, I
am sorry to say that In the vast majority of
coses, although there are hundreds of thous-
ands of dollars lying comparatively idle, and
bearing but 3 or 4 per cent interest, you
will not be able to get a single bid for your
property. Sir, it is not a proof of great and
increashig prosperity in a coimtry like Cana-
da, possesshig a large imoccupled area of
fertile land, that there are an unusually large
number of pwple who prefer to put tlieir
money in savings banks and get 8
or 4 per cent interest for it rather than to
put it in house or land property ; and these
things, in so far as they are a proof at all
of genuine wealth, are often more ao-
ciu*ately described as being a proof of the
displacement of wealth. But, Sir, I will
allow for argument's sake that the hon. gen-
tleman is right in telling us that these things
represent real growth and real wealth. Is
there no ' per contra ' to all tills ? Is the hon.
gentleman sitting there as Fhiance Mhiister
unaware of the fact, which I know, which
scores of men in this House know, which
thousands outside of this House know, that
In the older parts of Canada, at any rate, In
Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Bruns-
wick and Prince Edward Island, there Is to-
day a most unusual and extraordinary de-
crease In the value, first of all. of ( own and vil-
lage property, and in the next place of farm
property 'I Does the hon. gentleman not know
that in the past twelve years there has been
an enormous Increase of debt along with this
decrease in the value of property 'i Uoes he
not know that our federal debt has Increased
enormously ? Does he not know that our
provincial debts have also Increased enor-
mously ? Does he not know that our muni-
cipal debt, and our railroad indebtedness—
because the moneys borrowed for the con-

♦•

structlon of nillwiiyH iiro a rciil <lt>bt upon
the people of Cnnadii— have fnorinously In-
(irensed llkcwlso ; luul tluit prlvati" Indfbtcd-
nc'HH, as represented by moneys borrowed
by our loan oonipanlos and Investwl In niort-
KaB(>s, has likewlso iiioreaseil <'iiormously ?
I would like the lion. Kontleniau to tell
UB Avhat Ills estimate Is ot the lndebtedne«H
of our pc'ople to outsiders on all these various
scores. One of his coIUnikucs, the hon. uieni-
bor for Cardwell (Mr. Wlilto), some years
n«?o submittal a calculation to this House,
according to which he (>stlniat<><l that we
owed annually !F2.'),(«M),()0() or $:5(),(»0(),00() of
interest. I ain not disposed to (piaiTel with
that calculation. T am v(>i-y nuich dlspost<d
to think that since that time our annual in-
debtedness for Interest has considerably In-
creased. But If It be correct, if we have
to pay .f3(),(M)0,(KH) In the shape of Interest to
foreign creditors, and If you add to that the
enormous anioiint of money we are likewise
obliged to pay, not into our treasury, but In
the shape of taxes to manufacturers, the
hon. gentleman will see that we have very
good ground for saying that the peo-
ple of Canada at this moment are
subjected to a burden far t/)o heavy for them
to bear. Now, Sir. In the meantime there
are certain facts as to which there Is no
shadow of doubt. With the census retiu-ns
now In our hands, there is no shadow of
donbt that there has been In these ten years
that I have alluded to, an enormous loss of
the native-born population of Canada, of the
very pink and flower of our population.
There has been likewise, if there be one word
of truth in the statement formally laid on the
Table of the House by the Government of
which the hon. gentleman is a member, a
most enormous loss of the foreign Imported
immigration. And here I may pause for
one moment to say that I, for my part,
am wlUing enough to welcome any honest
immigration, but I think. Sir, that the Gov-
ernment and the people of Canada will do
well, looking at the enormous loss of their
own people, to hesitate before they encourage
much more foreign immigration. I have
noticed, and noticed carefully, tliat the for-
eign immigration which has come to Canada
of late years shows a most distinct deteriora-
tion, and I believe the same thing exists with
respect to the immigration to tlie United
States. In old times, no doubt, the immigi-a-
tion was composed of a vei-y gootl class of peo-
ple, as a whole. The difficulties that attended
leaving their own country, and the expense
of coming here, operatM as a sort of natural
selection, and a tolerably good class of immi-
grants came out. In fact, In tlie old days
Siey would compare perhaps as favourably
with the majority of the people from which
they came as do the Canadians, I regi-et to
say, who now go to the United States, com-
pare with the majority they leave behind in
Canada. But that is aU altered. The im-
provements of transportation make it very
easy to shunt upon us an inferior class of

Immlsrrants, and, no doubt, a very large num-
ber of those brought to Canada, under the
auspices of the h<m. gentleman and his col-
leagues, have been of a very inferior class.
There Is danger hero to the national life. We
are suffering a double moral depreciation and
degratlatlon. First of all, these hon. gentle-
men deprive us of the cream of our popula-
tion, and then they water the sklm-rallk
that remains. Some gentlemen on their side
I dare say, could advise solentillcally as to the
proportion of water which should go Into sklm-
mllk. If you add to this the enormous In-
crease In the real taxation of the people, and
by that I mean not only what goes into the
Treasiiry, but what gfH^s out of tlie pockets
of the people, can tlie hon. gentleman wonder
that there is discontent and agitation from
one end of the country to tlH> other, more
particularly when he and I know that all
over Canada to-day a vei-y large class of the
very best of our population are dally and
hourly being degraded from the position of
free and Independent landowners to that of
mere tenants at will or hopelessly mortgagetl
men? Let us compare for a moment the pro-
gress we have made In this last decade with
the progress we made In other decades. The
hon. gentleman made a very great point of
the enormous increase which the census
shows in manufactures. Well, I have also
taken the trouble to look through the census
returns, and while I am glad to see there has
been a considerable increase, I am son-y to be
ol)llged to tell the hon. gentleman that he is
utterly mistaken, and is misleading the House
gravely wlum he declares that there Is a
greattn- proportionate increase in the most
hnportant respects between 1881 and 1891
than between 1871 and 1881. I take these
census returns and look to two very important
particulars. I look. In the first place, to the
number of men employed. The increase In
that respect amounted to 44 per cent ; the in-
crease between 1871 and 1881 amounted, I be-
lieve, to about 3!) per cent. All the alleged
gain that has been obtained has been a rela-
tiv(! increase of some 4 or 5 per cent.
And I turn to another Item, to which the hon.
gentleman directed special attention, the Item
of the amount of money employed. I do not
consider that that is a very favourable show-
ing. It requires to-day, $353,000,00 of money to
I produce $475,000,000 worth of goods, accord-
1 ing to the hon. gentleman's census returns.
I Now, In 1881, It required $105,000,000 to pro-
duce f?309,000,000 worth of goods. Conse-
quently, whereas before we were able to pro-
duce by the employment of $1 of capital
nearly |2 worth of goods, now It requh-es
$2 worth of capital to produce $3 worth of
goods— a very distinct alteration, and an
alteration for the worse In that Important
respect. And so on for a very considerable
i numlier of other Import-ont matters. As I
have told the hon. gentleman, I do not con-
sider that, in a coimtry like Canada, there is
anything to boast of in the fact that tliere Is
a reasonable natural Increase from year to

