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After a long and exten- wve discussion on Iwth sides of the House, the leader of the Ooposition. representing the opinion, not oiily of the hon. gentlemen who followed him in this ifouse, but of the great party of which he waa the leader, of whose principles he ^»^ the exponent, had introduced a rerolution which, without dc. bt, em- bodied fully, though concisely, the principles of the Opposition uj^n this floor, and the principles of the great party which that Opposition represented, for, although beaten at the polls, al- though represen*«d here by a very smaU mmonty,theycoulu not but accord to that great jwrty a power in the countiy which It were useless to ignore, which it were M.I. ,•„ ^ — ' ""^^" Js were Tl^"" !!!!L"*^_*° -««=*. «P0°. and which must always be any discussion in this as a power treated in House, or in the Do- elsewhere, .——--' 7, vrtuaua. Tne itjHoiution introduced by the hon. the leader of the Opposition was a resolution which, as i ♦ he had said before, embodied briefly what might be considered the gist of the a^ ment He (Mr. Plumb) would read it »Sar.roV^JSn^-i~ carrying trade of this continent • Z^ ^7^^ l^ll^T'^ ^J''"*" *»»« commercial ShS of the Empire and that of Canada thaf £^iw* lead to consequences deeply to STde^ed^" St ^f"^ .^^ *^'** ^« ^"""^^ not want any better text upon which to speak Tn his occasion than that short.?ompi^ hensive resolution. He had s^id toC hon. fnend who had brought in the ta^ resolutions that tl,« ««^}. i°.i. -7^ that resolution .^-^Z^^:r.L'l^ very be.t commentary up^the propo8^ tions which he had submitted to ^e oo.O(o44 House, .»nd the very best evident that those profKwitions were acceptable to the country. But, before commencing to ad- dress himself specially to that resolution, he hoped he might be permitted to re- view briefly, as briefly as the case would admit, the circumstances in which we were placed by the condition of the country, which had conduced very largely to the adoption of the policy now brought forward by his hon, friend the Finance Minister. He (Mr. Plumb) be- came a member of Parliament at the time of the great political revolution which removed from this body a large number of the gentlemen who had before led its legislation in this House. He came here a stranger to the usages of the House, comparatively a stranger to the grave questions then under discussion; and almost the first important debate in the House, in that Session, was upon the fiscal condition of the country, opened by the Budget speech of the gentleman whosucceeded his hon. friend the present Finance Minister, and had been succeed- ed by him. Those of them who then, for the first time, were brought face to face here with the arrogant representatives of the triumphant party, which had swept the country as by a deluge from Prince Ed- ward Island to Manitoba, were somewhat astounded at the propositions and argu- ments of the hon. gentleman who then held tie purse-strings. They had sup- posed, in their ignorance and innocence, perhaps, that the country had been, for many years, under Conservative rule, in a state of great pros- perity ; that the gentlemen who formed the Confederation of the Pro- vinces, who had laid broad and deep its foundations, who had made it one of the powers of the earth, and one of the prin- cipal appanages of the great Crown upon which we were proud t j be de- pendent, had done something towards advancing the interests of the country ; but they learned, from the lion, member for Centre Huron, that they had been re- creant to all the best interests of Canada, had squandered her resources, had made reckless bargains with the different Pio- vinces in order to sustain their waning popularity, that they had heaped burdens upon Canada which she never could sus- tftin ■ thsv wsrfi inXA ' ■ • • - i.u;- 1 — . a great financial authority, and who spoke as tlie mouthpiece of that imrty. They were told constan«;ly at every great meetinglield for the purpose of influencing electors, as well as u|)on the floor of this House, that their friends, when in power, increased the public expenditure from $13,500,000 in 1867, to $23,316,316 in 1873-74. They were told that this was something so reprehensible, that those who were responsible for it should be for ever thereafter shut out from the management of public aflfairs ; that thiy deserved to be ostracised because they had met the neces- sities of the growing Dominion with a statesmanlike and generous liber- alty. Increasing in population, wealth, and commerce with unparalleled rapidity, demanding outlays for jwrfecting the' machinery of the new Confederation, for legislation, for the militia, for the collec- tion of revenue, for the protection of the shipping trade, for the opening and peaceful occupation of the North- West, fur public buildings adapted to the needs and theidignity of the Dominion, for the administration of justice, with ample and constantly augmenting i-evenues to meet such demands, the Conservative leaders would have been recreant to the trust confided to them, if they had adopted a niggardly or short-sighted method in dealing with the public expenditure. No one who sat on the Opposition benches in those days— and many oi those gentle- men were here now before him in the same position— had opposed that policy to which he had j ust referred. The general onnciple upon which the expenditure was based was fully conceded on all sides; but little discussion arose upon the Budget during successive years from 1867 until 1873. Sir John Rose, during hw financial Administration, finding the expenditure growing more rapidly than the revenue seemed to warrant, set a niemorable example to those who came after him by cuttingdown his Estimatesto meet the necessity. His able successors in the administration of the finances, prior to 1874,found nosuch need. They might be well assured that they would have met it had it occun-ed in a way to preserve the pubJic credit from the damaging ef- fect of yearly increasing deficits. The Opposiiiou of ibe day contented them- w„ ,.