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-; » 
 
 THE BUDGET. 
 
 SiK Richard Cartwrigiit's Speech in the House oi* 
 Commons, in reply to the Finance Minister's 
 
 Statement. 
 
 DELIVERED TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 1889. 
 
 Sir Richard Cartwright, who on rising was greeted 
 with loud and prolonged cheering said : In much that 
 has been said, I am glad to say I agree w^th the hou. 
 Minister of Finance ; and as no doubt it will promote the 
 harmony of this evening that I should do so, I will firg.t 
 enumerate the points on which I agree with him, before 
 it becomes my unpleasant ^y to insinuate certain 
 doubts which exist in my mind as to the perfect accuracy 
 of his statements in other respects. First of all I agree 
 entirely w-ith the hon. gentlenum in saying that if you 
 dwarf the asperations of a younp and growing people like 
 this, you are sure as the hon, gentleman has rightly said, 
 to do it an infinite injury ; and I append to that the 
 rider that you will do exceedingly great injury if 
 you refuse to a young rising people, the ri^ht, under 
 proper conditions, to make its ov i treaties and to appoint 
 its own negotiators. I agree alsio with the hon. gtmtle- 
 man to the fullest extent that it w^ould be most desirable 
 that we should link together the various sister Provinces 
 of this Confederation in the closest bonds of union. No 
 man can feel that more intenp ly than I, but I beg 
 leave to doubt whether the fac disclosed in our own re- 
 cords, to which I took occasion to call the attention of 
 this House and the country s« ^e few months ago, such 
 facts as that by the last cemsvAS we possess there were 
 settled in the Maritime Province j; only t48 persons' who 
 w^ere natives of Ontario, while on the other hand, twenty- 
 five years ago there were 7,600 natives of the Marti mtv 
 
C2) 
 
 U 
 
 Provinces to be found in Ontario alone and in 1881 the 
 number had been reduce to 7,200 — I beg leave to doubt if 
 facts like these are altogether indicative of that close and 
 cordial and intimate union, which I, as well as the hon, 
 the Minister of Finance so much desire to see. I agree 
 entirely with the hon. gentleman that the value of e"very 
 financial statement depends in a very great degree on the 
 accuracy of the estimate which the Minister of Finance, 
 for the time being, shall be able to make of the expenses 
 of the year to come, and I propose a little later on to give 
 this House some very notable illustrations of the marvel- 
 lous accuracy that has been attained during the last few 
 years by the hon. gentleman's predecessors in that par- 
 ticular. I will add that another most valuable index of 
 the value of a financial statement consists in the honesty 
 with which the public accounts have been prepared and 
 the accuracy with which the items properly chargeable 
 to income are charged to that account and not to capital 
 account. With respect to the volume of trade, I am en- 
 tirely in accord with the hon. gentleman thai; you must 
 conisider value as well as quantity. But the hon. gentle- 
 man, not being as old a member of the House as some of 
 the rest of us, is not aware that I spent tedious hours in 
 endeavoring to teach hon. gentlemen beside him that ele- 
 mentary truth eleven years ago ; but I 
 
 PREACHED TO DEAF EAKS, 
 
 and could not convince those hon. gentlemen (though the 
 proof was clear and incontestable) of the simple element- 
 ary fact, the truth of which the hon. gentleman has now 
 discovered, that you must take value as well as quantity 
 into account in estimating that. I advise him to extend 
 the educational process, and try to convince the hon. 
 ^/entleman on his right, and the hon. gentleman on his 
 left, of that truth, of which I was not able to convi/icse 
 them. So agree with him that it is quite fair, in discuss- 
 ing deficits, to consider that the large amount which is 
 put to sinking fund may be fjiirly reckoned as a matter of 
 offset ; but when I expounded that doctrine in. 1877-*78, I 
 was met by the colleagues of the hon. gentleman with 
 ihouts of derision ; pmd again I urge upon the hon gen- 
 tleman to instruct his colleagues on the right and on the 
 left in that elementary principle of finance. We all ad- 
 mit on this side of the House, and we all agree, not merely 
 
 >V/Ja.^ 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 ^ 
 
 if 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 <♦ 
 
 • '•¥€ 
 
 'WSIp 
 
i 
 
 8 
 
 in principle, but in practice, and when we were in power, 
 we put our principle into practice ; that it is 
 
 MOST GROSSLY UNFAIR 
 
 ^ i that the poor man should pay more taxes than a rich 
 
 1 I man, in proportion to his means. Why, that is the funda- i 
 
 1 mental principle of our opposition to the hon. gentleman's < \ 
 
 protective tariff. Every specific duty which he lays on, 
 pro tanto is an injury and an injustice, and does inflict a ; 
 
 heavier tax on the poor man than on the rich man. ! 
 
 When I look around the House, and see that probably 
 my hon. friend himself, probably myself and probably -^ 
 
 my hon. friends around me are wearing garments which \ 
 
 came into this country at a tax of 20 per cent., whereas 
 our poorer neighbors have to pay 30, 40, oO and even 60 
 per cent, for their garments under the present tariff, I 
 agree with the hon. gentleman that it ib most grossly un- 
 fair that poor men should be compelled to pay twice and 
 even three times as much as rich men pay, as they do 
 under the present tariff. {CJieers.) I agree again with 
 the hon. gentleman that all over the world the rate of in- 
 terest has fallen immensely within tho last few years, 
 and also in the fact, which he did not state so clearly, 
 though no doubt his intelligence saw it, that it is there- 
 fore that to day loans can be made on better terms than 
 they could a few years ago. That likewise is an ele- 
 mentary truth which I am glad to see he perceives, but 
 which it was very difficult to convince his hon. colleagues 
 of in discussing the transactions whicli have taken place 
 in the last few years And here I will take the oppor- 
 tunity to say — though I shall refer to it at greater length 
 later on, if time permit — that, on the whole, I am glad to 
 bear my testimony to the fact that, as far as I can judge, 
 the last 3 per ceij^t. loan was a good loan, was well made, 
 >. ^ and the time well chosen. Further, I am agreed with the 
 
 ¥ * hon. gentleman, that it is most desirable that we should 
 
 ' ' have larger trade with other countries, and that there, is 
 
 § 4 a great and increasing sentiment all over this country, in 
 
 j^ » favor of enlarged trade with other countries ; and I ad- 
 
 vise him, and I advise the Grovernment and the people of 
 Canada, to seek that trade where it can be found a hun- 
 dred times better in quantity, and twenty times more 
 profitably -"o us — next to us, at our doors, within half a 
 day's journey of us — than to go ten thousand miles away, 
 and 
 
 u.jifi^MIB'SaW'' 
 
RANSACK THE ANTIPODES FOR A TRADE 
 
 "which, when we get it, will not be worth one hundredth 
 part of that which I am afraid the hon. gentleman is dis- 
 posed to turn his back upon. {Cheers.) I also agree with 
 the Minister of Finance — and I am delighted to find that 
 there are so many points of agreement between us — 
 " that our manufacturers could meet competition a» 
 Canadians can meet it, and ought to meet it." That is 
 our doctrine also, and I believe the best manufacturers in 
 Canada will endorse that doctrine. They do not want, 
 as I believe, a hot-bed protection ; and, if the facts are 
 true as stated by the hon. gentleman, if the t.me hag 
 come when Canadian cotton manufacturers are able to 
 undersell English goods in neutral markets, does not the 
 hon. gentleman perceive that the obvious inference is 
 that our manufacturers must be able to manufacture as 
 cheaply as the English manufacturers, and that therefore 
 they do not need any more protection ? I am therefore 
 surprised that the hon gentleman does not propose to re- 
 duce the duties on cotton manufactures, because I cannot 
 possibly imagine that he means that it is to the piiblic 
 advantage that Canadian manufacturers should sell their 
 goods below cost in foreign markets, and so tax the Cana- 
 dian consumer doubly for the benefit of the heathen 
 Chinese. {Loud cheers.) If that be not the case, and I 
 cannot for a moment suppose that that is the view of the 
 hon. gentleman, if the Canadian manufacturer is now 
 able to compete in equal markets, on equal terms, with 
 English and American manufacturers, what does he need 
 of further protection at our hands? I am delighted also 
 to agree with the hon. gentleman that prices fluctuate 
 from causes which no Government can control. 
 
 Mr. Mills (Bothwell) " Flies on the^wheel," {Laugh- 
 ter.) 
 
 Sir Richard Cartwright. Prices fluctuate from 
 causes which no Government can control, and the rider 
 I put to that is that it is most dishonest for politician* 
 who know better to slate that a Government can keep 
 up the prices of articles — notably the price of farm pro- 
 duce, for example. I agree with the hon. gentleman that 
 it is in every sense the true policy of Canada to extend a 
 steady, 
 
 COURTEOUS TREATMENT TO ITS NEIGHBORS, 
 
 and not on the Thursday to repeal a statutory declara- 
 
 » 
 
I 
 
 #♦ 
 
 1 
 
 (ion which they had assented to years ago, and on the 
 Monday to restore it to the Statute-Book ; nor attempt to 
 e^ade solemn obligations by such little petty devices as 
 putting taxes on the packages which it was formally agreed 
 «hould enter free. Lastly, I agree with the hon. gentle- 
 man on the whole in the proposition on which he laid so 
 much stress, that if trade continues to increase, if all 
 things go well, if +he North-West fills up rapidly, if no 
 new demands an»d and no naughty No. 8 should come 
 into existence to disturb the repose of the Finance Minis- 
 ter, if, in short, we have smooth seas and fair winds, all 
 will go well enough. It is not altogether the first time that 
 we have heard these prophecies from the pred( cessors of 
 «f the hon. gentleman — not the hon. gentleman who oc- 
 cupies a place on the floor this evening, and whom I am 
 glad to see here, but another predecessor of the hon. 
 gentleman, the Elijah, whose mantle appears to have 
 fallen on the hon. gentleman himself, and who, in smooth 
 and dulcet tones, was wont to prophesy smooth things 
 to us 
 
 NOT ONE OF WHICH, I AM SOIiRY TO SAY, HAS YET 
 
 COME TO PASS, 
 
 though I hope my hon. friend opposite may be more for- 
 tunate in that respect than his predecessor. Having thus 
 briefly indicated the points of agreement between the 
 hon, gentleman and myself, into which I will enter at 
 more detail further on, T may now venture to indicate 
 certain j^oints of difference. For example, though I agree 
 perfectly with him that it is not quite fair to measure 
 tl.e incidence of taxation in a country by the mere per 
 capita rate, I cannot agree with him that the incidence of 
 taxation in Canada on the poor man is less than it is in 
 Great Britain. I think he labors unc'er a great delusion 
 there ; and Sir, as I, for all the hon. gentleman may say 
 to the contrary, am a great admirer of the British system 
 of taxation, as I think it far superior to our own system 
 of taxation, if the hon. gentleman wants to know, I will 
 eall his attention to certain facts which I suppose must 
 be well known to a man of his reading and intelligence, 
 which will show him that he labored under a very great 
 delusion indeed when he said that the poor man in Can- 
 ada was less subject to taxation than the poor man in 
 England. He is quite right in saying that so far as re- 
 tgards excise taxation, that is purely voluntary. No man 
 
6 
 
 need smoke, aud no man need drink, as the hon. gentle- 
 man told us, unless of his own free will. 
 