[*■

yenr. Dopb tJie hon. gentleman pay so very
bad a coniplltnont to his own policy ns to
think thoro would bo no natural IncrouHe at
nil 1 Let us look nt the rate of Increase and
compare It with that In the mother country,
and let us return to that test which I have
always pointed to as ofTorlnK the best pofwlbli?
guarantee for a nation's real progress. 1
pointed out the other evening that In old
Canada, that Is to say in the five old pro-
vinces, oiu- total Increase during the last ten
years had bceti barely 7,' per cent. I turn
to the rc^tuniH for lOngland and Wales, and I
find that while, with our idmost imllmltcd
amount of vacant land In Ontario and Que-
bec, at any rate, and also some of the Mad-
time provinces, nil we Increased in that de-
cade was 7 ; per cent, In England from 1801 to
1871 the increase was 13 1 per cent, and from
1871 to 1881 It was 14', per cent, and
for this last period the Increase Is
ns nearly as possible 12 per cent. So that,
practically H|)eaking, the increase In England
and Wales— an old country, a eoinitry which
loses a great many of Its population by emi-
gration—has been in some decades twice
as much as that which took place in our old
provhices from 1881 to 1891. I nollcAi that
when tlie lum. gentlemen opposite are coii-
fi-ontod with the facts of the census, or with
the facta of tlie enonnous depreciaticm of
property in town, village and farm liinds,
their course has one meiit— it lias always
been perfectly consistent. I wlU recall to the
minds of my hon. friends behind me the
numerous occaslon.s in which, during past
years, I have clialleuged the accuracies of the
hon. gentleman's sbitements as to the growUx
of this country, and I nsk them if the course
of the Govenmient was not on ail occasions
precisely tiie same. First of all, there was
an Impudent denial of the fact That was
usiially followed by frantic abuse on their
part, and on tlie part of their supportei-s ami
their hireling press, of myself and the other
gentlemen who brought tlioso unpleamut facts
to their notice, and when the facts bec^vme
too clear to be gainaiid or denied, Uieu the
hon. gentleman took refuge— in what ? In
the assertion, and often the very incorrect
assertion, that it was a matter of no con-
sequence, becau.se in some hole or corner of
the United States, In some little sUite of the
Union, a similar state of thhigs prevnlle<l.
Sir, a physician who, when aslced to cure a
patient of a wasting disease, woidd tell the
patient that he knew of no remedy, but w.os
able to inform him tliat tliere was a nmnber
of otlier people similarly attacked, would not
be the kind of man T woidd like to employ.
Tho hon. gentleman devoted, if I recollect
aright, about an hour, or maybe an hour and
a quarter to enimciating the policy of tiie
Government The policy of the Government !
Well, Sir, the policy of the Government might
have been defined in much shorter metre.
The policy of the Goveniment, Sir, as (>nun-
ciated by the hon. gentleman is, briefly, to
fling a tub to the whale. The policy of the

hon. gentleman reminds mo very forcibly of
an anecdote which I once heard of aii Am-
erican gentleman who, at an ejirly period of
this century, wis sojoundng at an Kng'.lsb
country house. Th)s was at a time when the
great American nation had not Iwoii »'du-
cated on the subject of tips, and thl» fnifral
party was seriously exercised as to what he
ouglit to do. So he took one acqiuvlniauce
aside and a.Mke<l him gravely, " What Is the
least sum I can give witliout appearing
mean ?" I tlilnk the hon. gentleman's Budget
has been framed entirely on tiiese lines. 'I'he
spirit of this frugal Yankee has transmigrated
Into my hon. friend, and his one end and ob-
ject at present is to ascertain : " ^Vlult Is the
least I can do for the imfortunate farmer
witliout appearing moan ? " I cannot con-
gratulato him, but It is the day of
smidl things, and 1 suppose we must
iH) grateful. And perhaps there may he
something in the lastalment plan on which
the hon. gentleman hit«>nds to proceed. Sir,
if ever tJiero was a case in which the saying
' Parturiunt montos, nascetur ridiculus mus '
was ver!fl<'d it has been veriflod by the hon.
gentleman this nft<>moon. Two and a half
mortid houi-s the lion, gentleman consumel
in telling us, first, that tlie Goveniment
did not know what to do about saw-logs ,
second, that the Government will allow us
to Import oil in tanks instead of In liarrels ;
and, third, that the lion, gentleman will make
the duty on liinding twhie 1 cent liLstead of
2 cents. But Sir, that is not all, that is
not all by any means. Over and above all
this. Sir, the hon. gentleman hius been nood
enough to say that a grand progress Is about
to be instituted. Is it to bo by caravan or
by Jamaica car, Mr. Speaker ? Four Cabinet
Ministers— no, two Cabim t Mlnistera and two
apprentice boys will peddle olil tixes for sale
about the Dominion. Old taxes for side !
That positively is the policy of clio lion, gen-
tli-man. Now, Sir, if tlie hon. gentleman
really means it, he has Ix^en monstrously in-
Judicious. I recollect perfectly well ho.v the
\1als of wmth were poured out on my de-
voted head because, son^e eighteen years ago,
in tho course of a speech made by Ills Ex-
cellency, I ventured to hint in the mildest way
i that witliin a month or so there would X.Q
! some tariff changes. Sir, it seemed to me
! tliat the heavens and the earth were coming
' together. What I had done was uncon-
stitutional ; I was destroying trade, paralysing
1 manufactures. But tiie hon. gentleman pro-
'■ poses during the whole year, if he really
; means what he says, to unsettle all trade, to
unsettle all manufactures. Nobody is to know
I where he stands until the hon. gentleman
and his colleagues have completed tlieir pil-
grimage and until a sufficient number of the
old taxes have been sold. But, Sir, if the
hon. gentleman does not mean it if all th".s
is simply a device to gain time, if tliere has
been a private arrangement with certain pro-
tected manufacturers that they need not dis-
I turb themselves, that this will all come out