„ded V th. part, .. ..in' ^^Z I .X^S . Z Zi^^^'^Jj^l NAtlQNAL UMUty CAMAbA ► ■^■llli H ill I ? of the Estimates, and, in almost in every instance, heartily congratuhited the Finance Minister upon liis statements. The estimated receipts were in every in- stance, from 1868 to 1874, inclusive, ex- cee Culling Timber.. 69,430 Post-Offlce 616,802 Public Worlis. .. 626,280 $068,299 $200,796 200,935 127,996 82,286 12,866 1,387,270 770,468 2,389,679 1,763,393 Increase $2,C76,60» There was a decrease in tlie item of Minor Re- venues from $10,841 to «»1.3T1 5^470 Total increase $2,870,039 oiBT And SDBsutias. Interest on Pub- $4,501,568 $.5,724,436 $1,222,868 613,920 158,564 .3,752,757 lie Debt. Sinliing Fund. . 355,266 Subsidies to Pro- vinces 2,753,966 998,791 Increase 2,380,313 There was a decrease in tlie item of Charges of Management from $285,512 to $238,003, or 47,619 And in premium, discount and exchange from $73,676 to $26,680, or . . 46'99G 94,615 Totalincrease $2,285,798 Tiiese aggi-egated, summed up as follows : Increase in ordinary expenditure, in ac- counts open in 1867-68,83,414,353. In accounts not opened until after that date, $1,250,132. In charges on Revenue! $2,870,039. Interest on Public Debt (less decrease on Charges of Manage- ment and premijim, discount, and ex- change), $1,1 28,365. In Sinking Fund, $158,654. In Subsidies, $998,791. All these formed a sum total of increases from'1867-68 to 1873-74, when the hon. member for Lambton and his friends took the management of affairs, of $9,820,322. The supporters of the Gov- eruuieiiL claimed, however, that in the increased expenditure of 1873-44, there were items amounting to nearly one million dollars, which had bflen often uoiuted out, that were improperly*added by the late Finance Minister to the accounts of that year, and properly be- longed to the succeeding year. This con- tontion, he thought, his hon. friend be- fore him (Mr. Tilley) was preparetl to justify. They had insisted upon it in his defence while he was absent from the House, and while he hehl a position which prevented him from entering into the discussion and vindicating, aa he had now vindlcatwl. his position. It might be safely asserted, that in, round numbers, at least $950,000, improperly added by bis successors to the expenditure of 1873-74, should be deducted from the total increase l)eforo stated, bringinc it down to $8,870,322, from the total ex penditure of 1873-74, reducing it to 122,466,316, and added to the exjiendi- ture of 1874-75, making the total of that fiscal year, the first clear year of Reform rule, $24,663,071. Tlie correctness of this statement was virtually proved by comparing the figures with those of the second fiscal year of the rule of their economical friends, the loud-mouthed advocates of retrenchment. That year, 1875-76, pi-esented the start^ ling aggregate of $24,488,372, and that of the two succeeding years, which com- pleted their record, was only kept down by.a device which could not redound to their credit While other items of ad- ministrative expenditure were increasing in a startling ratio, although the revenue was constantly shrinking, by theexjiendi- ture of 1876-7 7, when the great depression was fairiy upon us, paralysing trade and carrying disaster into every branch of industry, the reckless policy of the late Government entailed upon the country an outlay, chargeable upon revenue, of $23,519,301, which was only kept down to those frightful figures by stiiking out $428,079 from the Militia items, and $682,128 from /that of Public Works chargeable to revenue. As compaied with the outlay in those Departments tiie year previous, a reduction of $1,110,207 was thus obtained, but for which the total for 1876-77 would have been $24,629,508. The same plan was adopted in 1877-78. The Militia Item was $360,404 less, and the PubUc Works item $959,347 less than m 1875=76. The total expenditure of the year, notwithstanding thes©^ abnormal reductions, was $23 503 158 and but for them, would hav© reached $24,813,909. There could be no merit in bringing about a reduction by the contrivances now exposed. If Public Works, charjre- able to revenue, had been completed, as they had been led to believe they would be, the expenditure, of course, would cease As to the Militia, they knew who presided over that Department, and his antecedents would lead them to believe thatho would not resist anv reduction of our power to defend the flag. In every case,it would befoundthat the exiKsnditure ot the Liberal-Conservative Government upon which such fierce denunciations had been poured out by hon. gentlemen opposite, especially by the late Premier and the late Finance Minister, had been exceeded under their Administration It would bo an easy task to justify, item bv Item, every figure for which hU hon friend (ftlr. Tilley) and his old colleagues and predecessors were in any way re- T^^'^lu ,^" ^^^ 'P"»« ««««»«'^ of 1H7J, the late Finance Minister, who had been virulently opposed by the Globe and its party at his election, in August 1872, made his prophetic spe^h which he had often quoted, but of which unfortunately, no extended record re- mained in (he public .archives. He claimed, however, on the strength of that vaticination, credit for foreseeing the commercial crisis which was impendinjr and which burst upon the country like a tornado, in the autumn of 1873. It had already spread panic and dismay over the United States, when the hon. gentleman and his colleagues took the seals of oflice and it had extended to Great Britain and th6 Continent before the hon. gentlemen met Pariiament. ?t 'L ®"*^. ?