 Mr. Mills (Bothwell). Nor shave. 
 
 Sir KiCHARD Cartwright. "Which, no doubt, is a 
 source of expense, though not as yet of taxation ; I do 
 not know what may be in store for us, though. 
 
 CANADA'S TAXATION COMPARED WITH ENGLAND AND U.S. 
 
 Now, Sir, in England taxes are raised, as he rightly said, 
 in these several ways ; first, by excise, which is volun- 
 tary, in his sense of the word ; second, by stamps, which 
 does not touch the poor man in England to any appreci- 
 able extent ; thirdly, by the land tax ; fouri-hly, the cus- 
 toms, and, fifthly, the house tax, and by the income and 
 and property tax. Of all these forms of taxation 
 
 IN ENGLAND NONE TOUCH THE POOR MAN 
 
 except a certain part of the crstoms. Now, Sir, England 
 raises 20 million pounds sterling by her customs duties, 
 and how does she raise it ? 9 J millions from tobacco, 
 which is a voluntary tax, 4 millions from rum, brandy 
 and other spirits ; and one million and a quarter from 
 wine ; so that, in other words, of all the taxes in England 
 the only tax a poor man need pay is his proportion of the 
 balance of 5 million pounds sterling of customs duties. 
 "What does that amount to ? We know that the popula- 
 tion of England is clowe upon 36 millions, and taking for 
 this occasion the per capita argument, the English artisan, 
 if he chooses, can escape with an average tax per head 
 for himself and his family of 
 
 66 CENTS PER ANNUM, AS AGAINST $4 
 
 per head paid by every artisan and his family here. Our 
 tax on the poor man is 600 per cent. — as the hon. gentle- 
 man likes that way of calculating it — greater then the 
 taxation of his fellow in England. I differ with the hon. 
 gentleman — and I wall give him, if he likes, in the amplest 
 detail, my reasons for differing, though not at the present 
 moment — in the wisdom of comparing the taxation in 
 Canada and the taxation in the United States during the 
 last twenty-one years. "We will work that out as long, 
 and as often, and as fully as the hon. gentleman can de- 
 sire, but for the present let him and the House be content 
 with this simple statement, which he can verify at hii 
 leisure from the records of both countries : Twenty-one 
 
 6 "% 
 
i T 
 
 years ago the average necessary taxation per head of the 
 people of Canada was 83 per cent, of that then borne by 
 the people of the United States ; to-day the necessary tax- 
 ation of the poople of Canada is 50 per cent, greater than 
 the average necessary taxation of the people of the United 
 States, if you deduct a hundred milliouh, or thereabouts, 
 that they use for reducing their debt. Then, Sir, I take 
 leave to diifer with the hon. gentleman as to the truth of 
 that remarkable statement which he made, that every 
 cent of taxation raised in Canada has not been wasted, 
 but has been properly spent, not in bribery or corruption 
 practices, but in productive public works, of which, as I 
 shall presently show the House, the Intercolonial Rail- 
 way affords a most notable and remarkable specimen. 
 Likewise I have my doubts whether the history of the 
 world will show that increased taxation is the only path 
 to national development, though it may be the only short 
 cut by whiirh a number of Government supportersj in a 
 poor country can bloom suddenly into millionaires. 
 (Cheers) Sir, I have my doubts of the correctness of the 
 hon. gentleman in intimating that we showed profound 
 wisdom in assuming the debts of the Provinces, and that 
 the United States were guilty of great folly in refusing to 
 do likewise. I also doubt extremely whether the hon. 
 gentleman was well advised in the comparison which he 
 proposed to institute with Australasia and the Australian 
 colonies, and at a later date I will lay before the House 
 certain reasons which I think will convince the ht)n. gen- 
 tleman that he spoke unadvisedly with his lips when he 
 challenged a comparison with Australrsia, without going 
 a little more into the subject, or, to use his own words, 
 without looking a little more deeply below the surface 
 than he did. When the hon. gentleman stated, as I un- 
 derstood him to do, that he expected that we would have 
 an export of twenty million bushels of grain this year 
 from the North-West, I would be delighted to believe 
 he was correct, but I would like exceedingly to know on 
 what grounds he made these statements. I would like 
 to know what amount has yet been exported from the 
 Province of Manitoba, and the North- West, v/hat amount 
 may be in the elevators, what likelihood there is of his 
 figures being reached ; and, if the hon. gentleman wishes, 
 I will give him the floor to state his reasons for making- 
 that statement, which is an important one, and valuable 
 if true, and one which I would be very glad to see con- 
 
8 
 
 firmed. Then, Sir, the hon. gentleman made another 
 statement in regard to which I have some difficulty in 
 understanding him. As I took him down — and I am 
 open to correction if I am wrong — the hou. gentleman 
 ■tated that we had got fifty-one million dollars worth 
 more public w^orks than the additional debt represented. 
 Mr. Foster. Capital Pi^penditure. (Oh !) 
 Sir Richard Cartwrioht. Well, I would like to 
 know waere that came ircm. Now, I happen to know, 
 on the authority of the hou. gentleman's own returns, 
 that the total surplusses we accumulated in the last 
 twenty-one years amount 
 
 EXACTLY VO THIRTEEN MILLIONS, 
 
 as I understand it. That is all the surplus over our debt 
 that we had to invest in public works, or iu anything 
 else, and where he gets his fifty-one millions is a thing 
 that — I won't say no fellow understands, because, I sup- 
 pose, the hon. gentleman understands it — but I humbly 
 profess my entire inability to comprehend it without fur- 
 ther details, which, I dare say, the hon. gentleman will 
 give at a convenient season. 
 
 THE TAXES ON FARMERS. 
 
 Then, I have my doubts — and I see here several influen- 
 tial and notable representatives of the farmers of Ontario 
 who can speak on this point — whether he is quite correct 
 in saying that the farmers of Ontario pay no duty on their 
 food. The farmers of Ontario, if I understand the 
 case, use a good deal of sugar, and a good 
 deal of rice, a good deal of dried fruits, and 
 not a little spicee and various other condiments 
 with their food. Nor, would I put out of sight the ques- 
 tion whether they may not, some of them, be so far lost, 
 to — what shall I say ? so far lost ,to wisdom and self- 
 restraint as to take 
 
 A LITTLE BEER WI'^H THEIR DINNER, TOO. 
 
 Therefore, I think that the rmers of Ontario do pay some 
 duty on a portion, at any rate, of their food. {Cheers.) 
 Then, as to the trifling duty on their farm implements, 
 which the hon. gentleman thought, and told my hon. 
 friend behind me, was such an infinitesimal thing. I 
 think if the hon. gentleman had only spent six months on 
 a farm in the North-West Territories, he would come to 
 
li^i^H 
 
9 
 
 the conclusion that the duty on farm machinery was an 
 extremely onerous burden on the farmers wLo are doing 
 their best to develop that noble country. {Loud cheers^ 
 One little thing I did notice. The Hon. Minister of 
 Finance spoke very highly of his predecessors, not even 
 excepting myself. Then he proceeded to intimate that 
 therewere a number of stock assertions which those who 
 formerly held the position of Finance Minister had entirely 
 failed to answer, but which the Finance Minister now 
 incumbent of the office would remove fore v'er. I fear that 
 the hon. gentleman has not taken sufficient stock of the 
 obstinacy of Bourbons like my hon. friend from Bothwick ; 
 I fear he will find tha. these same assertions have deep 
 roots, far-reaching roots, and that not even his great 
 talents, not even his most lucid explanations, will entirely 
 avail to remove from the popular mind those delusions 
 which his talented predecessors, on his own showing, 
 have hitherto failed to eradicate. I have now a word or 
 two to say as to the general position. I repeat that I 
 agree entirely with the Finance Minister that the value 
 of the financial side of his statement depends almost 
 entirely on these two things : First, on the accuracy of 
 the Estimates submitted to Parliament at the time of 
 making the financial statement ; and, second, on the 
 accuracy of the accounts of last year's expenses, which 
 are furnished to us. 
 
 INCORRECT ESTIMATES EXPOSED. 
 
 Now it may interest the House to know — as we cannot 
 tell for a period of two years or thereabouts, how accurate 
 the hon. gentleman has been, and I was glad to observe 
 that he took occasion to correct his earlier estimate by 
 adding $1,250,000 to the modest sum of $34,440,000 with 
 which he started — I repeat it may interest the House to 
 know what has been the actual results of our exposures 
 for the four last years. I find that in 1885 an original 
 estimate was brought down of $29,811,639; but when 
 the year closed we found the total expenditure was 
 i^35, 03*7, 060, being an excess in expenditure over the orig- 
 inal Estimate of $6,225,421. Of this it is only fair to 
 point out that $1,697,851 were due to uuforseen causes — 
 if they can be said to be unforeseen, that is to say, that 
 abominable misgovernment produced a revolt in the 
 North-West, and the disproportion between the original 
 estimate submitted in 1885, and the expenditure may 
 
10 
 
 therefore be reduced to $4,52*7, 5t0. In 1886, we were 
 called to consider the financial condition of this country 
 on an estimated expenditure of $31,757,032, which swelled 
 finally to an actual expenniture of $39,011,612, being an 
 excess of $7,554,580 over the expenditure, from which on 
 the same principle I would deduct $2,177,220 for war ex- 
 penditures, making an excess for that year of $4,077,360. 
 We find in 1887 an estimated expenditure of $33,123,000 
 and an actual admitted expenditure of $35,637,000, being 
 an excess of $2,533,130, to which in all conscience ought 
 to be added $456,000 most improperly charged to capital 
 account, making a total excess over estimated expenses of 
 $3,000,000 odd. In a similar manner in 1888 we had, 
 when the statement was made to us. an estimate expense 
 of $85,041,855, which has resulted in an actual expense 
 of $36,718,000, being an excess of $1,676,000, to which 
 ought to he added $674,000 for items improperly charged 
 to capital account. The result of all this is, that in the 
 last four years the original estimates on which the finan- 
 cial statements were besed hsixe been exceeded on an 
 average by $3,000,000 or more. I do not say, no body can 
 as yet say, how the hon. gentleman's estimates may fare ; 
 but I submit, with the evidence of those four year before 
 us, it is hardly unreasonable on our part to express some 
 doubts as to whether the hon. gentleman's estimates will 
 be verified, and whether the surplus on which he has. 
 calculated will be likely to be realised. Independently 
 of that, I have another thing to say to the hon. gentleman. 
 I had hoped that when the hon. gentleman assumed the 
 office he now holds he would have had the manliness 
 and sound sense to depart from the evil ways into which 
 the department had fallen, and he would have returned 
 to the honest mode of stating public accounts practiced 
 under Mr. McLelan and under Sir Leonard Tilley. I have 
 to say now, that I regard the statement of the Public 
 Accounts for the years 1887 and 1888, as open to very 
 grave exceptions indeed. In my opinion those 
 
 ACCOUNTS HAVE BEEN COOKED. 
 