right, that It win be managed In Huch a w&j^
that thoir lut««rfHta at any nito will not Buffer,
then, I vonturo to say, n greater farce was
never played off on any couiitry than the pro-
l»oMltlou of the hon. Kentleinan to tako a
whole year to carefully conslilor what he, ;
m Fluanoo MlnlHter, ou^lit to bo able to ,
advlMo tills country on to-day. As I have
Bald. Sir, there Is one fact which, oner
fifteen long years, has dawntxl on the hon.
g(>ntleman (I wonder Iiuh It dawned on any
of his friends aroiuid hlin), and that Is, that
the (Jovemnient cannot ralHe the price of
cereals. 81r, you will recollect, and the
House will recollect, that wo were told by
the hon. KenHenian time and again that only
denuigogues would dare to say that the (}ov-
omment could ral.se Uio price of cereals, and
yet my memory goes back to the time when
this country, In 1878, was flooded with dema-
gogues prencldng that Identical doctrine.
The hon. K<'ntleman tells us that our trade
In agricultural products with (Jrcat Britnln
has Increased by fifteen millions. Well, Sir,
I am glad that, bad as the markets are, our
farmers have a market at all, but I can tell
the hon. gentleman this, that, as regards a
large part of that fifteen millions. It Is
simply the numsure of our loss, it Is simply
the amount of unprofitable trade which wo
have transacted In place of a much more
profitable trade with our natural market.
Sir, he was good enough to tell us that the
Glovernment came to the help of the farmer
In 188U, when they put on a lot of taxes on
American products, and got for him, I be-
lieve, a million or so of additional markets.
And, Sir, he might have added that by that
ill-timed and injudicious act he stuck the
fanners of Canada for the McKlnley tariff
and all the mischief It has done them. Had
he and his fronds pursued, as they were
advised from this side of the House, a wise,
conservative policy, had they, knowing what
was In contemplation from the United States,
abstained from putting weapons into the
bands of our opponents, the chances are a
thousand to one that the most obnoxious
portions of the McIClnley tariff would never
have been enacted. But when he chose in
April to defj- the American people and to
put on taxes which he knew must
bring retaliation, he and his Government
stand convicted before this coimtry of
having, more than any other men, con-
tributed to saddle the McKinley tariff on
the farmers of Ontario and the rest of the
Dominion. Sir, the hon. gentleman says that
the Government lowered the sugar taxes. No
doubt the Government, at the dictation of the
aforesaid Mr. McKlnley, did lower the duties.
Did we hear one word of the remission of
the sugar taxes until the American Govern-
ment had made it Impossible to keep them on?
And when they did reduce them, they did It
so as to reduce the amount received by the
community In revenue, but not so as to dis-
turb the profits of their refining friends.
The utmost amount that could be taken was

taken out of the pockets of the people ; but
the smallest possible amount was taken out
of tlie pocket of tlielr friend, tho chairman
of tho Oonservatlvo comndttco In MontreiU.
Sir, tho hon. gentlemanV Ideas are ex-
cellent ; but I am l)ound to sny his prac-
tice Is detestable. Now, I come to <leal
with what I must call the per capita fraud
which tlio hon. gentleman has often referro<l
to. If the hon. gentleman know anytldng
about what one of his followoi-s calls " sclentl-
flo protection " ho would know tliat it Is the
absurdest nonsense to talk about a per capita
redturtlon or a per capita anything elw In con-
ncKtlon with a protective tarllT. Who does
not know that tlie very essence, the vt^ry
reiuson for Impoertug a protecUvii tariff la to
couiiua tho bulk of tlie people to pay a very
considerable Bum to certain manufactiircm,
which sum does not go Into the treasury ? I
am not arguing the point whetlier that Is wise
or fcwlish, but I say It Is a niH'e.««lty of tlie
ease, and, when that Is so, what folly it is to
tjilk of tho per capita tjixea levied on the
people being measuixxl by the sum which goes
Into tho treasury. The t»ix Is taken out of
their pockets, and so far as the great mass
of tlio consumers are concenieti It does not
matter to them whether it goes Into the
treasury or whether It goes Into the poi-kets
of the protected manufacturers. So, likewise,
the hon. gentleman tells us that we cannot
have free trade because we have $;iO,0(K),000
of taxes to raise. The question suggests it-
self to iTiV mind : Why have we ^.lO.OOO.CKW of
taxes to raise ? Sir, I tell tho hon. gentleman
that had reasonable prudence and economy
been used in the government of thio country,
had that Government been administered a8
the late Mr. Mackenzie would have ad-
ministered It, we would not require to-day to
raise ?30,000.0()0 ; I doubt if we woidd require
to raise .$20,000,000 : and they make their own
vicious extravagance, their own folly, and
worse than folly, the excuse for denying tho
people that relief which they have a right to
claim. Sir, the hon. gentleman a^ed my hon.
friend, the leader of the Opposition, for a
policy. Well, this Is not the first time the
Mhilster of Finance has made that request.
I recollect the hon. gentleman asked Mr.
Blahie for a policy. Now he asks Mr. Laurier
for a policy, and I have no doubt that Mr.
T.aurier will be quite prepared to prescribe a
policy when he Is called in, as I have Intimated
before.

Mr. POSTER. I would like to see his
diploma.

Sir RICHARD OARTWRIGHT. What
diploma has tlie hon. gentleman got to qualify
him for the post of Fhiance Minister ?

Mr. FOSTER. Good sense.