^ *^a™h, 1874. He (Mr. Plumb), in common with many othei-s who heard the Budget speech of 1874, was not aware of the mental peculiarities of the hon. gentleman who uttered it— they did not know the depth of the immedicable wound which had been inflicted upon his ambition, and his self- love, nor the bitterness and persistency of his hatred. His speech was violent beyond any precedent, and it might have oeen considered unfair, and. nerhans n«t over courageous or chivalrous, to'attack a man who could not stand up here and tlofend himself and hin policy, as he had shown himself fully able to do, since the country has welcomed him back to these halls. Every utterance of the late Fin- ance Minister betrayed the anjfuish of his wound, and the rage into which it throw him. They were^charged with a venom, however, which fortunately had only had the effect of politically destroy- ing himself. Upon that memomble occasion, the Finance Minister bitterly attacked the former Government for the terms it had given to Prince Edward Island, and no one of the representatives of that Island, all of whom, for reasons which he should not characterise, had crossed over to the support of iho then incoming Administration, ventured to rebuke him fof his covert insinuations as to sharp bargains. But his voice rose into a scream of de- nunciation when he said that his pre- decessors had done quickly what they had to do, namely, to wreck the public credit, and that they had left upon him " A sum total of what I call liabilities capable of being ascertained, amounting to one hundred and thirty-one millions three hundred thousand dollars in addition to our debt. Now the House will see the magnitude of the task im- posed on us, by observing that this sum is, as nearly as possible, equal to the total indebtedness of the Dominion." In various pic-nic speeches during the past two or three years, this statement had been made with even more directness and force of assertion. Now, this, if it meant anything, meant that one hundred and thn-ty-one millions of dollars of liabilities, either immediate or pro- spective, in addition to the existing debt of a like amount, had been imposed upon the Dominion by reckless and im- provident legislation prior to 1874. This was a truely alarming statement; one well calculated to startle the people of Canada, and to shake its credit with the capitalists of the world. Let them examine it, and endeavour, by it, to test the accuracy and fairness of the hon. gentleman's arguments. At the Aylmer pic-nic in 1877, they were told, according to the Globe report of the late Finance Minister's speech : ".TLttt ho must prepare to borrow within three, six or seven years, not lees than $120,000,000 of money ; that wa« the extant of the eiifcaKcmontH and commitments which the late Oi)vernment had left U8 as their dying; legacy. It is liard to reidiiie what thin muana. For U8, $1 20,000,000 ig a tremendous sum. It equals our net oxiatintr national debt. It in more for us than 2,000 millions for the United 8tateH, or 2,C00 millions for Qreat BriUin. " Fancy the wonder of the crowd at hear- ing these sums glibly stated, honest Grits fumbling in their pockets, instinctively, under the idea that a hat would be passed round at the close of the performance, and that they would bo called ujjon to contribute their share of the trifling amount in order to recoup the Treasury, which had been depleted by the rascally extravagance of the Tories. The Budget speech of 1878, told them : " We had other liabilities definitely fixed— mark, definitely fixed, amounting to 131 mil- lions, namely : For Canals $ 43,800,000 Intercolonial Itailway 10,000,000 Pacific Itailway 30,000,000 Debts Maturing 35,000,000 Intercolonial Railway repairs in New Brunswick & Nova Scotia 2,000,000 P. E. I. Railway and Land Grants 2,S00,0OO Minor Works 4,500,000 St. Lawrence rmproTemonts be- low Montreal 2,500,000 Certain advances then uontcm- Plat«d 1,000,000 Total $131,300,000" The nature of this shocking bug-bear, which, exhibited by so responsible an authority tm the Finance Minister of Canada, was well calculated to cause a capitalist in England t" button his pockets, might be inferred The fainiess of these statements might be ii. rerred from the actual fact that, out of the amount of $181,300,000, $30,000,000 was the sum intended as a subsidy to the Pacific Rail- way, under a charter which had been abandoned, and an Act whi«h had been instantly repealed by the hon. gentleman and his majority. $35,000,000 were for removal of debt, which was considerably increased, nominally, by negotiating a four per cent, loan at a discount. But who ever heard before that such renewals could be fairly counted, or countM at all, among items which were to double the amount of the existing debt of which they formed a part t Such, however, was the inference that was adroitly suggested. When it suited the Finance Minister to do BO, u on a rodent ojcaHion, he ninde light of the t«B'c of I o rowin/j money in England for renewal (f debt, even in the face of difficultiea brought about by hia own lache», and ataciisisof unpamlJeled ■everity in the money market of l^m- bard Htreet. Tht-y nuiHt striko off the 135,000,000 under tliis l.ead. Thus they relieved him verv easily of one half of his load. |30,000.0'00 for the Pacific Rail- way and 1J35,000,000 for renewal— 165,000,000 in al 1. They had not cost him many sleepless uightH. 