 I will not say those accounts are fraudulent because 
 things are done under political exigency and necessitiea 
 of state which are supposed to be spoken of in a diff*erent 
 fashion from the way in which he would treat such trans- 
 actions if they occurred in ordinary bookkeeping. But 
 when you take the Public Accounts and see that prior to 
 
11 
 
 188*7 the capital received for lands was not credited as 
 revenue — and you will find that this rule had been form- 
 ally agreed to in this House — so long as any portion of 
 the charges "or surveying the lands were put to csipital 
 account. We find this in 188*7 reversed. We fine that 
 the whole revenue from lands is taken and credited as 
 ordinary income, amounting to $491,000 ; but w find 
 $162,391 for expenses of these Dominion lauds charged to 
 capital account, contrary to the practice of Mr McLelan 
 and Sir Leonard Tilley with respect to this account. 
 Then as to money spent for expenses of the rebellion we 
 have $293,91*7 charged to capital account, although no 
 thing of that kind had been done with the very large sum 
 expended in 1885 or 1886, the result being, without taking 
 intq^account for the moment the vexed question of impro- 
 per charges in regard to the Intercolonial Railway, that 
 contrary to the deliberately settled policy agreed upon by 
 this House and carried out for several years by two suc- 
 cessive Finance Ministers, a surplus of $96,832 was forced 
 for 188*7, whereas there was a real deficit of at least $363,- 
 000. We find, I am sorry to say, that the present Finance 
 Minister has gone on in the same evil way. He has ad- 
 mitted a deficit of $810,031. 
 
 BY SOME HOCUS POCUS 
 
 with respect to the Post Ofiice, although the accounts in my 
 hands show there is an actual deficit for 1888 in the Post 
 Office service of $*729,978, that is reduced in the hon. gen- 
 tleman's statement to $26*7,000 by some mode of reckoning- 
 five quarters' revenue within the one year. It may be 
 that the department has collected from the postmasters 
 money held back by them, although until an explanation 
 of a fuller character be given by the hon. gentleman — and 
 he did not allude to this matter at all, all I can do is to- 
 point out that according to the mode of computation 
 which prevailed in 1887, the deficit would have been 
 $972,978 instead of $810,000. But as the charge of 
 $135,047 on account of Dominion lands charged against 
 capital account, while the hon. gentleman took credit for 
 every penny of $217,000 received from these lands as ordi- 
 nary revenue, I say that is simply fraudulent t '"keeping, 
 and the same remark applies to the charge of !}.i,o»9,929 for 
 North-West rebillion losses. I cannot for one moment 
 admit that there is any ground, wnatever for treating that 
 as an asset or as a thing for which we have received any 
 
 
12 
 
 return or which oupht to appear in any way in the capit{« 
 account of this country. I say that this practice of keep- 
 ing two accounts, one an ordinary account and one a 
 capital account, is being grossly abused and is likely to 
 be grossly abused in order 
 
 TO BLIND THE EYES OF THE PEOPLE 
 
 of this country to the real actual extravaganco of these 
 lion, gentlemen. Looking over the Intercolonial Railway 
 accounts, in my judgement, although that I admit it to be 
 a question in dispute, I believe that $408,385 ought to be 
 added to our ordinary expend iturej and I further state 
 that even on the hon. gentleman's own showing, even 
 only taking the lines laid down by his predecessors Mr 
 McLelan and Sir Leonard Tilley, our true deficit is not 
 $810,000, but the true deficit is as nearly as possible 
 $1,500,000, and if you add the sums improperly charged 
 to the Intercolonial account, and the item of the Post 
 Office, the genuine deficit w^ould be over $2,000,000, or as 
 nearly as might be $2,056,000. With respect to two of 
 these items every man can see for himself if he turns to 
 the Public Accounts that what I have stated is absolutely 
 and exactly correct. He will see (page 50, table 7) that 
 for a period of four years and more, not one penny of these 
 Dominion land receipts was credited to income, by Mr. 
 McLelan or Sir Leonard Tilley. During the time that 
 they made charges on that score to capital account, they 
 carefully abstained, to their credit be it said, from violat- 
 ing the agreement come to between this House and the 
 Premier, that no charge should be made on one side with- 
 out giving credit at the same time on the other. As re- 
 gards the rebellion losses I commend the hon. gentleman 
 again to the example of Mr. McLelan, who had the cour- 
 age and manliness to charge the six million dollars to 
 ordinary expenditure in the two years of 1885 and 1886, 
 while for the purpose of making a false balance we find 
 in 188t and 1888 these comparatively trifling sums of 
 $293,000 and $54*7,000 charged to capital account. Of 
 course the reason for this is obvious. Hon. gentlemen do 
 not like to have 
 
 FOUR SUCCESSIVE DEFICITS 
 
 «taring them in the face, and so they deliberately turn 
 round on their own predecessors and alter their whole 
 method of book-keeping to suit this present exigency. 1 
 
 * " 
 
 . 
 
18 
 
 am glad to hear that we are not likely to have any more 
 of these rebellion losses to pay, but I enter my protest 
 once for all against the most vicious practice of crediting^ 
 the v^-^hole receipts roccived from our Dominion lands and 
 charging part of the expenses to the ordinary income and 
 part to capital account. I ask what confidence the 
 Minister expects us to place in his stutements, what con 
 fidence can he expect us to place in all those calculations 
 which he is good enough to submit, when we liuu in 
 matters absolutely under his own control that he cannot 
 resist the temptation of making things appear a few hun- 
 dred thousand dollars the better than they really are, 
 although by so doing he flies directly in the face 
 of their own predecessors in office? (Cheers.) Now, Sir, 
 I come to a matter which bears a good deal on what 
 the hon. gentleman has said, a matter which bears very 
 largely on the extent to which we have succeeded in 
 creating a genuine self-sustaining traffic between the 
 various Provinces of this Dominion, and the extent to 
 which his statement can be relied upon that we have 
 spent no portion of our taxation except it be " on pro- 
 ductive public works." 
 
 THE INTERCOLONIAL RAILWAY. 
 
 I have here the statement of the revenue we received 
 from the Intercolonial Railway in the year 1888. It 
 amounted to, all told, $2,912,^83. Our expenditure for 
 working the Intercolonial Railway during that year 
 amounted to $3,2*76,441. To that I add $408,485 for items 
 of rolling stock and for matters of that kind which in 
 my judgment are improperly charged to capital account 
 and which ought to have gone to the ordinary expenses 
 of the Intercolonial Railway for that year, I add also 
 interest on the cost which I find recorded in our Public 
 Accounts, interest on 47,lt8,000 at 4^ per cent, which is 
 the rate the hon. gentleman will find that sum stands us 
 in. That amounts to $2,110,000, so that we are to-day 
 working the Intercolonial Railway at an expense to the 
 peoi)le of Canada of $5,794,836 for expenses, for interest 
 ia,nd for items improperly charged to capital account. We 
 get back from it $2,912,783, so that for every dollar of 
 revenue we receive from the Intercolonial Railway $2 
 are to-day paid out of the Treasury of Canada, as a proof 
 of the value of that road in pi^oducing a genuine self- 
 sustaining commerce and in uniting our scattered Pro- 
 
14 
 
 ymces together, and conveying coal from the Springhill 
 mines to the consumers in Montreal and elsewhere at 
 rates far below actual cost of carriage. Now this is an 
 illustration which this House will do well to ponder on. 
 There you have the result of having a road built for * 
 political purposes and the result of having a road run for 
 political purposes. I say that the management of that 
 Intercolonial Railway is not honest or these results would 
 never be produced. When you find that after that road 
 has been opened for tnirteen or fourteen years, after you 
 had all possible opportuniticB for developing its commerce, 
 when you find that year after year a million or more than 
 a million is demanded on so-called capital account, when 
 you find with all this that that railway is not only not 
 able to produce one single cent in return for interest but 
 that you have to charge on your own showing $363,000 
 a year dead loss, I say, Sir, that speaks louder than any 
 man can speak of the value of political roads and of the 
 value to the country of running them for politic^.' pur- 
 poses. As if to make the matter worse the hon. gentleman 
 alluded to-night, and other gentlemen have alluded else- 
 where to the wisdom, the good policy and the sagacity 
 the Government are displaying — while the Intercolonial 
 Railway is a dead yearly loss on our hands to the tune 
 of hundreds of thousands of dollars — in having taken 
 other hundreds of thousands of dollars out of the public 
 ch3st to construct a short line to compete with the Inter- 
 colonial Railway, and to cut the Intercolonial Railway's 
 throat and to add still more to the burdens of the tax- 
 payers — the people of Canada, Sir, the hoL.. gentleman 
 spoke, and I dare say correctly enough, of what may be 
 called our ascertained liabilities, for railroad subsides, for 
 canals, for public works of various kinds ; but the hon. 
 gentleman did not dwell on the chance of our having 
 made upon us a heavy demand for further railway 
 subsidies. Now, I have never wavered or flinched from 
 saying that althougl in certain individual instances good 
 might come from this system of railway subsidies, the 
 thing is vicious and wrong in itself, unless they be 
 granted for purposes of the clearest general utility to the 
 Dominion ; but I tell the hon. gentleman this : let him 
 not deceive himself, let him not deceive this House, by 
 imagining that he and hia colleagues can, at their own 
 supreme will and pleasure, give subsidies for railways to 
 this supporter or that supporter, and then turn around 
 