Sir RICHARD OARTWRIGHT. He has
sense to sit steady on the fence, I grant, and
I tMnk that Is tho only claim he possesses.
The hon. gentleman is good enough to be-
stow on my hon. friend whom I see at the

ll
I

i /)

\
I

othor end of Uio Ohttrab«>r, consldori!i>l« c^
counigoment In tho matter of preferonu-'
trndo. I will also tell the hon. gontlciimn
that I have no doubt tho P'tnanoe MlnlHtor
rcKHrdH proforentUil trade aa an excellent hhI
horrinj? to draw a(!ro8« tho track ; and bo
far, lui Is anro of tho aynipathy of the Mlnlnti-r
of Finance if ha will aid and aBslst him In that
benevolent purpose. Now, the hon. gentle-
man dwelt at length on tho porcontages o*
lncr(«a«o In the volume of trade, and with
groat discrimination ho scleototl 1878, tho
worHt of a prolonged period of deproBsion, oa
tho Htnrtlng point. Well, Sir. I can do. If I
Uko— thojigh I do not often take the trouble—
a little In tlio matter of percontageH, and I
will toll him how they come out. I will begin
at 18((8 and go to 1878. In 1!*18 the grand total
of our Imports and exports was 130 millions ;
In 1878 It was 172 millions. The grand total
had Incroast'd In tJioso ten years, 42 millions,
being at tlie rate of a little over '.i per cent
per annum, compounded. From 1878 to 1888
tlio sum total had Increased from 172 millions
1 about 201 millions, being less than 2 per
cent per annum during tlioso ten years, and
60 per cent less than tho Increase from 1808
to 1878. If he chooses to add the other
flvo years, It would only make, all told, an
Increase of about 2 ' per cent during tho whole
foiu^een years from 1878 tol892,a8 against the
Increase from 18G8 to 1878. WeU, it is satis-
factory to know there is some increase ; but
I am bound to say, it does not strike me as
being such an overwhelming increase for a
country in the position of Canada. If we come
to the hon. gentleman's favourite per capita
argument, and tf we take the trade of twenty
years ago, we find that in 1873 our grana
total of exports and imports was $217,811,000.
This year it is $241,000,000. Now, our popu-
lation in 1873 was under four millions,
and our trade amounted to $57 per head. In
1892, when our population is about five
millions, our trade per head is $48.
Our trade today is $» per head less
than it was nineteen years ago, and
$45 a family leos than it was at that
time. As I have said, I do not depreciate tne
Increase, I am very glad to see it, but, at tne
same time, let the hon. gentleman do his—
what shall I call it ?— his roaring with some
discretion, and not select facts that any
school boy who has access to the Trade and
Navigation Returns con turn upside down
with five minutes' attention. Sir, the plain
fact of the matter is this— and the Minister
of Finance ought to understand it, and if he
does not understand it, it wdl be our more or
less painful duty to make it plain to him— the
position of the greater part of Canada to-
day, the position, at any rate, of the older
provinces of Canada, is that of a country
wtiich has imf ortunately fallen to a stationary
or retrograde condition. There has lieen an
enormous shrinkage in values, a shrinkage
which largely overbears all the increases
wMch the hon. gentleman has enumerateft.
Canada, moreover,- and this Is a serious con-

sideration for a Minister of Finance, with or
»r!thout a diploma - Oanada, moreover, U
largely a tribute- paying country. Wo nre ob-
liged every year, either on ac(!bunt of indivi-
dual or general indebtednesB, to pay a sum of
about 20 to 30 mllllonH to our Kngllsh cred-
itors. Further than that, Canada la an enor-
mously taxed country . FlrHt of ail, there is
a tax of 80 millions which goes into the Fed-
eral treasury ; next to that, there Is a tax,
as I believe, of an amount about or quite
equal, which goes Into tho pockt^ls of the
protected manufacturers ; and thirdly, there
Is a very heavy tax paid to the ITnlted States
(lovemmcnt »mder the operation of the
McKlnley tariff. Now, although T do
not want to depreciate the value of
Kngllsh markets, I must tell tho hon. gentle-
man, I nmst tell his followers, that tliey are
leaning on p broken reed If they hope
t<) Induco the people of this coimtry
to believe that tlio English markets
are going to compensate us, as regards
the great majority of farm products, in any
shape or way for the American markets we
have lost. We may 8<>nd cheese, we may
send wheat, we may send beef, we may send
dairy products generally to the English mar^
ket and do well there ; but for almost all
other articles, for ahnost all the vegetables
we raise, for our iiorses, for our barley and
for our eggs, I toll the lion, gentleman that
it is an absurdity, 'In ronim natura," to sup-
pose that the Knglish market, under any
circumstances, will ever bo ono-half as fav-
ourable to us as the American market is
known to be. Now, Sir, I spoke Just now of
the amount which we paid to the protected
manufacturers. This is an Important point,
bearing largely on the whole argument of the
hon. gentleman. Now, I think those In the
House on either side who have paid any
attention to economic questions, wUl agree
that the measure of a tax is of neces-
sity tho difference between the cost of
the article consumed under such a sys-
tem, and the cost of the same article
in open market I will apply that test to a
very few manufactures. First of all, we will
take the article of cotton. Now, Sir, from
cotton last year we obtained a revenue of
$1,114,000. What was the tax tliat wo paid on
the article of cotton ? There is a difflculty
here, because there is some dispute as to the
exact value of the cotton consumed in this
country. Various figures have been given to
me. Some persons put it at $4 per head,
some put it at a Uttle less ; but having made
a carfflful examination into the amount for-
merly Imported and the amoimt of raw
material now consumed, I believe that I am
well within the mark In saying that the total
value of the cotton goods now consumed
in Canada, ranges somewhere between $17,-
000,000 and $20,000,000, includhig what is
imported and what is produced In this couatry.
Sir, It is known to all hon. gentlemen here
that our taxes on cotton, especially on the
coarser varieties go into high figures ; but I