1'hen there were in his list, <543,800,000 for the en- largement and construction of Canuls, and am ng these the Baie Verte figured for |8,500,000. The other items were nearly as illusory and misleading. The whole presentation was more than unfair. Except the rejieal of the Tacific Bail way Act, no legislation that he (Mr. Plumb) could remember had relieved the country of any liability ; and the fidelity of the atrabilious statements of the late Finance Minister might be tested by ascer- taining what amounts he stated in his last Budget speech would be required to com- plete the works in hand except the Pa- cific Railway, for all the expenditure on which, except $1,391,618, incurred prior to 1874, the lato Government must be held wholly and rigidly responsible. These amounts, estimated as of the 1st. July, 1878, were: For completion of Wel- land and Lachine Canals, $5,500,000 ; Miscellaneous "Works, $5,000,000, or ten millions and a half altogether ; and it might be said, in passing, that with much of this sum the late Government should also be charged. The net increase of debt from July 1st, 1873, to July Ist, 1878, was $40,513,007. From ihis amount must be deducted discount on renewals, $3,901,444, and amount ex- pended on Pacific Railway, $8,812,233, leaving the increase for all expenditure on capital account for every other pur- pose, $27,799,930. Add to this the ten millions and a half still required for the completion of the canals, and the fright- ful $131,300,000 shmnk to $38,300,000 — a decrease of a mere trifle of ninety- three millions, or 71 i>er cent, which might gauge, with tolerable accuracy, the allowance that must be made for the ex- Finance Minister's calculations. But it was by no means to be ad- mitted that the liou. gentleman's responsible fur the fMr. Plumb) ven- liie predecessors wore $38,300,000. Ho turod to assert that his hon. friend from St. John (Mr. Tilley) and his colleagues would have curtailed exininditure in every possible way, having proper regard to the public interest, if they had con- tinued in jxiwer. Their Estimates wero based upon a condition of things which was totally changed when Parliament met in 1874. The lato Government, with a vast majority at its back, had full IKJwer to reverse the policy of its prede- cessors. Whatever, in their judgment, had been impro|>erly or unwisely done, should have been promptly undone. It was their duty to apply the knife and to cut down outlay whenever the knife was needed. They harl command of the ship. It wat their duty, when they saw a financial storm lowering in the horizon, to shorten sail and economise. Could it be supirosed for a moment that his hon. friend who sat in front of him (Mr. Tilley) would not have had suflicient intelligence, honesty, and courage to meet, the exigencies of the time, if he found there was a decreasing revenue? The late Finance Minister and his friends made the enormously exaggerated statement which he (Mr. Plumb) had dissected, in order to be- wilder the public, in order to show that his own enormous expenditure was no falsification of the promises his colleagues had made when in Oi)position. They sought to cover uj) their tracks. The most eflScient way to do that was for the Finance Minister to largely over- estimate the burdens thrown upon him. And how had the inherited obligatioas beon discharged, and how had the new ones undertaken been fulfilled, on July 1st, 18781 Tho Pacific Railway construc- tion had swallowed up $8,812,833, and there weie enormous sums since pajd, and yet due. They had a glimpse, and as yet a glimpse only, of the reckless haste, and waste, and jobbery which had characterised that work. Not a section of the line from Fort William to Red River could be brought into use for a1> least three years, because the connecting link between English River and Kee- watin had been left untouched, and a large annual charge of interest would be totally lost, until the road could be made available for traffic. In regard to the Wet I land Canal, 17,846,145 had Wen ex- panded up to July Ist, 1878, on the enlargement, at each end, which ia nearly completed ; the middle section and the aqueduct over the River Welland were only put under contract a few monthn ago, and could not he completed in lesH than three years. Until then, thw new work was utterly useless, and was fnll- ing frightfully out of repair, and an in- terest account was heavily accumulating on the outlay. In such a state of things, it would be natural that they should feel great alarm for the public credit, strained, as it had l>een, to the utmost by the prodigality and incapacity of those to whom it was entrusted. He (Mr. Plumb; and his friends had been accused, time after time, of having taken a gloomy view of the position of Canada in their public utterances, but if ever any gentleman on the present Oo- vernment side had taken so gloomy a •view as that taken by the late Finance Minister in his Budget speech of 1874, and in many subsequent speeches, he (Mr. Plumb) could only say he hiwl nevoi- heard of it. It was notorious that tlio Finance Minister, on that occunion, struck a heavy blow at the credit of Canada. Put Canada, he trusted, would survive that, ns she had already survived five years ot the misrule of the gentle- men now in Opposition. In 1873, as he Mr. Plumb liad befoi-e remarked, about the time tliat the so-called Reform party came into power, it happened that there was a great levulsion throughout the commercial world ; it hajipened thai the constantly increasing revenues of Canada began to diminish ; it happened that, in September, 1873, thecra.«ih v/hicli had been so long foreseen in t' . dited States, and which the late Finu .ro Min- ister esjjecially claimed to have foreseen, fell upon that country. Canada did not feel it at first ; but it was the duty of the men who were at the helm, to look out for the storm, alter the course of the ship, if necessary, take in sail, and j)repare for the worst. Up to that time they had been going on with constantly increasing revenues, but his hon. friend (Mr. Tilley) had indicated to the House in the first Session of 1873 iJiat he intended to deal with the fiscal policy of the country, in the dirsntinn nf an increase in the taxation. He had predicted that, owing to the legislation of 1873, there would !» a necessity for a further increase of revenue, and ho indi- cated clearly that he would deal with tho necessities of tho case in the direction of Protection, ho would so gauge his rev- enue tariff as to foster tho various indus- tries of the country. It must