16 
 
 and say to the people of Canada : Now that we have 
 glutted our own supporters, now that wehavepyid these 
 men for the assistance they have giM'ii us, Y\'e are going 
 to shut down, and you other constituencies and other 
 Provinces and ^ther portions of this Dominion who could 
 not be bought or whom it was not worth our while to 
 buy, shall have nothing because we do not see fit to con- 
 tinue the systt-m any longer. ?ir, that cannot be. (Cheers.) 
 There may be good reasons for putting a stop to the 
 system, but it does not lie with the hon. gentlemen to 
 say that they can put a stop to it without a good deal 
 better reason than Ihey have yet given. We have heard 
 nothing of another question, which is the subject of an 
 arbitration that may involve many millions, between the 
 Canadian Pacific Railway and the Government of this 
 country, and in connection with which, if I am informed 
 aright, judging from the proportions the lawyers' bills 
 have assumed, a very heavy bill may have to be paid 
 sooner or later. Nor did the hon. gentleman* allude to 
 the fact, which cannot be lost sight of in a financial 
 statement, that we have given a guarantee to the Cana- 
 dian Pacific Railway Company, and that we may have 
 to pay the interest on some $15,000,000 for fifty years. 
 Nor did he allude to the fact that almost every Province 
 of this Dominion has claims on the general treasury as 
 yet unsettled. Sir, I shall have something to say on that 
 subject before I close ; but meanwhile, let me point out 
 that for all these things, be they right or wrong, wise or 
 foolish, the policy of these hon. gentlemen Is responsible. 
 If their be a difficulty or a danger or a heavy contingent 
 liability, it is to their policy and that alone, that the 
 people of Canada owe it that besides our heav}'^ ascer- 
 tained liabilities there are immense contingent liabilities 
 which no man can wisely overlook in estimating the 
 future. 
 
 HOW THE COMBINES ARK WORKED. 
 
 And now, Sir, I have a word or two further to say. I am 
 for a moment going to pass from the financial side of the 
 question, to consider the mode in which the money we 
 nave to spend is got from the people, and I have to say 
 this — and now is the time to say it, because now, if ever, 
 should the grievances of the people be stated in no un- 
 hesitating sound : I say there is one feature of this pro- 
 tective tariff which is daily and hourly growing into 
 
 i 
 
16 
 
 wore odious prominence, and that is the complete subjec* 
 tion of this Government to certain combines in this 
 country, to certrin manufacturing eotablisameiits in thi* 
 country, and certain frio^ds of theirs who on emergency,, 
 can come dcwn with their cheques for $5,000 or $10,00(V 
 or it may be whenevei the money can do most good to 
 their fr' uds the Government. Now, Sir, is it not enough 
 that the ) same combines should be able to exact 35 per 
 cent., as modt of them can, from the people of this coun- 
 try ? Is it not enough that they have this legal means 
 of exaction, but are we to permit that the Minister of 
 Cust -""as, or, for aught I know, a mere understrapper of 
 the Minister of Customs, shall arbitrarily and tyranni- 
 cally add half as much more to the taxes the people have 
 to pay ? Sir, this is a growing abuse. I have cases now 
 in my mind, in which distinguished manufacturers in 
 this country have gone to the agents of a combine, and 
 have said to them : We will give you the price of this 
 article in cash in the United States, and add to it the cost 
 of the freight, and add the whole Canadian duty, if you 
 give us goods at these rates; and they have been refused ; 
 and they have then brought the goods in from the United 
 States, paid the cash price in the United States, paid the 
 freight and have been prepared to pay the honest duty 
 or the duty the Government ought to have levied ; and 
 yet, at the instance of these identical combines the 
 Government of Canada, or the Customs Department of 
 the Government, arbitrarily and tyrannically added 50 
 per cent, to the true valuation of those articles, and com- 
 pelled those men to pay 50 per cent, more than the law 
 intended they should. {Shame!) Sir, we shall have some- 
 thing to say on this matter, please heaven, before the 
 House rises, and therefore, I shall confine my present re- 
 marks regarding it to a very few words. But I say that 
 the thing to which I allude is one of the most 
 
 MONSTROUS FEATURES OF THE CUSTOMS ACT 
 
 as it now exists. We gave the Minister of Customs this 
 power to be used in extreme emergencies to prevent fraud, 
 and that power was being used to commit fraud. If 
 there were nothing more to condemn this system, the 
 judgment recently pronounced against in a certain well-^ 
 known case by the highest tribunal in the land, the ten- 
 dency it exhibits to encourage blackmail and partiality 
 to political supporters, and to foster the greatest political 
 
m 
 
 
It 
 
 " 'p 
 
 corruption bnsidos, ought to bo enough to condemn this 
 feature of the protective tariff in the eyes of an honeet 
 man. It is the natural and inevitable fruit of a hiffh pro- 
 tective system, and it does this threefold wrong. First of 
 all it wrongs the revenue, because its effect i. to^ force 
 people into subjection to the combines, and the (lovtrn- 
 ment gets no duty ; secondly, it is an injury to the manu- 
 facturers of the best class; and thirdly, as the maniifat;- 
 turers pass the charge on to the consumers, the whole 
 body of consumers suffer from this infamous wrong. For 
 that wrong there is no genuine redress save taking away 
 the power these men have abused. Sir, there is one good 
 point in the hon. gentleman's statement. For the first 
 time in many years, the Minister of Finance declares that 
 he is not going to add a fresh batch of oppressive taxes to 
 the burthens of the people of this countf y. Well, Sir, we 
 will wait until this House rises before we rejoice too much 
 in that announcement ; but in the meantime, as the hon. 
 gentleman was good enough to give us a list of the taxes 
 which wealthy men pay in this country, 1 will give him 
 a list of the taxes which poor men pay on articles of daily 
 and hourly use which are necessary to all of them. 
 
 HOW THE TAXES FALL. 
 
 In the first place. Sir, I find that we imported into 
 Canada last year $449,446 worth of coal oil, on which 
 $351,886 of duty was collected, being a rate of 80 per cent, 
 on the necessary article of light most largely used by the 
 poor of this country. We imported $5,154,000 worth of 
 sugar, on which a duty was paid of $3,433,324, being at 
 the rate of 67 per cent, on an article which goes very 
 largely into the consumption of the poorer classes ; and 
 that is very far indeed from representing the real tax, be- 
 cause probably an equal sum, under our present scheme 
 of taxation, finds its way into the pockets of the rich 
 refiners. On the articles of coarse woollens and the like, 
 while we can obtain the goods we wear at an average 
 rate of 20 per cent, our poorer brethren are obliged to pay 
 40, 50, 60 and tO per cent, on the materials they think it 
 convenient to use as clothing. Now this tariff", amongst 
 its other injustices, continues to perpetrate a very gross 
 injustice, to which I believe the attention of the Grovem- 
 ment was called lately, in the case of the millers of 
 Canada. Where else would there be found a system^ 
 called a protective system, in which the Canadian miller 
 2 
 
18 
 
 is absolutely discriminated against in favor of the Ameri- 
 can miller. That is protection reversed. You injure 
 youT own manufacturer for the benelit of the foreign 
 manufacturer, and ^ 'hen the former points out that such 
 is the case, on the cl iarest evidence, you cannot venture 
 to redress the wrong you have done. The hon. gentle- 
 man, particularly in the closing part of his speech, in- 
 dulged in a very great deal of uNsumption which 1 <"an- 
 not characterize as at tvll well founded. lie and his 
 friends behind him would, forsooth, cram down the minds 
 of the i)eople of this country and the throats of gentlemen 
 of this House that all the progress that has been made in 
 Canada for the last twenty-one years is due, forsooth, to 
 those hon. gentlemen on the Treasury benches. I have not 
 time, it would probably requir-; several hours, to review 
 in minute detail i^l the statements the hon. gentleman 
 submitted. They will be revi<?wed, Sir, before the vote 
 is taken on the question submitted to you. Do not be 
 afraid ; there are plenty of able, zealous, intelligent gen- 
 tlemen beside and around me who will not leave one 
 sophistry, one false statement unanswered, but human 
 strength has its limits and I cannot undertake to go over 
 the whole work to-night. I will, in my reply, con- 
 fine myself simply to chalking out the lines, and no 
 doabt the picture will be amply filled in by my hon. 
 friends. .What do the statements of the hon. gentleman 
 prove ? They prove, it is true, that in spite of bad policy, 
 in spite of misgovernment, an advance, aye, a consider- 
 able advance has been made in some directions. That 
 nobody here has ever denied. I have never, and I have 
 never heard any of my hon. friends deny it. But what 
 we do say ib, that in other directions we have not ad- 
 vanced. We say that a good deal of what is claimed as 
 advancement is not, in the proper sense of the term, 
 really an advancemens, but that it is rather a case in 
 which what one man gains another man is pretty sure 
 to lose. When hon. gentlemen talk of the leaps and 
 bounds and the progress which Canada has recently 
 made, they appear to forget one important consideration. 
 Within the last seven or eight years what between the 
 sums borrowed and spent by the Government, what 
 between the sums borrowed and spent by great corpora- 
 tions like the Canadian Pacific Railway and others, pro- 
 bably not far short of $200,000,000 of borrowed capital 
 has been spent in Canada. That is coming to an end. 
 