assume for the purpose of this argument,
and only for this purpose, that the taxes
average 30 per cent. In that case our taxes
on the cotton goods consumed In Canada
would amount to consiileraljly ovoi $;),(KM),-
000, and the amoimt that goes into the trea-
sury is only $1,100,000. In the case of sugar,
of which the hon. gentleman has boosted so
ranch, while I agree with him that Ihe con-
sumption is about H44,(K)0,000 lbs., the tax la
-,\ of a cent per pound, and tliough it may be
quite ti-ue that the i-eflner was not able to ex-
tract the uttermost of his pound of tlesii. but
the people are compelled to pay at least
$2,000,000 a vear for tlie benelit of the rctlner,
while only about .i;80,000 goes into the public
treasuiy. I take the case of binding twine,
which the hon. gentleuuvn has graclou&iy
been pleased to reduce from 2 cents to 1
cent. What was the amount of tax last
year ? It was shown to be 2 h cents, or 20
pe'* cent, on 10,0' <<».<((«) lbs., meaning a tax oi"
$250,000 a year, of which the revenue only
recfc'.v-xl $12,000. I take the ca.sc of rice, and
in regard to that article his calculations differ
from' mine. We imported of cioan rice about
3,000,000 lbs., and of paddy or uncleaned
rice about 20,000,000 lbs. I do not know ex-
actly the loss ill the conversion of unclean
hito clean nee, but all rice consumed in Can-
ada paid Ij cents per pound, that being the
tax on the cleaned articles. That means that
the neople paid somebody, though not into The
treaisury, a tax of at least S250,000, while the
revenue received is only $SO,0(X). I will not
dwell on the results r£ this oppressive system
as regards coal oh or iron, which enters so
largely into the consumption of all agricul-
turists, or binder twine ; but taking chose arti-
cles together, the taxes on the four wiiicii I
have enumerated amount to from $8,000,000 to
$9,000,000 a year, while all that is received by
tbo revenue if omy $1,250,000 I liavo paiduo
attention whatever to the well-known fact
tliat In many of these cases the tax is enor-
mously increased by the middleman's charges.
It is well known to everybody that if you put
a tax on an article and it passes, before It
reaches the final consumer, through two or
three hands, the +ax is enormously increased.
I have left that wholly and entir'>ly out of
the questiou. I have merely called attention
to the '.jnonnous amount which, under the
operation of rny protective tariff is taken
out of the people's pockets over and above
the sum whleh goes into the revenue. On
most of those articles the taxes are imposed
BO us to luu-t the farmer more especially, and
you must I'eiuemliei that ov(.>r and aliovc
this liigh taxation, over and above tiie high
bonuses given to protocted manufacturers. tlu3
condition of things is such that almost the
whole weight falls on the farmers unler the
McKinley Eiil, liecause, aLhough it may not
benefit the United States consumer, it does
Injure the Canadian producer. You will find
my other stiitement; is perfectly correct, that
under thp combined operations of these three
heavy systems of taxation, taxation for Gov-

ernment purposes, taxation for the benefit
of protected miuiufacturera, and taxation
under the McKinley tariff, every acre of land
now imder cvdtivation in any poi-tlon of
Canada is practically subject to a heavy rent.
In fact, in many parts of Canada that rent Is,
I believe, after a careful examination, fully
equal to the outside rent that is paid hi any
part of England for ordiuf^.ry farm lands. Sir,
the hon. gentleman was good enough in a re-
cent discussion to tell us that after all Siild
aud done it was really a law of nature, and
tluit people nowadays will rush from the coun-
try to the towns, and there is no help for it.
In ottier words, the policy of the Government
may be defined as follows : They are aware
there is a detennination of blood to the head,
and 't is their policy by overtaxing the
farn:ers, by making agriculture unproduc-
tive, to do even-thing in their power to in-
crease it. That is practically their policy so
far V -J the farmers are concerned. I turn to
the manufacturers, the hon. gentleman's
special protege., and frienda. I am vei-y du-
bious indeed if the great bulk of Uie manu-
factui .'s, iis contradistinguished from a few
specially pette^l interests, have gained any-
thing under this tariff, and I r\ake this as-
sertion boldly. I think there is very strong
reason to believe that the great bulk of the
manufacturers in Canada would ha-e pros-
pered much more under the revenue tariff
of 1878 than under the present system . Sir,
those census statistics on which the hon.
gentleman relies are essentially, I might
almost say, on the face of them, statis-
tics on which no thorough dependence can
be placed. The hon. gentleman alluded some
time ago to the veiT large increase in the
number of industrial stablishments. Well,
Sir, that statement had attracted my eye also.
I took eleven towns in Ontario which I Imew
best, and examined the list of industries, or
rather industrial estabUshments whk^h were
credited to tliose towns, and I recommmd
hon. gentlemen in this House and my friends
out of it to pay special attention to this list I
find that In Bowmanvine, with a population
of 3,377 souls, there were 8(5 industrial estab-
lishments ; in Cobourg, with 4,829 souls, there
were 83 industrial establishments ; in CoiliUg-
wood, M-ith a population of 4,940, there were
78 industiial establishments ; in Napanee, of
AA'hlch I know something, with a. population
of 3,434, I was happy to leai-n. for the lirst
time in my life, that it possessed 84 tndusirial
(\srabllshm"eiits ; Osliawa, wllh a population
of 4,060, had 94 industrial eslabllshments :
Trenton, wicii a p'.pulatiou of 4,.300, tuul 02
industrial esUtl/lishment'i ; WTiltby, with
a population of 2,780. had 92 iinlustrial
establishments ; Port Hope, with a population
of 5.042. had 140 Industi-ial establisliments ;
Stxaithroy, with a pcnulation of 3.316, had 132
industrial establishments ; Mount Forest, with
a population of 2,214, had 92 Industrial es-
tablishments ; in other words, in all those
favoured places undeT the itifluence f)f the
National Tollcy every five, six or seven faml-

'/!

lies had an industrial establishment between
them. I believe If the hon. gentleman's
census commissioners had counted every
tinlier, tailor, oobbier, carpenter, blaclismitli
and sewing girl in all those places they would
not have made up the Hat. When I look at
what they call manufactures, if T am to judge
from tlie census talien under the auspices of
hon. gentlemen onposite in 1881, althou;th
they may be technically correct, there Is not
the slightest doubt that a very false impressioii
wUl be created in the minds of the people by
tlie grandiiotiuent statement tluit so many
himdred millions of dollars worth of articles
are manufactr.red. I have not the de-
tails for 1891, although the Minister of
Finance may have them, an(! we will
probably I'welve them in due course ; but
I have those for 1881, and I desire to call the
special attention of the House to the way lu
which tlie lltt of mauufact ring industi-ies it
Canada was made up. We iiad $.309,000,000
W(>rth of mauufaotured articles in that year.
Of these there was fiour to Uie value of $42,-
000.000 ; bakeries, $9,500,000 ; tanneries.
$15,100,000 ; boots and shoes, $18,000,000 ;
sugar, $9,000,000 (It took TOO lianrls to produce
that value in sugar) , meat, $4,000,000; chee.se,
$5,500,000 ; clothes, $15,000,000 ; dressnialiers'
piwlucts, $5,000,000; hatters' goods, $3,300,000;
(iarpenters were $3,900,000, blacksmitlis were
$7,200,000, carriage-makers were $0,500,000,
saw mills $38,000,000, 3ash and door fac-
tories $4,800,000, printing otHces were $2,700,-
000 — what particular description of manufac-
ture that is, I do not exactly see— paper mills
were $2,400,000, pulp mills $4,750,000, sliip
yai'ds $3,557,(K)0, and shinjile mills $770,000.
In other words, out of tlieir $309,000,000,
there were $202,000,000 which, to say the
truth, could have been in no possible respect
benefited by the Nationiil Policy, or a policy
of protection, except, possibly, the single
article of sugar. I do submit, that in calling
these things manufactures, tlie hon. gentle-
man has parted, not, perhaps, from teolinical
accuracy, as his predecessors did, but he must
assuredly contributed to convey a very false
opinion to the majority of the people as to
the extent of our manufactures. I, suspoat
that when tliese $470,000,000 of alleged
manufactures come to be examined, that you
will tlnd in ever.v case as In this, that an
enormous mnss of these so-called manufac-
tures are hardly things that would be called
manufactures at all, and that, in any case,
from tlie vei-j' nature of the fact, they could
derive no possible l)enefit, but rather the re-
verse, from a protective policy. I noticed
amongst the $7,00(i,000 worth of manufac-
tured goods which the hon. gentleman
.lioasteil of having exported, one Item for
which I give the National Policy full credit.
I notice tliat among thesq $7,000,000 worth
of goods, tliere was over $1,000,000 worth of
settlers' goods belonging t,o emigrants leaving
this country for the United States. As to
manufactures generally, I desire to say most
explicitly, that I neither overrate nor under-