lie borne in mind that up to that time there had been no necessity for any Protective tariff in this country ; that the conditioii of things with our neighbours was such that they could sell Canada nothing, whilst we could sell them, at fiur prices, everything wo produced. Tho 15 per cent, tariff, then in force, was all that was then required for the protection of our industries. Tliere harotected by tho condition of things in the United States, which created inflation prices there. As far as England was concerned, he was well aware, and every gentleman in this House, who was can- did enough, would admit, that there was never any disposition on the part of Conservatives to disciiminate against the Mother Country, to which they all owned the truest allegiance. Therefore, up to 1873 or 1874, whenever it was found necessary to deal with ques- tions of revenue, it was not neces- sary to do so with Protective views, because the industries of the Do- minion were not affected by competition on the other side of the border. A sud- den change took place — so sudden, that very few in this country were [jrepared to acknowledge its far-reaching conse- quences. During the first year of itspro- gress elsewhere, it was scarcely felt here, but in the second year it was felt in the increased imports to Canada, from the 8 Unite.l SUU», in the clec,tM«cd export. ;„rS?*1* *° that ooimtry, until the bal- ance of trade against uh reaoluHl tlieaNrm- ing.um .f twonty-tivo million dollar.. JH*tw,.s the balance of trade against Canada n. 1877, and it was aimcTthe T^J!r " ^^J^- ^''« '"^"- ««ntlemon oppOMte seemed iwworless to deal with thw question. I'lu-y would probably ^gn by laying down the pro,H>sitio„ thata balance of tra.1., U not a balance pt trade for that was the convenient way diftculty Tl.e late Minister of the In- tei or had advanced views on that sub- ject which, If held and acted upon by an Insolvent Court, if that Court had not in the meantime been aboli«hoo8ed U l»er cent additional duty on the 15 rer cent hst, from which he said he ex- l^ctM to receive $3,000,000. I„ some other directions, also, he attempted to deal with the great financial interests of the country. But he so befogged and beniuddled the whole question, that he brought down upon himself the indigna- tion of the whole business communitv. We had disturbed every industry of the - country. He was forced to recede, and content himself with simply addina oi im- cent, to the 15 per cent list, makinj what our neighbours of the United States called a mechanical or horizontal instead of a scientific tariff; and now the iion. gentleman said that the 17A per cent, was a sacred thing, and that if any rash man touched it, ho would sever the golden chain of our connection with Britain forever. He (Mr. Plumb) would like to know why those cabalistic figures were so sacred, or so much better than any other number. The number nine . I had iwuliar pro|.flitiea in juultiplication, •dditioii and cli' mioii. au.l many peraona •xplainwl pi-opliecy by tli« .lafttio lue of the nuuil.er w •• • • former : from a man whose instincts were supposed to be in the direction of close management of the exj^nditure in the Department over which he presided especially, who was supposed to possess a peculiar fitness, from personal training and experience, for that Department] The ^te Government could not cut down the Estimates, because- there were certain lowers behind the Grit throne greater than the Grit throne itself, that had to to placated after the elections. He (Mr Plumb) believed that he should be borne out in that assertion. The tariff proved a failure, and a deficit arose the next levn propose, in order to make up the deficits in the revenue, when he made this proposition in the face of the great- . est depression that ' ud ever fallen upon this country ? He proposed to reduce the revenue, by one stroke, $2,300,000, according to the imports received that year ; while his friends in the Ministry here were trying, with an assiduity worthy of a better cause, to deplete the failing Treasury, and the jobbera were intruding into the very fastnesses of the House of Commons itself, Mr. Brown offered, also, to enlarge our main canals within a period which would have made it neces- sary largely to increase pur expenditure. He agreed to build the Caughnawaga Canal, with fourteen feet of water on the mitre sills of its locks, for the ac- commodation of vessels which were to go to New York without transhipment; but he never secured the corresponding enlargement of the Champlain Canal" leading from Lake Champlain to the Hudson Kiver, a canal which was not five feet in depth, and not navigable for boats of more than forty-five tons burden. Nor did he stipulate that the channel of the Hudson, between Albany and New Baltimore, should be deepened where an immense outlav, and forty years of effort, has failed to obtain more than five feet of water at low tide,— and which would have had to be deepened to 14 feet for the passage of vessels from the St. Lawrence. He was going into a reckless expenditure of ten or twelve million dollars for the purpose of buying from the United States that which thay were unwilling to sell. And, after he had made proposition after proposition, when we were to give them everything except ourselves and our nationality, they received the propositions and coolly put them aside in a pigeon-hole, sayinc : We don t intend to grant reciprocity jnst now, but we will thuik of it some' day, and then we will have your offer t)efore us. What was the policy cf the Hon. Mr. Brown then? Was that not strik- ing at the connection between England and Canada 1 Was that not an attempt at severing the atolden link, of which they heard so much t Well, he had heard the argument upon the floor of this House, and ho had heard arguments in other quarters, but they did not prove to him that there was an enormously sensitive loyalty on