19 
 
 Tho hon. gontleman has told us so, and wo all know it is 
 BO, and in makinpf his caloula' " >n8 for the future, I rt'com- 
 mend tho hon Minister of Finance to bear in mind that 
 this hug-e capital expenditure is now coming to an end 
 to all inti'nts and purposes, at any rate the greater part of 
 it, but that both in our case and thii '^ase of the corpora- 
 tions to which I allude, one thing remains, — the interest 
 remains as a charge on the earnings of tho people of 
 'Canada 
 
 TO BE PAID FOR Khh TIME TO COME. 
 
 it appears to me the hon. Minister of Finance has 
 omitted in his r6$um6 certain vital points. I think if ho 
 will take the trouble to examine the works of those wri- 
 ters who most deserve respect, and to confer with those 
 men whose opinions on this subject best deserves respect, 
 he will find that they will be disposed to agree with me, 
 at any rate thus far, in saying that in a country like 
 Canada, that in a country of the age of Canada, that in a 
 country in the state of settlement of Canada, the real, true 
 indices of prosperity are these : First of all, and to this I 
 specially call the attention of the House, the rapidity of 
 the incease of population in Canada ; next (and we will 
 have more to say on this presently), the rapidity of the 
 increase of the total volume of trade ; and next, alid here 
 I fear I take issue with the hon. gentleman, the import- 
 ance of the debt decreasing, both absolutely and relative- 
 ly, and the importance of our taxation decreasing, both 
 absolutely and relatively; again, the rapid progress of 
 settlement in such new countries as we may be fortunate 
 enough to acquire, the growth of new cities and towns, 
 the capacity to attract and retain such emigrants as come 
 to this country ; and, last but not least, the wise, just and 
 equitable distribution of property among the masses of 
 tke people. Those I say are the true signs of prosperity 
 in a country like Canada. On the other ha: d, I say that 
 the true signs of 
 
 AN ARREST KD DEVELOPMENT 
 
 in a country like Canad» are these : When you find popu- 
 lation, particularly in the rural districts, either stationary 
 or retrograde ; when you find the volume of trade either 
 stationary or retrograde ; wh?n you fail, and fail egregi- 
 ously in settling and filling up our new territory; when 
 you are not able to point to new towns or villages in any 
 
20 
 
 number ; when you find 6, decrease in the selling value 
 of agricultural lands in the country ; when you find a 
 rapid increase of the debt and of the taxes and a rapid 
 eflux of people from the country, whether they be emi- 
 grants coming to this country or whether they be your 
 own people who seek to improve their position in another 
 land. Now, I ask this House which set of conditions, on 
 the whole, exists in Canada to-day ? Let us review these 
 in detail. Hon. gentlemen will remember that a very 
 few days ago I put a question to the Minister of Agricul- 
 ture as to the population which he estimated to exist in 
 this country, and I asked him on what his estimate was 
 founded, and to divide it among the several Provinces. 
 
 THE POPULATION OF CANADA. 
 
 The hon. gentleman was kind enough to send over to me 
 his memo., and I found, as indeed I had expected, that his 
 elaborate statement of 4,946,49*7 souls was simply the 
 purest guesswork, that there was not one particle of 
 foundation for the statement so formally submitted, other 
 than this, that is — if, Mr. Speaker — the population during 
 these seven or eight years had increased in the same ratio 
 as it did in Canada between 18*71 and 1881, then these 
 results would follow. I have also the hon. gentleman's 
 own statement, as recorded in the books of his depart- 
 ment, of the immigrants who settled in Canada during 
 1881, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1885, 1886 and 188*7 ; I call the 
 attention of the House to- certain other remarkable results, 
 which follow these two separate statements of Gfovern- 
 ment beyond possible contradiction. I find that in the 
 years I have named we received in Canada 630,Y44 immi- 
 grants, who, according to the statement of the Department 
 of Agriculture, are expressly declared to have settled in 
 Canada, besides the large number who passed throu^ 
 and went away. I find that our population in 1881 was 
 4,432,481. A ding to these the 620,*744, it is clear that we 
 would have, without any natural increase at all, 4,955,- 
 654, and therefore that, on the showing of the Minister of 
 Agriculture himself, on the evidence formally laid on the 
 Table of this House in the books of his department, during 
 the last seven years there has been a dead loss of 9,000, 
 besides the whole natural increase ofthe people of Canada, 
 which, in seven years, at 2J per cent., on their own show- 
 ing, would be *700,000 souls. So, if the Department of 
 Agriculture be correct, 630,744 immigrants came here, and 
 
 r 
 
21 
 
 r 
 
 in that case 700,000 Canadians have been extruded from 
 this country to make room for them. I will give five or 
 ten minutes of my time to the Minister of Agricultiire — 
 oh, I see he is not present — or to any of his colleagues to 
 point out any inaccuracies in my statement. If the state- 
 ments of the Department of Agriculture are correct, it in- 
 evitably follows that we have lost more than Y00,000 
 people from 1880 up to the month of April, 1888. That 
 is the result which must inevitably be deduced from their 
 own declaration. I am going to come to the rescue. I 
 do not think the case is half as bad as these hon. gentle- 
 men have depicted it. In the first place I do not believe 
 that the statements of the Department of Agriculture are 
 worth the paper they are written on. I do not believe 
 they are worth one cent of the $3,5000,000 which we have 
 spent during these seven years in order to bring immi- 
 grants here ; nor do I believe that their elaborate logarith- 
 metical calculations are worth anything. I doubt ex- 
 tremely whether there is in Canada at present a popula- 
 tion of 4,9^^,000. "We know that the Ontario statistics 
 are the only reliable ones we have. 
 
 Some hon. members. {Hear, hear.) 
 
 Sir EiCHARD Cartwright. Hon. gentlemen say " hear, 
 hear." Probably those hon. gentlemen have not paid 
 much attention to these matters, but, if they wait until I 
 get through, they can contradict me if they are able. 
 I say that these Ontario statistics are the only reliable 
 ones we have. I do not say that they are absolutely re- 
 riable, but that they are the only ones which approach to 
 reliability. During the decade from i8'71 to 1881, they 
 showed very accurately the increase of population which 
 took place then, and I think it is more than probable that 
 they will show accurately what increase has taken place 
 since. They s- )W an increase of 180,000 to date for that 
 Province. I believe it will be found that the actual in- 
 crease in the Dominion is a little more than double that — 
 perhaps about 400,000 — but I do not believe that, of the 
 630,000 immigrants, there are more than one-sixth and 
 perhaps not one-tenth part remaining in Canada. We 
 have been bringing these men here and paying their pas- 
 sages to enable them to drift to the southward, and in- 
 deed to act as anti-immigration agents to the detriment 
 of the people of Canada. Let me remind the House of 
 two things^ We had numerous disputes three or four years 
 ago as to the population of the North- West Territories 
 
22 
 
 and Manitoba. In 1885 and 1886 censuses were taken of 
 those territories, and the result was to show, without any 
 possibility of contradiction, that 
 
 THE OPPOSITI^^N WERE RIGHT 
 
 in all points but one. They had estimated the population 
 of Manitoba and the North-West too highly. They had 
 gone beyond their mark in their fear to err, while the re- 
 ports of the Depjirtment of Agriculture gave this most re- 
 markable result : They showed by most positive state- 
 ment for the years 1831, 1882, 1883, 1884, 1885 and 1886, 
 that 166,803 settlers had gone to Manitoba and the North- 
 West, though when the census was taken, there were only 
 118,000 whites found in all that country. According to 
 the census of 1881, and allowing for natural increase, we 
 should have had 74,400 in 1886 without one single immi- 
 grant. Deduct that from 118,000, and you have this re- 
 markable result : The Department asserted that 166,803 
 had settled in that country, and they gave the figures : 
 1881,22,001; 1882, 58,751; 1883, 42,772; 1884, 24,240; 
 1885, 7,240 ; 1886, 11,599 ; total, 166,803. Well, of these 
 166,803 who, they said, had gone there, who, they stated 
 in public documents, were there, we find only 44,095, and 
 the remaining 122,708 had vanished in thinnest air, 
 and in this way was Confirmed the remarkable accuracy 
 of the statements of hon. gentlemen opposite. Then 
 again when hon. gentlemen opposite took upon them to 
 contradict men who had carefully studied the questions 
 relating to the population of this country, I challenged 
 them, as I challenge them now, to go to the Catholic 
 clergy in the Province of Quebec, who possess good stat- 
 istics in regard to the movement of the Catholic popula- 
 tion there, and to ask them as to the exodus of their 
 people, and to judge by that how far the statements 
 which I and others have made are correct. That chal- 
 lenge was thrown out three years ago. I repeat it now, 
 and I ask the hon. gentlemen, if they venture to dispute 
 my statements, to take the means which present them- 
 selves readily and naturally to find out the truth, so that 
 we may discover who is right and who is wrong in re- 
 gard to this most important question as to the rate at which 
 the population of Canada is increasing. In the meantime, 
 however, I call attention to this fact, that, on the author- 
 ity of the statement made by hon. gentlemen on the floor 
 of Parliament, and of these made in the returns of the 
 
23 
 
 Department of Agriculture, there has been an exodus of 
 "700,000 of the people of vjanada in the last seven years. Now, 
 a word or two as to the question of the volume of trade 
 The hon, gentleman was not able to deny the fact that, 
 whereas, with a population of three millions and three- 
 quar.^ers in 18Y4, we had a volume of trade of $217,000,- 
 000, we have now, with a population vvhich he calls five 
 millions, a volume of trade of |193,000,000, taking goods 
 entered for consumption ; and that amounted, in round 
 numbers, to $58 per head in 1864 and $40 a head. In 1888. 
 It is true that it is right, as he said, to estimate A^alue as 
 well as quantity . He was right in saying that no one 
 knew better than I did that there was often great fluc- 
 tuations in value. I pointed that out time and again in 
 this House ten and eleven years ago, but it is not fair to 
 say that in a country which should be growing and ad- 
 vancing as Canada should be, wo should be content, for- 
 soolh, with such a showing, even if the hon. gentle- 
 man could establish 'hat he did not establish at all, 
 that there has been a considerable droop in the value of 
 our exports and imports. He referred to the droop which 
 had taken place in the value of the exports and imports 
 into England, but it does not follow that our imports 
 and exports should droop in the same ratio. I believe 
 myself that there has been a droop. I believe that prices 
 are Considerably lower to-day than they were in the time 
 when we were in office, and I call the attention of the 
 House, and of the hon. gentleman, and of my friends here, 
 to the fact that, when the Mackenzie Grovernment was 
 in power, the prices of farmers' produce were far better 
 than they are under the National Policy, and further, 
 thouf^h we did not promise to make the prices good, or 
 to keep the prices up to abnormal rates, the hon. gentle- 
 man and his friends got into office by the most audacious 
 and impudent declarations that they, under the National 
 Policy, had power to make markets for the farmers, had 
 power to raise the prices of all the things the farmers had 
 to sell. The hon. gentleman likes to compare Canada 
 and Australia. 
 
 CANADA AND AUSTRAILIA C50MPARED. 
 