rate, nor wish to overrate their importance.
Every man knows perfectly weJ' that manu-
factures must have a place, and a very im-
portant place, iu any country at all civUlzed.
1 have not the slightest wish to underrate
In any shape or form the great Importance
of manufactures, but, Sir, for all that, I con-
tend that tJ-j hon. gentleman is wholly
wrong in endeavouring to convey to the peo-
ple of Cnnada the idea that Canada has
special advantages for becoming a gr 'at mami-
facturing country. I say that Canada Is,
above all, a great agricultural country ; next
to its great agricultiu'al resources stands Its
mineral, its lumbering, r.nd Its fishing re-
sources, and next after these, and T admit they
are very Important, come Its manufactures.
lUit, Sir, It Is not In our time that Canada Is
likely to become a great manufacturing coun-
try, unless seme very extraordinary sclentlflo
discovery occurs, and unless the conditions of
manufacturing are totally altered, the
very circumstances in which we are
placed would appear to forbid It. Neither
in age, nor climate, nor in density of popu-
lation, nor from our products, nor our geogra-
phical situation, do we possess the advan-
tages for becoming a gi-eat manufacturing
country which other nations possess, and the
Government, I beUeve, have been doing a
veiy Ul service to the manufacturers of Can-
ada, by Inducing many men to embark their
capital and to risk their whole fortunes in
manufactures for which this counti-y was not
well suited. There are manufactures which
Canada might develop to an enormously
greater extent than it has as yet done, and
were the United States markets once thro^vn
open to us, and were there free trade from
one end of tills continent to the otlicr, I
woidd look to see vei-y great development of
\nxy man.v Important Industries In Canada.
As It Is, Sir, we resemble men who, hav-
ing an inexhaustible gold-fleld at their feet,
have chosen to devote themselves to the
manufacture of artUiclal tiowers, or, to bor-
row a metaphor from tlie hon. gen+leman
opnosite, we seem to be at the i^iesent mo-
ment nice men who, poSvsessuig the tinest and
most fertile wheat region of the world,
choose rather to grow oranges In hot houses
than to devote themselves to the proper ex-
ploitation of the soil. What are the remedies
which are offered by us on this side of the
House ? The hon. gentleman desires to
know our policy. I will tell the hon. gentle-
man what has been our policy from first to
Inst. Our policy from first to last lias been
l<i destroy this villainous protective system
which has been grinding out the vitals of the
people of this coimti-y. I do not care in what
particular way the reptile is destroyed. I
do not care whether it is cut off by the head,
or the tjiil, or in the middle ; I do not care
whether It Is by free trade positive or abso-
lute, or by revenue tariff or conttuentjil free
trade. I wish to see my people redeemed
from the degrading slavery which a few
poUlicid and commercial knaves imposed upon

them. With respect to free trade with the
United States, we have had some very re-
markable admissions from these hon. gen-
tlemen opposite. A few years ago they were
constantly telling us that there was no pos-
sibility of obtalnlDf? reciprocal trade with the
United States ; but a few weeks ago the
Premier of this country admitted In Toronto,
that there was no difficulty whatever In
obtaining reciprocity with the neighbouring
repubUc. It foUows, Sir, that when I fli-st
proposed that measure five years ago, Canada
might have had reciprocal tiude, If the
Government had chosen to work for It ;
Canada to-day might have had 500.000
people which she has lost since tiiat pro-
posal was rejected, and Canada might
also have doubled or trebled her trade
with the United States, but these hon.
gentlemen opposite would have none of It.
Had they been honest in this matter, had they
stuck to thehr original declaration, had they
adopted and stood fast by the policy which
the Flmince Minister himself declared when
I first brought forward this matter In 1888,
why. Sir, then I would have said, that at
least they have the credit of consistency. But
what has their course been ? When in 1888
I proposed that we should open negotiations
with the United States, they refused deliber-
ately, on the groimd that they would make
no effort whatever to havo free trade with the
States, unless they could secure the interests
of the protected few. When in 1889 I re-
peated that motion I was met with a direct
negative, and hi 1890, as the House knows,
when the motion was again proposed, Mr.
Colby was good enough to blurt out the truth
that the Government did not want anything
to do with It, and that the Government
did not even believe In the exchange of
natural products. Now, Sir, what are we
to say of the miserable falsehood which
preceded and followed the elections of 1891,
when these hon. gentlemen opposite dared to
go to the countiy under the pretense tiiat
they required the mandate of the people
to enable them to negotiate a reciprocity
treaty with the United States, which they
had not the remotest Idea of honestiy at-
tempting to do ? Has the House forgotten the
humiliation to which Sir Charles Tapper wa.s
subjected when over his ovm hand, ho was
obliged to report to the Government of Cana-
da that he had to proceed with Sir Julian
Pauncefote.the British Ambassador, to the pre-
sence of Mr. Blaine, and there humbly to re-
cant all that he had said to the people of Can-
ada as to the alleged Invitation of the United
States Government to come ami tn'at with
them ? Do they remember their whole con-
duct shico 1886 ? What has bt^u their policy
as regai-d the United States ? Their poUcy has
been to snarl and to run away, their policy
has been to bluster and to cringe, and I, for
one, felt humiliation when the Finance Min-
ister, rising In his place, told us that he, the
finance Minister of Canada, had to appeal
to Mr. Blaine, the Premier of the United