the part of gentlemen on the other side of the House. He could not see that there was so great a conti-ast between the loyalty of thoF-e gentlemen and that of the gentlemen who sat to the right of the Speaker, in favour of the former. He remembered hearing, year after year, from the late Finance Minister, the late Minister of the In- terior, and occasionally from the late First Minister himself, quotations from an eminent fiscal authority, a great American publicist, Mr. David A. Wells. That gentleman had beeii br(«ight forward here and elsewhere, upon all occasions, as an authority for the policy which the hon. gentlemen, who then sat on the Treasury benches, wished to persuade them should be adopt ed by Canada. Well, Mr. Wells was an advanced Free-trader ; he was one of the few gentlemen in the United States who advocated that doctrine. He was pro- minent at every Board of Ti-ade meeting and every general meeting where fiscal affairs were discussed ; he was, without doubt, a very intelligent, very elo- quent, very able writer upon his side of the question. They might not agree with him, but they alf acknowledged that he was in earnest ; but this gentle- man had only a forlorn hope in the Uni- ted States. The people in the United States understood these questions thor- oughly, and, if they foand that Protection was injurious to their interests, they had the remedy in their own hands in uni- versal suffrage. Every two years they voted for members of Congress, and, cer- tainly, if they desired to change tlieir trade policy, it was very easy for them to do so. His hon. friend the late First Minister made a very eloquent appeal to the workingmen of Canada, at the Rink in Toronto, in the furtherance of the int«r«^sts of his pa-fty -as ho had a per- fect right to do. He lamented the suffer- ings of the workingmen under the Pharaohs, at the time of building the If pjrramids, and he compared the sufferings of workingmen, under Tory rule, as he was pleased to call it, to the' jKX>r fellows who were forced, under their Egyptian taskmasters, to make bricks without straw. He alluded to the policy of the United States, to the ruin that it had already brought upon that country, and said they were committing financial sui- cide, as rapidly as possible, by adhering to it. He told them that a certain ex- ception was made in respect to trade with Venezuela. He (Mr. Plumb) no- ticed that, because it was a little out of the way, and he wondered what had made him take the case of Venezuela as an illustration. The puzzle was finally solved by a pamphlet published by Mr. David A. Wells, the authority constant- ly quoted by the hon. gentleman and his colleagues. He (Mr. Plumb) found at the end of that pamphlet the very quota- tion, or something very near it, that had been made by the First Minister. Ue did not undertake to say the First Minis- ter endorsed the views of Mr. Wells, but he (Mr. Mackenzie) introduced him to the people of Canada as an authority, and quoted from his writings. The pamphlet which the late Fiist Minister quoted from, and which he must have read, contained the following paragraph, which would show what Mr. Wells in- tended by the policy which these gentle- men were so anxious we should adopt, and which he was so desirous to press upon the people of the United States. , In a pamphlet published by Mr. Wells, entitled, " Why we trade, and how we trade," they found the following signifi- cant paragraphs, on pages 23, 24, 25, 26, and 27 : « It is desired to annex the British North American Provinces, and make them a part of the American Union. We have, as a nation, for long years past, in our dealings with Can- ada, been playing the part of the wind, in the contest between the wind and the sun in the feble, to see which could make the traveller soonest take off his coat. Suppose, as a nation, * e now, for a while, put aside the rOle of the wind, and assume the part of the sun. With the balance of advantage in any amicable con- test between the two countries for industrial and coL'inercial betterment so transcendently on the side of the richer, most populous, and most powerful nation, it must be a very low order of statesm.^n.-jhip on the part of the United States which could not devise and carry out a policy that, in less than a decade of years, would make the British Provinces ap- plicants of their own accord for IncorporatioD as States in the American Union, or would en- able the United SUtes, if it was deemed ex- pedient, to force them to become such, by the threat, not of armed compulsion, but ot simply clouding the sun. " Thus, to illustrate, let us imagine what might be. North of Lakes Erie and Ontario, and the River 8t. Lawrence, east of Lake Huron, south of the forty-fifth parallel, and included mainly within the present Dominion Province of Ontario, (hero is as feir a country as exists on the North American continent ; neariy as large in area as New York, Pennsyl- vania and Ohio combined, and equal, if not superior, as a whole, to these States in its agricultural capacity. It is the natural habitat on this continent of the combing.wool sheep, without a full, cheap and reliable supply of the wool of which species the great worsteit manu- facturing interests of the country cannot pros- per, or, we should rather say, exist. It is the land where grows the finest barley, which the brewing interest of the United States must have if it ever expects to rival Great Britain in its present annual export of over eleven million of dollars' worth of malt products. It raises and grazes the finest of cattle, with qualities especially desirable to make good the deterioration of stock in other sections ; and its climatic conditions, created ^y an almost encirclement of the great lakes, especially fit it to grow men. " Such a country is one of the greatest gifts of Providence to the human race , better than bonanzas of silver, or rivers whose sands con- tain gold." Between the late Finance Minister and Mr. WellH and the Chicago Tribune, a trio of enthusiastic Free-traders, a mutual admiration society existed. Mr. Wells quoted Mr. Cartwright, and Mr. Cartwright quoted Mr. Wells, and the Cliicago Tribune quoted both, and. patted them lovingly on the back. Under the paragraphs just quoted, from the pamphlet of Mr. Wells, in a foot note, he said: " The extent to which Canada is necessarily dependent upon the United States for prosper- ity, is well illustrated by the following extract ' from the Budget speech of the Minister of Finance, the Hon. Richard Cartwright, before the Canadian House of Commons. Februarv. 