 Well, Sir, I will give him a comparison which will do 
 him, perhaps, some good. I find that in 18t4 New South 
 "Wales, which has, by-the-by, something Vfery like a 
 revenuB tariff and a free trade systen, had a total volume 
 
24 
 
 of exports and imports of 90 millious. Now the prices of 
 their productions were much higher in 1874, as I sup- 
 pose he knows, than in 1887, but in 1887 New South 
 Wales had a volume of exports and imports of 175 mil- 
 lions, that i&, it has grown from 90 to 175 millions, nearly 
 doubled ; while Canada has crept down from 217 to 200 
 millions. I suppose that he will admit that the same 
 causes were at work in New South Wales, raising or 
 altering the prices of exports or imports, as in Canada, 
 and if h^does not know it, proof can easily be advanced. 
 But my contention is that we ought to go on, we are a 
 young country, we are a growing country, we are in- 
 creasing in population, even under all disadvantages, 
 faster than old countries like England, or many countries 
 in t'liope, and be the alteration in values what he 
 pleases, it is a proof, I repeat, of arrested development, 
 that the volume of trade to-day in Canada nearly $20,000,- 
 000 a year less than it was fifteen years ago. Now there 
 was another note I gave, that was the failure to setttle 
 the new territory we had acquired. Sir, this also is ac- 
 tually a matter of notoriety. Here we have their own 
 census return, showing the most lamentable failure, 
 showing, if they are to be believed at all, that such was 
 the result of policy of the G-overument that of 166,000 
 settlers who went to the North- West and settled there 
 with the intention of remaining, only 44,000 were found 
 by actual count five or six years thereafter. Sir, very re- 
 cently, for four or five hours together, this House rang 
 with declaration from hon. gentlemen representing that 
 country, setting forth the unexampled fertility, setting 
 forth the unexampled excellence, setting forth the beauties 
 of that country in terms so glowing that I came to the 
 conclusion that really and truly the earthly paradise was 
 situated north of latitude 49, and that Regina was really 
 only another name for Eden — if only Mr. commissioner 
 Herchner were removed. Sir, cannot these gentlemen 
 see that every word that was said then, every word that 
 is said now (and much of it may be said truly) in praise 
 of the fertility, in praise of the excellence, in praise of the 
 Tesources, in praise of the chances of the development of 
 that country, are the severest possible condemnation of 
 the Government opposite in pretending to promote colo- 
 nization, who have squandered 100 millions of the peo- 
 ple's money, and have only this beggarly and miserable 
 acoonnt of settlement of account to exhibit for it to-day ? 
 
 
25 
 
 ' t 
 
 .' \ 
 
 ^?ir, I oome to another point which may fairly be said to 
 be in dispute, where I again gj-^^e a challenge to these 
 hou. gentlemen. When talking about the proofs of the 
 decrease in the value of property in Canada, I say that to 
 my certain knowledge, to the certain knowledge of scores 
 of friends whom I see here, in the gnmt Province of On- 
 •tario more particularly, there has been, in the last 8 or 10 
 years, a great and notable depreciation in the value of 
 farm lands. I believe that if proper investigation were 
 had, if these hon. gentlemen would do as I asked them, 
 if they would appoint a proper committee of members of 
 this House, with power to investigate this matter 
 thoroughly, if they had done it, at any rate, then we 
 would have had, and I am very sorry for it, the most un- 
 answerable i^roof that over the greater portion of the Pro- 
 vince of Ontario, over the greater portion of the 20 mil- 
 lions acres of farm land which it contains, there has been 
 a very great reduction in the actual selling value, 
 amounting, in all probability, to something like 8 or 10 
 dollars per acre for every one of these 20 million acres. 
 That is the statement which I make, that is a statement 
 which I know, from Iriends who are largely interested in 
 forming correct conch'sions on this subject, representing 
 probably less than tite entire reduction in the selling 
 value ; and if you want to have a true national balance 
 sheet, you have got to set such a ruduction as that in the 
 selling value of the farm lands in Ontario — of the other 
 Provinces I do not venture to speak — as an offset against 
 your little petty addition to the savings bank deposits, 
 and the deposits in the other banks, and a score of these 
 other indices of prosperity on which the hon. gentleman 
 so much relied. Now as to the increase of the debt, the 
 hon. gentleman knows as well as I do that all this sophis- 
 try, all this petty quibbling evasion, will not avail to 
 alter the fact that Canada entered Confederation with a 
 debt of t5 millions, whereas to-day, on the first of March, 
 the net debt is 236 millions, with very doubtful assets 
 for part of the remainder— will not avail to alter the fact 
 that 21 years ago the total taxation of Canada was about 
 11 millions, and to-day, on his own showing, the total 
 
 TAXATION OF CANADA IS 81 MILLIONS, 
 
 or he expects it to be — it won't avail to alter these things, 
 nor is it the slighest use for him to waste the time of the 
 House, or to waste his own time, in innumerable calcula- 
 
26 
 
 tions as to the development of certain minor industries 
 here and there, or the question whether our taxation per 
 head is a few cents more or a few cents less than that of 
 the United States. Now as to immigration, here again I 
 present to the hon. gantleman his own statements. If 
 these statements have one scintilla of truth, if the esU- 
 mated population be correct, if the statements in the hen., 
 gentleman's other returns and statistics are correct, it is 
 only too clear that there has been a monstrous loss of the 
 people of Canada. If indeed those immigrants whom the 
 hon. gentleman says came here, have come and settled 
 here, then three-quarters of a million of the best of our 
 people have gone from us. That is <he inevitable result, 
 and to that I again call the attention of the hon. gentle- 
 man. Sir, it is known to everybody that all through the 
 rural districts of Ontario there is scarcely a single county 
 the rural population is gaining to-day ; there may be 
 gains in a few towns, there may be gains in a few (;ities, 
 but the rural population is stationary, is in a position of 
 arrested development, and one of the main causes of 
 that is the unjust and oppressive incidence of taxation, 
 particularly on the agricultural portion of this com- 
 munity. 
 
 A Member. The farmers in Ontario have been en- 
 larging their farms, where they had fifty acres they now 
 have 100, where they had 100 they now have 200. 
 
 Sir Richard Cartwrioht. Then the others have 
 gone, and they who owned the fifty acres and 100 acres 
 have departed. G-entlemen like my hon. friend have 
 been laying field to field and buying up farms, and the 
 bold yoemanry who used to send him here, have departed 
 to the other side of the line. (That's so.) Why, Sir, 
 within a few miles of my hon. friend's residence, there 
 stands the little town of Brussels, which I formerly had 
 the honor of representing, I was sent the other day — not 
 for the purpose of using it here, it was a mere matter of 
 investigation on the part of an enterprising newspaper 
 proprietor — I was sent an account of the number of men 
 — not women and children — who had gone from the little 
 town of Brussels, with a total population of 1,200 souls, 
 within the last ten years. How many would the hon. 
 gentleman suppose there were ? Twelve hundred souls 
 would represent about 250 adult males, I suppose, and 
 seventy of them were found to be residents in the United 
 States. Their names were given, their residences were 
 
2Y 
 
 
 given. From the little town of Brussels alone seventy 
 men, representing probably seventy families, had 
 
 GONE TO THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 I hojpe and trust that is an extreme instance, but I am 
 afraid it is only a fair illustration of what is taking place, 
 not in Ontario alone, but in Nova Scotia, in Prince 
 Edward Island, in New Brunswick, aye everywhere 
 throughout this Dominion, and I am afraid that until it 
 got its present Government in Manitoba as well. 
 A Member. Brussels is improving every year. 
 
 SIR L. TILLEY's PROPHECY. 
 
 Sir Richard Cartwright. I have great regard for 
 Brussels, but that does not alter the fact that 10 men 
 formerly resident in Brussels are now residents in the 
 United States. As the Minister of Finance was seized 
 with the spirit of prophecy and as I hold it is rather 
 dangerous to prophecy until you know, I may be per- 
 mitted to call his attention to what befell a certain pre- 
 decessor who likewise prophesied a few years ago. In 
 1882 I had a little controversy with Sir Leonard Tilley 
 on subjects very closely akin to those I am discussing to- 
 night. The hon. gentleman undertook to tell the House 
 where we would find ourselves in 1890. "We have nine 
 or ten months to go upon, but here is Sir Leonard's state- 
 ment, to which I call the attention of the House, delivered 
 in the full spirit of prophecy as to where we would be in 
 1890. Sir Leonard declared : 
 
 " But between this and 1890 the amount that is to be paid into the 
 sinking fund, and which forms part of onr annual charj^es upon the con- 
 solidated revenue, will average $1,500,000 a vear for the next nine years. 
 That will give for the deduction of the debt $13,600,000. Then the sur- 
 plus for the nine veata 
 
 " An hon. MEMBER (Sir Richard Cartwright). Oh ! 
 
 " Sir LEONARD TILLEY. An hon. member says " oh," but when w« 
 have $1,500,000 assured for this year, when there is no doubt, after the 
 reduction which we projwse to make, that there will be a surplus of 
 $3,000,{K)0 for the next year, it is not, I think, asking too much for the 
 hon. gentleman to accept as reasonable a surplus of $1,000,000 a year for 
 the remaining seven years of the nine commencing on the 1st of July last, 
 that would make $14,.500,000, and would, with the sinking fund, reduce 
 the net debt to $175,897,680. But if we estimate the increase of population 
 at but 18 per cent only during the ten years— the increase of the last de- 
 cade—the result will be then, taking the population at that period, and 
 the debt as stated, the net debt will be $34.27 per head. Then if we have 
 any extraordinary increase of our population (which I think it is but 
 right to expect we will, but which 1 have not estimated for here) it will 
 be ample to meet, at any rate, any extraordinary expenditure thai 
 may be chargeable to the debt which we are not anticipating at th« 
 preoent moment Bat more than that, if the 150,000,000 acres of arabki 
 
 up 
 
 1 
 
28 
 
 land that will be the property of the Government after iiandin}? over to 
 the syndicate 35,000,000 acres, and which is now established as fit for the 
 settlement, yields but one dollar an acre for half of it (the other half be- 
 ing offered as a free gift to settlers) it will meet the whole expenditure of 
 the Government on the Pacific Railway and in the North-West down to 
 1890. If that bo the case, then olir debt, which certainly is not alarming, 
 provided Vve realise from those lands the sum that I have stated, would 
 only be about $100,000,000 instead (jf $175,000,000, or less than $20 
 pt^r head." 
 