States, to be Instmcted hi what way ho
might raise taxes out of the people of Can*,
da. I, for one, reaffirm my position. I say
clearly and distinctly that as matters stand
to-day In Canada— although it need not have
been so, and although It was not always so
—no great development is possible unless
in some form or shape, either by the volun-
tary good-will of the United States or by
a reciprocity treaty, the markets of the rest
of this continent are thrown open to us. I
say. Sir, that that condition Is fixed for us by
geographical considerations. I do not mean to
say that we cannot enjoy a mod<'rate prosper-
ity without; but I do say that after the chances
wlilch Canada has thrown away, as In 1867,
when she entered on the race of national ex-
istence, with extraordinary advantages over
the United States, and which weve thrown
away by the folly of the Government of the
day, and afterwards, in 1878, when we had
pretty well extricated ourselves from the
effects of the villainous Improvidence of pre-
cedhig Administrations— I say. Sir, that after
throwing away those chances, it is no longer
possible for us to hope for any great develop-
ment of the really great resources which
Canada possesses unless It Is through obtain-
ing access to the mai-kets of the United
States. But, Sir, although we may not be able
, to obtahi that ; although I am perfectly will-
I Ing to own that the conduct of the Govern-
1 ment of Canada for the past seven years has
I been such as to put a great Impediment In
I our way ; although there is no doubt that,
I from first to last, whether under Cleveland or
under Harrison, they have so conducted them-
selves as to become objects of just suspicion
to the American Government ; yet I say
that there is a good deal tiiat still remains
for us to do. We can reform this system.
We can, beyond all doubt, if we choose, grant
a great and permanent relief to the people
of this country. We can reduce the taxation
which now presses upon Uiem. I am not
now discussing what is abstractiy the best ;
I am simply discussing what is the best pos-
sible. I say it Ls right that time and due
consideration should be glvet. I say, al-
though this Is a case, not of cutting away
mouldering branches, but of cuttuig down
the entire Upas tree. It Is right and proper
that t^e bystanders should be duly warned.
It Is true that the Government have made
reciprocity with the United States hi their
time and by them quite impossible ; but
there is no doubt that the tariff which we
now have to deal with Is a tariff vicious In
the extreme. It Is not merely a tariff imder
which great waste and huge extortion are
perpetrated. It is a tariff that shis In every
possible form. Now, what are the univer-
sal notes or marks of a good system of taxa-
tion ? I will tell the hon. gentieman. A
good and honest taxation will take as little
as possible out of the pockets of the people
beyond what goes Into the treasu:^. A good
and honest taxation will be antfofm In Its
operation on all classes and sections ; it will

spare the necessaries of life ; and, although ,
this Is a lesser matter, It will take the tax-
ation In such a way as to cause as
little Inconvenience as possible. Now,
Sir, what Is the character of the tariff of hon.
gentlemen opposite ? Py means of U they
take twice as much out of the pockets of the
people as goes into the treasury. They so
arrange the taxation that it Is specially unfair
and unjust to the poorest classes of the
community, specially unfair and unjust to
the great consuming classes of this country,
and sometimes specially imfair and unjust to
the tohabltants of one section as compared
with another. They tax food, fuel, light,
clothing, the means of knowledge. Sir, there
is another and further thing : this system of
tariff protection, as Instituted by them, has
this further evil In It, that It practically organ-
izes corruption. It practically makes It the
interest of a large class of business men In
Canada, controlling large sums of money,
when appi^aled to by the Government, and
especially when the hon. gentleman, as he
now proposes to do, goes around the coimtry
taking their views and ascertatnli^g what they
will pay rather than have a paiilcular tax
abolished— It makes it their special interest
to keep a corrupt Government In power If
only that Government wUl ^ve them the
power of plimdering the people in return.
There Is one fault in this system of taxation
which requires particular attention. The
whole system of specific duties levied by the
hon. gentleman is distinctly bad. In the
first place. It disguises tlie amount of the
taxation ; in the next place, the tax is always
relatively increasing. Just as fast as scienti-
fic discoveries enable goods to be cheapened
In price, a specific tax rises relatively in pro-
portion. But the chief and greatest offence
against good government Is liat such a fctx
invariably discriminates, and heavily dis-
crlmiuates, against the poorest consumer. I
have taken a few cases, and only a few, to
show the extreme injustice wrought by tlie
present system. I take ordinary cottons,
which are taxed 2 cents a yard and 15 cents
ad valorem, or 55 per cent on the lowest
grade consumed by the poorer classe.s, and
only .SO per cent on the high grades, con-
siuned by the wealthier classes. On the low
grades of blankets consumed by the poor
there Is at least 50 per cent against 30 per
cent on the higher grade. On shirts there
Is 60 per cent on the low grades against 25
per cent on the high grades. On rougli eoatr
ings there Is GO per cent on the low
grades against 25 per cent on the high grades.
On oil-cloth there is 80 per cent on the low
grades against 25 per cent on the high grades .
On wall paper there is at least 100 per cent
on the low grades against 30 per cent, and
even considerably less, on the high grades.
Sir, I have always beUeved, and I wIU make
the hon. gentleman a present of the state-
ment, that In a true and sound system of tax-
ation, the object of the Government should
be so to equalize matters, ihat us many daya'

ncome should be taken from one man as from
another, with this very Important qtiallflca-
tlon, that bjcomes which are so small as not .
to do more than supply the recipient with
the necessaries of life, should not be taxed at
aU. Sir, I advise the hon. gentleman, if he
desires to have before him a true Ideal sys-
tem of taxation, to work towards that end,
and I tell him that huge accumulations, un-
der any circumstances, ought to be discour-
aged by wise statesmen ; they are politically
and socially dangerous. I tell him that It la
his duty, and the duty of the Grovemment, to
do all that Ues In their power to restrain
combhiatlons and corporations of every kind—
to see that all these bodies, which derive their
existence from us, are kept In their proper
place as servants of the state and not mastprs,
as too many of them seem to be. There is
no doubt, also, that, under the hon. gentle-
man's policy, the cost of living In Canada has
been enormously Increased. It may not be
in his knowledge, but It Is in mine, that In the
case of men possessing moderate Incomes It
Is possible to-day to Uve In greater comfort
In England at barely two-thirds of the ex-
pense that is necessary here. That Is partly
due to the natural condition of things here.
In a climate with such extremes as ours, there
Is no doubt that living is, in many respects,
more expensive than In more temperate
cUmes. But the fact remains that, whereas,
a' comparatively short space of time ago,
Canada was a cheap place to live in, under
the regime of hon. gentlemen opposite it has
become a decidedly dearer country than Eng-
land, and, I fear, in many respects, a dearer
country than the United States. Now, I said
awhile ago that one result of the poUcy of the
Government bad been, beyond all doubt,
enormously to aggravate the exodus from this
country, and I added, and now repeat, that
there Is one result of that exodus whiru has
not been entirely or properly apprecl;'ted l)y
our people. Sii", you cannot go on ior many
years, from year to year, driving away the
very choicest part of your population with-
out doing a great moral as well as physical
injury, and I believe that the statement
made some years ago by Mr. Leckle on this
subject, In dealing with another country, well
Imown to most of us, may be literally and
properly applied to Canada. In speaking of
the effect of the emigration from Ireland, he
used these words. The examples he refers
to are the Irishmen who have distinguished
themselves abroad :