1875." . "" Then followed a sample of the late Finance Minister's eloquence, with which they were all tolerably familiar. And the late Finance Minister addressed a great Reform demonstration in Norfolk, held at Simcoe, on the 2l8t of Sei-tember, 1877. Speeches, they -were told, were also made there by Mr. Charlton, Mr. Mackenzie, 17 incorporatioa ,or would en« I deemed ex> e such, by the but ot simply magine what ■■ and Ontario, east of Lake parallel, and ent Dominion feir a country n continent; ork, Pennsyl- equal, if not States in its itural habitat ;-wool sheep, supply of the orsteu nianu. cannot pros- it. It is the ly, which the States must 3reat Britain ' over eleven products. It f cattle, with lake good the ections ; and y an almost especially fit greatest gifts , better than se sands con- [iniRter and Tribune, a •traders, a r existed. Wright, and Wells, and i both, and the back, noted, from a foot note, s uecessarily I for prosper- wing extract Minister of right, before 18, February, f the late ince, with y familiar. r addressed ration in on the Speeches, tiso made Mackenzie, Mr.'Mowat, Mr. Huntington and Mr. Rymal. Mr. Oliver, Mr. Irving, Mr. Thompson, of Haldimand, Col. Skinner, Mr. Clark, and Dr. Baxter were there ; but as fur as could be learned, those eloquent expounders of Ileform prin- ciples were speechless on that occasion. The Finance Minister was reported to have said, vide Globe, October 1 6 — he was speaking of the ruin of the United States, of course : " The lessons which have been taught cannot have been wholly lout on the American people. They are setting about in real earnest to tind, as David Wells puts it, the way to regain true national prosperity, on a tiue and stable basis. Mr. David Wells, one of the ablest and most scientific thinkers in the United Status, we find proving to his countrymen most conclu- sively that, had they had Free-trade with the people of Canada, it is more than probable their trade with Canada alone would hare excelled their whole volume of foreign exports at present. And. proceeding to point out to them the extreme folly they had committed, and bearing also high testimony to the great natural resources we possess — a testimony which it would be well for every Canadian to bear in mind — even at the risk oJEf tiring some of you, I cannot refrain from reading his re- marks on the condition of the Provyice of Ontario." The hon. gentleman Ithen read or recited part of the foregoing tttract from Mr. Wells, beginning carefully at " North of Lakes Erie and Ontario," and ending with, " Such a country is one of the greatest gifts of Providence to the human race, better than bonanzas of silver, or rivers whose sands contain gold." At Teeswater, where the late President of the Council, vice Cauchon promoted, uttered his swan song, the late Finance Minister also improved the occasion, and .said, if the Globe's report of November 5th could be depended upon : "I cannot resist the temptation of reading to yon a few words written by an American economist, who was once a Protectionist, but who has bee 1 converted, and is now known as a very earnest Free-trader. You will not think any the worse of him, when ^ ay that his name is Wells, and Mr. Wells, n^ .ug to the Pro- vince of Ontario, speaks as follows." Then followed the same extract, with the same cunning and careful avoidance of the beginning and the end of the argument. This, then, was the high authority whose policy had beeii persistently recommend- ed by the gentlemen on the other side of the House, and it came with bad grace from them now to charge his hon. friendg with doing anything that would be likely to sever the golden bond that existed between \\a and England. He (Mr. Plumb) thought that very extract showed what the ulterior motive of American Free-traders was. They wished to force Canada into a position which would en- able them to take possession of this coun- try. He believed that every man in the House who had studied the question was satisfied that the union which exist- ed between Canada and England could not be severed without violence. He had never hl* twenty-five per cent., and the resulting balan(*ol twenty-three m llion.s or more, we must pay ii hard ^8h It was estimated that on the a'ticles imported from of Whom subscribed to a certain party platform m Quebec, a few years ««/ having annexation as one of the planks • gentlemen who did not hesitate to ^laee' m a most responsible position in the Min^try one who had thl^atened to tear down the British flag from the citadel of Halifax, and who instiiled into the ears of the people of Canada everywhere the insidious teachings of David A. Wells and his , sSool the tenc?ency of which had been clS shown, and was frankly and openly ac^ knowledged by those earnest Free- traders. He (Mr. Plumb) wa« not speaking m hostility to those gen tlem^i, or to the people of the United Btote^ generally They were shiwd enouS jTnn Tt t^^'"^***^" «^ their l^giala- iTui ^"^ r ''*"* t*"^' this tariff would be received aa hostile. It was un- worthy of our statesmen to say they were afraid that our legislation might li nlX^ opposition by our American n^ghbours. The,^ we.e gentlemen in benefits that accrued from P.t,tection. wil7n T.