 I say nothing about the $75,000,000, for it is a sore subject 
 I know. But here was a calculation made by a gentle- 
 man of great experience, an eminent predecessor of the 
 hon. gentleman, by whom we were assured as a basis for 
 our future action that the debt would be only $175,000,000, 
 in 1890, when Monday's Gazette shows that the iiet debt 
 is $236,000,000 ; and, therefore, I respectfully suggest to 
 the hon. gentleman that it would be well for him bearing 
 that in mind to be cautious a little as to any prophecies 
 in which he may indulge. I may remind him that a 
 greater man even than the apostle of temparance, e\ • a 
 the Premier himself announced to us, first, that we wo M 
 have in 1890 $71,000,000 cash in hand from land saies, 
 but, on having the statement revised deductions were 
 made for the expenses of management, and it was then 
 calculated that $58,300,000 would positively be paid to 
 us by the year 1890. 
 
 SIR CHARLES TUPPER's PROPHECY. 
 
 And not to be behind hand Sir Charles Tupper asserted 
 (not that there would be 20,000,000 bushels sent from 
 Manitoba by 1890,) but that 640,000,000 bushels of wheat 
 were to be shipptd from the North-West, and the hon. 
 gentleman was seriously exercised as to how we would 
 get enough railways in to carry the grain away. I is 
 not without a feeling of pleasure I recall that whereas the 
 two first named authorities only promised us tens of 
 millions, Sir Charles Tupper was much more generous 
 and went into hundreds of millions, and all three of 
 them were positive, I remember, that if Parliament 
 would only allow them, to have reciprocity of tariffs we 
 would have reciprocity of tre'^e with the Dnited States 
 rapidly, one named within two years, I think, to the peo- 
 ple of the Maritime Provinces. Likewise they declared 
 that every cent of the whole of the Canadian Pacific Rail- 
 way would be repaid in full within the shortest possible 
 space of time to the people of this country, and the North- 
 West would fill up and blossom as the rose in such a 
 
29 
 
 manner as we have never dreamed of seeing. It may 
 interest the House to know what that destroyer of sucn 
 promises, the Public Accounts, shows on this question. 
 Whereas we ought to hare $58,000,000 at our credit at 
 the latest on Jst January, 1891, I regret to say that up to 
 the present time our total receipts amount to $4,250,000 
 and the expenditure to $5,500,000, so that we are $1,250,- 
 
 000 on the wrong side of the account. In all this there 
 are tomy mind just two redeeming points, always accept- 
 ing the promise that we are not going to be taxed much 
 more heavily. I think, and I give the hon. gentleman 
 the benefit of my opinion, that, so far as I am able to 
 judge, the drain of population from Canada is at last 
 showing signs of diminishing. I think that is the case, 
 
 1 hope it is the case, I trust further investigation will 
 confirm it, and I believe also that having at last got rid 
 of the railway monopoly there is a fair chance of Mani- 
 toba filling up under the present Provincial Grovernment 
 and of redeeming to some extent the extravagant pro- 
 mises heretofore made on her account. But what are the 
 replies to these facts which I have stated ? In part a 
 judicious silence has been observed. Hon. gentlemen 
 opposite have shown discretion in no^ contradicting cer- 
 tain of the statements made, but in part I must say hon. 
 gentlemen has taken refuge in pure evasion and in part 
 in very audacious denial of well known facts. As to a 
 great deal of what I have said, denial is perfectly hope- 
 less. Hon. gentlemen opposite cannot deny the increase 
 of debt, although they may adduce excuses for it ; they 
 cannot deny the increase of taxation, and they cannot 
 deny the enormous proportions of the fixed charges 
 under which we labor, and which is a very serious point 
 indeed. They cannot deny that up to the present time 
 the settlement of the North- West has resulted in egregi- 
 ous failure, largely due to the trade policy, to ^e land 
 policy and to the railway monopoly policy of the present 
 G-overnment. They cannot deny that the accounts of 
 the Intercolonial Eailway shows that for every dollar 
 received Canada is charged two dollars per annum. As _- 
 to other statements hon. gentlemen opposite find it easy -^a^Jimm 
 when assertions are made to make counter-^assertions and 'Pflp 
 then refuse investigation, acting to some extent after the 
 
 model set by the Minister of Finance on a recent occasion \ 
 
 when that hon. gentleman voted that he was in favour of 
 granting prohibition, when it was clear the people of 
 
 ^fd 
 
 ■ft 
 
80 
 
 Canada were ready for it, and then refused point blank 
 at the suggestion of my hon. friend the member for 
 Bothwell to take measures to ascertain what the wishes 
 of the people of Canada were on the subject of prohibi- 
 tion in the only way in which it could possibly be done. 
 Hon. gentlemen oj posite are in the habit of drawing a 
 red herring across the scent ; and they do that notably in 
 the case of the National Policy. Now, Sir, what did it 
 amount to, all that the hon. goiitloraan said at the close 
 of his speech and through his speech ? 
 
 THE AUDACITY OP PROTECTIONISTS. 
 
 It amounted to this : Those hon. gentlemen are prepared 
 to claim that every single solitary result of every new 
 invention that has been made for the last ten years, that 
 every reduction in the pri^'o of raw material, that even 
 a fall in the rate of interest all the world over is a new 
 triumph for the National Policy. Should wool become 
 cheaper — I do not know what my hon. friends from the 
 rural districts would say to that — but if wool should 
 become cheaper, iron becomes cheaper, if beet root is grown 
 more largely in any countries whatever and the product 
 from it is greater, these hon. gentlemen claim it as a fresh 
 triumph of the National Policy, that articles made from 
 these materials are cheaper than before. Was there any- 
 thing more c ■ ^ar after the speech of the Minister of Finance 
 than that the real, and only, and true, and legitimate 
 way to make goods cheaper is to tax them. That is the 
 latest, greatest, grandest triumph of economic science as 
 expounded hj the hon. gentleman. Why should he stop 
 there, why did he not go further ? If the Grovernment' 
 by putting taxes on goods can make them cheaper, why 
 not extend their benificient providence a little further. 
 They might as well, and they could just as easily enact 
 that water should run up hil, and that would be found 
 very convenient for a variety of mechanical purposes. 
 But are the prices of farm produce lower than they used 
 to be ? Are the prices of land throughout Ontario, Quebec 
 and the other Provinces lower than used to be ? ave 
 wages become less than they used to be ? Does the popu- 
 lation of our rural districts become fewer ? Do our peo- 
 ple leave us? To this the answer is, these things are the 
 result of causes over which no government have any con- 
 trol This kind of argument scarcely deserves an answer, 
 and for such an argument as this, 1 have simply to say 
 
 
 m 
 
 M 
 
81 
 
 that when I hear them gravely stated I hardly know for 
 whom to feel the most contempt — for the individuals who 
 lie and profit from theit lies or for the dupes who believe 
 and bleed. In all this one thing only does not vary, and 
 that is the steady growth of taxation. The value of farms 
 may fluctuate ; prices may go up or prices may go down, 
 but the number and the weight of our 
 
 TAXES aOKS ON, AND ON, AND ON FOR EVER. 
 
 It was the fashion many years ago to speak of " the ignor- 
 ant impatience of taxation," I think that Lord Castleragh 
 was the author of that phrase. Well, nam avons changi 
 rout vela, and in these days the true statesman in consider- 
 ing the position of things here would deplore ten times 
 more the *' ignorant patience " with taxation which our 
 people manifest. It is easier to cajole than it is to oppress 
 people, and I say that one of the worst consequences of 
 the false theory which hon. gentlemen have developed, 
 that it is impossible to enrich a people by increasing its 
 taiios is this, that they have thereby done away with 
 almost the only efficient check and curb to extravagance. 
 I have noticed that for the last eight or ten years, in fact 
 ever sincj this doctrine took root in the public mind in 
 Oanada, and if I had not noticed it the growth of public 
 expenditure would proclaim it to men who chose to open 
 their eyes and see. But now. Sir, I am happy to hear 
 that a reign of economy is to set in, a reign of economy \ 
 At the hands of these gentlemen ! Mr. Speaker, this is 
 serious, 
 
 DARK SUSPICIONS vVILL INTRUDE. 
 
 What new villany is afloat ? "W hat mystery of iniquity 
 is hatching now ? Can the leopard change his spots ; 
 can the Ethiopian change his skin ; can we expect grapes 
 from thorns and figs from thistles ? Is it not bad enough 
 to cook our accounts ; is it not bad enough to pay $82,922 
 for law costs and keep a Minister of Justice, and a Deputy 
 Minister of Justice, and a staff" and contingencies besides ? 
 Is it not bad enough to pay $327,000 for bribing news- 
 papers as we see by these Public Accounts, without 
 counting the cost of printing for the Immigration Depart- 
 ment and of expeiises.coiinected with this legislation? 
 Is it not bad enough to pay five or six hundred thousand 
 dollars for putting in types and plant and new printing 
 machinery. Is it not bad enough to see $409,000 voted 
 for a Franchise Bill for the express purpose of disrating 
 
t»ii8iMMiiJ i M i( L« > Mii;m j < j< ' ' ' 
 
 83 
 
 many of the electors of this country ? Is it not bad 
 enough to see $1*75,000 spent in 18 months for the pur- 
 chase and work on one experinipntal farm at Ottawa^ 
 which, though it be a desirable thing, could bring us all 
 the good that is ever likely to oome from it for an expendi' 
 ture of one quarter the amount ? Is it not bad enough 
 to see I'lOO a year paid for each convict in the prison at 
 Manitoba ? Is it not bad enough to see $28t,000 spent 
 lor the lighting, and heating, and furniture, and taking 
 care of the grounds here and at Rideau Hall ? Why, Sir, 
 this is more than some important Provinces get as their 
 per capita subsidy. We absolutely spend on thetio trifle/i, 
 on our gas bill, our water bill and for keeping the grounds 
 in order here and at Major's Hill Park and at Rideau H:.M 
 $287,000 a year, and yet the Government talks to us 
 about economy. All over this country we find in lit;tle 
 villages of seven or eight hundred, aye, even of three or 
 four hundred souls, public works erected at a cost of 
 fifteen or twenty thousand dollars as bribes to these con- 
 stituances, and buildings erected which incur an expendi- 
 ture of over $1,200 a year, including interest and main- 
 tenance, for the purpose of providing a lodging for a post 
 office which may not give us a revenue of more than $400 
 a year. Could this condition of things exist in England 
 or the United States ? Were I able to stand on t^e floor 
 of the House of Commons or on the floor of Cong ^s and 
 to point to items in the Public Accounts showing that in 
 England five or six hundred thousand pounds sterlings 
 went to subsidise the Times or any other paper which stood 
 ready to stab some public man under the fifth rib, if in 
 the United States I could point to a subsidy of four 
 millions a year paid for the purpose of retaining United 
 States papers in the service of the Government, would 
 that Government in the United States, or would that 
 Government in England last for one single day ? No, 
 Sir, they would be hurled from their places that they had 
 misused ; yet in our Auditor General's Rqpor year after 
 year we find that there are two or three hundred thousand 
 dollars deliberately expended for no other purpose than 
 to bribe, from one end of the Dominion to the other, some 
 particular newspapers which it jr^ay be convenient for 
 the Ministers to subsidise out of the public pockets. 
 These men talk of economy ! Why, look at their expendi- 
 ture on public lands. The total income of 188t was 
 |191,t81. What was the total expenditure ? To collect. 
 