These examples miplit easily be increased, but they
are quite sufficient to show how large a proportion
of the energy and aliility of Ireland was employed in
foreign lands and how ruinois must have been the
consequences at home. If, as there apfiears jnuch
reason to believe, there is such a thing as a hereditary
transmission of moral and intellectual qualities, tlie
removal from a nation of tens of thousands of the
ablest and most energetic of its citizens must inevit-
ably, by a mere physical law, result in the degradation
of the race. Nor is it necessary to fall back uiwn any
spe' uiifions of disputed science. In every community

there exists a small minority of men whose abilities,
high purpose, and energy of wii', mark thejn out as
in some degree leaders of men. Thehe take the first
steps in every public enteriiriae, counteract by their
example the vicious elements of the ))t>pulation, set
the current and form the standard of public opinion,
and infuse a healthy moral vigour into their nation.
In Ireland for three or four generations such men
were steadily weeded o\it. Can we v/onder tha., the
standard of public morals and of public spirit should
have declined ?

But not only were the healthiest elements driven
away : corrupting influences of the most ix)werful
kind infected tliose wlio remained.

Sir, place Ireland for Canada, and you will
have a very excellent illusti-atlon of what the
policy of this Government for the last four-
teen yeai-s has heen employed in effect-
ing. Sir, in the early part of the
eighteenth centm-y, to which these woi"ds
refer, it may have taken five or six decades
to do what, under existing conditions,
has been done in Canada in ten or twelve
years. And one of the chief counts I make
against the policy of which these hon. gentle-
men are so proud. Is that, from first to last,
the hiavltable tendency of their policy has
been to organize poUtical corruption of the
very vilest kind. The danger is vastly in-
creased in such a countiy as ours by the
exportation of the best of its youth, so that,
while the danger increases, the resistance to
It is diminished. In the United States it is
different. There, whatever be the evils of
their poUcy, at any rate the youth of the
population remaiu, and .it is to tliat
fact very largely the success of the
American people in emancipating them-
selves, as they have done, from the shacldes
of protection is to be ascribed. I hiive
not time to-night to review our scale
of expenditure. I will simply say that our
general scale of expenditure for a population
of 5,000,000 is monstrously extravagant. Our
clothes are far too big. They were cut out lor
a population of 20,000,000 or 30, iOO,000. I
need look no fm-ther than the benches op-
posite to illustrate this. What possible use
can there be in a country like Canada for a
Cabinet of fifteen Ministers, besides the De-
puty Ministers ? Why, Sir, 50,000,000 of people
might be administered with the same staff.
Look at the cost of administration and legis-
lation. We have practically $14,000,000
to expend, exclusive of charges for
collection of revenue and interest, and
it costs us every year $2,000,000 to spend that
amount. Turn to oiu- Estimates, and review
tlie number of clerks these gentlemen require.
In Mr. Mackenzie's time, to do the same work,
his Cabinet only required 480 ; hon. gentle-
men opposite employ 826, and u whole regi-
ment of extras besides. The hon. gentleman
spoke very lightly of the consequences to
Canada of the United States revising their
tariff. I cannot agree with him there. If
the United States do very largely reduce their
tariff they wlU very largely cheapen the cost
of living in that country. They will very

laifiely cheapen the cost of production. The
United States farmers have to^ay a very
great advantage over ours In many ways.
They get more for what they produce, and
with the single exception of the article of
woollen clothing they are enabled to purchase
what they require' at much lower rates, and
even if we are fortunate enough to get our
raw products admitted free, we will still be
oomparatlvely at a serious disadvantage com-
pared with them. What Is the part of true
statesmanship, and what would be wise poUcy
under such circumstances V Not, as these
hon. gentlemen are doing, looking to Washing-
ton, ar<i waiting until they know exactly
what the United States are going to do before
they proceed to bring dovra their tariff and
annunciate their policy ; but to anticipate the
Americans, to give Canada, if they can, a
little start ; to give Canada tlie advantage
of being made comparatively a cheap coimtry
to live In, which it is In their power to do by
a reasonable and prompt read.1ustment of the
tariff. Now, T have briefly to say this : I,
for my part. Indict the present policy of the
Government, and I indict Its present tariff on
all counts. I say it is radically false In
theory, and vicious In principle. I say
that it is in the highest degree an imjust and
an oppressive tariff. I say that It is most
eminently unsulted to the genius and geogra-
p:ilcal position of the people of Canada. I say
that it is in the hi ;hest degree an unjust and
of the people, and that It discriminates against
special sections. Practically, these hon, gen-
tlemen reverse Robin Hood's good old rule, for
whereas Robin Hood robbed the rich for the
purpose of bestowing gifts on the ooor, they
rob the poor for the purpose of bestowing
gifts on the rich. I say that these hon.
gentlemen and their tariff are very largely
responsible for the fact that a million of
the best blood of Canada are now exiled in
the United States. I say that their tariff
directly foster^? extravagance, that it Is a ver-
itable hot bed of corruption, that It debases
and enslaves and is fast emasculating ovtr
people, and I say that we have no chance
whatever of ever developing Canada, as It
should be developed, until tills thing is ut-
terly and completely reformed, root and
branch. And that there is no mistake about
our intent and our policy, I move :

That all the words after the word " That " lie left
out, iind the following inserted instead theieof :— "it
V)e Resolved, That the present Customs tariff bears
heavily and unjustly upon the great consummg classes
of the Dominion and should be at once thoroughly re-
formed in the direction of freer trade, and that the
amount of taxes collected be limited to the sum re-
quired to meet the necessities of the Government
efficiently and economically administered."

OTTAWA

P.inted by S. E. Dawson

Printer to the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty

1893