^'^^T ^'^^ ^''^ ««e it, but wilfully hoodwinked themselves. "They^know the right, and they approve it "■'^ni/.'^ """•^"*"'' y''* the wn«g Hon. gentlemen, by the course ther pursued last Session, sealed the" death^ warrants They disregarded the plaiJ y- result was shown on the 17th of September. It was not by false promises, ^s hon. gentlemen had been pleased to assert, that the present Gov- ernment had succeeded at the late elec- tions, ahe people nad had experien^ of the value of the promises of hon. gentlemen opposite, and they measured them on Septemoer 17th at their true £"fl\."°"- g«"*'«™e« need not lay the flattering unction to their souls that there was likely to be any reaction in their favour, or that the National Policy was unpopular with the masses. They need not try to believe, for a moment hat what they said about the pending rum to the manufacturer and the labourer, and the other interests was The people had declared that they would sustain this policy. The argumlrhid been exhausted during the^ camj^W The issue was a direct one. The neorfe fully unden,tood what this policy SSl It meant that they were not^oSr^ have cheap food, but something to^uy It with; not only cheap clothing, but he wherewith to procure it. The legS lation here tonlay was for the poor ma^ and not for the rich man. The ideHf the Grit party, that his hon. friends were blind to their interest, and that they were legislating for nnviUc^i T.^^I was absurd. Hon. gentlem^en op^S LT nr" ^^' P°^'*=^ ^^' QovernVenl had adopted, was the policy the countty ■ If waa would endorse. They knew perfectly well that they had taken the downward track, not, perhaps, with deliberation ; but they blindly foUowed a blind leader, lacking political prescience, and who never could comprehend anything beyond his own prejudiced opinion that the whole people of this country could be hood- winked day after day by the publications in the press of his party. The agricul- turists had been forced to raise notljing, by the policy of that dictator, but cereals. They were prevented from having a pro- fitable rotation of crops. The dictator, who had sometimes been called the wrecker, and his followers, professed to have the farming interests under their especial charge. How did they foster them ? By placing a tax of 72c. a bushel on malt. That killed the barley crop. On our wheat a duty of 20c. per bushel was levied on the other side of the line ; no duty was put on American wheat, and we were compelled to export ours when we had no surplus. Oats were interfered with by the vast produc- tion of the Western States, and he knew a case where two vessels, from Michigan or Wisconsin, came into the harbour of Sarnia, where the late First Minister resided, and, placing a large quan- tity of oats on the market, lowered the price five or six cents a bushel on market day, to the great disappointment and loss of the farmers who had oats for sale there. The late Finance Minister often said that he desired that our people should return to agricultural pursuits. He vehemently denounced the gathering together of com- munities in cities and towns. Agricul- ture, he (Mr. Plumb) acknowledged, was the basis of our wealth, but everybody knew that it paid a lower return for the capital and for the manual labour em- ployed, than any other pursuit Every man could not, or might not, wish to be a farmer, and no country was prosperous that did not possess a diversity of in- terests. The Government,proposed that Canada should have all the benefits which the most favoured countries en- joyed. They did not believe that the Americans, as the Globe asserted, monopo- lised all tho ingenuity, and perseverance, and inventive genius on this continent, but that Canada could successfully chal- lenge them to friendly competition in all these respects. It was the duty of every Government to endeavour to give diver- sified employment to its people, to keep its intelligent, active young men at home by giving them plenty of work, and he believed that the iwlicy that his hon. friend proposed would have this effect. Mr. Steinway, the manufacturer of pianos, on being told that this tariff would shut out his pianos from Canada, said he would set 400 men at work here[ and thus try to keep possession of our market in a way that we desired. The people who wanted our market must come here and manufacture for it, pay their portion of our taxes, support our Government, employ our labour, and buy our farmers' produce. It mattered very little to the farmers whether there was a duty more or less on the articles which they consumed, provided they could have a home market. If manufacturing cen- tres were built up in their midst, the rise m the value of their lands and their crops would more then compensate for any trifling tax that might be put on them, and, after all, the only alternative to this tariff was to resort to direct tax- [ation, as the late Finance Minister shadowed forth when he said that if there was any convenient way of levying an income tax after the manner of Faig- land, he would feel inclined to resort to it. Any man would have been recreant, as a member of the Government, repre- senting the Liberal Conservative party, if, in making that scheme of taxation, be had not special regard to the strug- gling industries of Canada. The hon. gentlemen opposite had made their tomb. They stated there might be a reaction in their favour, but they caught at a very httle gleam of hope. He could tell them, in the words of the hackneyed quotation : "Facilig decensus Averni, Sed revocare gradum, suporasque evodere ad auras, Hie labor, hoc opus est." Which he would venture to translate rerr freely : ^ "The engine may rush us down cmde to Avernus ; The steam may give out when it triog to return us." And he pra ved, in the best interests of Canada, that it might be many a long year before the hon. gentlemen opposite r^^ back to the upjier world from the ical Avernus int which tliey had Qcooended.