'fe* 
 
 
88 
 
 $191,000 we expended $461,474. In 1888 we did better ; 
 we collected $217,000, and it only cost uis $426,820 to do 
 it ; and I dare say that next year w«> will collect $220,000 
 and only spend $420,000. Now,, in that sum for the col- 
 lection of revinne 1 include the sum charged to cajntal 
 account, the sum spent in the department, the Minister's 
 salary and contingencies, and I get this grand result which 
 I present to these advocates of economy ; for two years 
 we have succeeded in spending $888,296 in the purpose 
 of collecting $408,864, towards the bill of $48,000,000 due 
 on the 1st January, 1891. Sir, I won't repeat what I 
 have said of the management of the Intercolonial Rail- 
 way further than this, that when you spend $6,750,000, 
 counting interest, to collect $2,980,000, it is tima indeed 
 for economy in the managenent of our public aflfairs. I 
 will take the whole record of hon. gentlemen during the 
 last twenty-one years. They began in 1867, with an ex- 
 penditure of $13,600,000, when I came into office in 1874, 1 
 found bills awaiting me of $24,240,000, though I only spent 
 $23,600,000 ; and when I left office in 1878, my expendi- 
 ture was $23,600,000. You heard to-day that our expendi- 
 iture, not including capital expenditure, was now $36,713,- 
 000. There, Sir, is a record of these hon. gentlemen's past 
 economy in two lines. I will not say anything, because 
 really I have not time to discuss it, of that notable stroke of 
 business of borrowing money at 3^ per cent, and lending it 
 at IJ per cent.; but when I look at the records of the savings 
 bankfi, and when I see that the G-overnment of Canada 
 deem it prudent and economical to borrow thirty or forty 
 million i at 30 per cent, above the current market rates, I 
 must observe that it is a kind ot economy which does not 
 particularly recommend itself to my judgment, at any 
 rate. Our position is remarkable in another respect, that 
 unfortunately for us, we have a very large nominal in- 
 come ; I say unfortunately because when you have an 
 apparent income of $36,000,000 or $37,000,000, 'a great 
 many expenses which are really very large for our means 
 appear to worthy people to be very small. It hardly 
 strikes them &s of the real importance it is when we talk 
 of an expenditure of $200,000 or, $300,000 as important 
 against a total income of $36,750,000. But when we come 
 to analyse the facts, what do we find ? We find a nom- 
 inal income of $36,000,000, but after deducting the 
 expenses of the collection, the revenue and fixed charges, 
 we find a real income of $9,760,000, which, if you deduct 
 8 
 
84 
 
 the snms improperly charged to capital account, would 
 be reduced to $9,250,000. That is the true position of the 
 affairs of Canada to-day ; that is to say, that 75 per cent, 
 of our whole income, in one form or other, is mortgaged. 
 I will give the hon. gentleman the total from his own 
 estimates : — 
 
 Interest on sinking fund ; $12,107,725 
 
 Subsidies 4,100,000 
 
 Charges for collection of revenue 8,774,000 
 
 Charges for Indians 1,078,000 
 
 Total $26,060,000 
 
 Which represent to all intents and purposes fixed charges 
 against a nominal income of 36,000,000. Now, Sir, out of 
 that compai 'vely small income of about $10,000,000 
 what do we imd ? We find charges like these : Civil 
 government, $1,316,000 ; charges for keeping these build- 
 ings and Eideau Hall in order, lighting and warming and 
 repairing same, $300,000 ; law costs and newspapers, 
 $400,000 ; pensions and superannuation, $326,000. 
 
 THAT IS THE WAY THAT OUR MONEY GOES 
 
 on an effective true income of about $10,000,000 a year all 
 told. Now, I desire to say this ; In my mind, looking 
 at the real condition of our affairs, it would not be true, I 
 have never pretended that it was true, to say that Canada 
 had made no progress at all, or even that Canada had not 
 made considerable progress in certain directions. In 
 twenty-one years, or even in ton years or seven years, 
 Canada, being such 93 she is, and inhabited by a people 
 such as ours, could not fail to make some progress in some 
 directions, no matter how bad the system of government 
 almost, or how bad the fiscal system under which it was 
 administered. But what I do say is, that the progress 
 made has been partial and one sided. It has been far be- 
 low par, far less than our natural resources warranted us 
 in expecting ; and I say that whether you take as the 
 standard of comparison, our own progress in former years, 
 or the progress of sister colonies, such as New South 
 Wales or any of the other Australian colonies, or if ,you 
 prefer it, the progress of the United States when their 
 population was the same as ours, or its progress at the 
 present moment. A great deal of the progress which hon. 
 gentlemen opposite claim is purely and simple displace- 
 ment ; what one man has gained has been in too many 
 cases another man's loss. Why, Sir, but the other day 
 
85 
 
 the Legislature of Ontario was compelled to pass a law 
 to prevent one town taking manufactories from another, 
 that is, to prevent it bonusing a manufacturer engaged in 
 business in another town, to indu<^p him to remove his 
 factory to them, and so injuring its neighbors for its own 
 special profit. Now, it is peiiectly true, that certain 
 towns and cities have grown, some of them considerably ; 
 an 1 1 for one do not grudge them any growth that is 
 fairly made or due to the natural advantages of their 
 position. I am willing to join hou. gentlemen opposite in 
 congratulating the country on the reraarable progress 
 made by such cities as Toronto, in Ontario, or Montreal in 
 Quebec. But is the growth of those cities to be taken as 
 a fair indication of the growth of the population generally ? 
 "What has been the growth in the good city of Quebec or 
 the good cities of Halifax, St. John or Charlottetown ? 
 True, some places have benefited, though quite as much, 
 I believe, from the natural advantages of their po.sitiou as 
 from anything in the policy of hon. gentlomen opposite. 
 But I say that while it is very doubtful if thi» progress 
 that has been made would not have been quiet as great 
 if these artificial stimuli had been withdrawn, what there 
 can be no possibility of doubt is that under the false pretext 
 of advancing a few interests we have enormoulsy iucreasly 
 our debts and our taxes, we have suffered a frightful loss 
 of people, and we have failed to settle the new territory 
 on which so much depends. Briefly I say, that the policy 
 of the Grovernment has resulted in this, it has made a few 
 score, peradventure a few hundreds, of men much richver 
 than they ought honestly have been, and has made severo,! 
 millions of people, from one end of the country to the 
 other, very much poorer than they ought to be to-dp>. 
 {Hear Hear.) Now I am not so young a politician as not 
 to know that for purposes of political support, and notably 
 in Canada to-day, the rich few are able, to a very great 
 extent, to outweigh the many. I know perfectly well 
 that they are exceedingly useful for the purpose of supply- 
 ing those necessary funds which are required to mani- 
 pulate refractory constituencies. I know that they under- 
 stand, and understand well, how to control the public 
 press, aye, and to hoodwink a very considerable number 
 of people at whose expense they are growing rich. The 
 hon. gentleman was wise enough not to say much about 
 another point of some interest, I have noticed in these 
 discussions that his friends in the House and his Mends 
 
 •i 
 
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 outside want to talk a great deal of notable victory which 
 the protective policy lately obtained in the United. States, 
 when Free Trad'^ and Cleveland received a popular 
 majority of 100^000 in the whole of the United States. 
 Th^y are very fond of pointing to the number of the seats 
 they hold in this House as conclusive and absolute proof 
 of their superior sagacity and wisdom. Well, I can telL 
 the hon. gentlemen that I know myself of twelve seats in 
 the Province of Ontario, enough to have completely re- 
 versed their position in the House, if they had been trans- 
 ferred to where they belonged — I know or twelve seats 
 in Ontario which were carried by a collective majority, 
 for the whole twelve of 383 votes. "Why, I myself, my 
 hon. friend from Brant (Mr, Sommej-ville), my hon. friend 
 from North Oxford (Mr. Sutherland) — we could have 
 polled, it, we had chosen to exert ourselves, an additional 
 Liberal majority in those three constituencies, ten times 
 greater than the whole collective majority of 883 in the 
 twelve counties I have referred to. 
 
 HOW THE MAJORITY WAS OBTAINED. 
 
 And that majority of 383 was obtained by bribery, by 
 virtue of the Q-errymander Act, by virtue of Franchise 
 Bills, by virtue of Indian votes, by virtue of public build- 
 ings, erected in places 500 or 600 strong, and by every 
 other known means of corruption of which I have heard 
 or read. I now come to a still more important question, 
 and tha+, is : "What possible remedies for these evils, which 
 have grown to such a height, can we suggest ? In my 
 opinion the remedies are two. First of all — and as to this 
 I do not blame the hon. the Minister of Finance so much, 
 because he is but a young member of the Cabinet, and 
 though he is constitutionally responsible for the sins of 
 the Government, still he is not responsible, morally, for 
 all of them, fortunately for himself He would have a 
 heavy burden to carry out into the wilderness if he were 
 to be made the scapegoat. Now, these hon, gentlemen, 
 for their own reasons, for their own objects, have chosen 
 deliberately to destroy the whole financial basis on which 
 our Confederation rested, and I say there is but one 
 remedy for that. We have now come to a poii^t when, if 
 we wish to establish sound relations among the Provinces 
 of the Dominion, we must put a check on the one hand to 
 this unfair and vexatious interference on the part of the 
 Dominion Government with provincial rights ; and, on 
 
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 the other hand, to the constant demand made by the 
 Provinces on the Treasury of the Dominion. I say that 
 our present system is as bad as bad. can be ; I say that it 
 is faulty in every possible respect ; I i;ay that it is un- 
 sound, both in principle and practice, and is contrary to 
 every constitutional doctrine by v(rhich representative 
 countries have ever been governed. "What does it mean ? 
 It means that one body of men are to spend the money 
 and another to find it. Could you devise a system which 
 ioes more mischief, which gives of necessity more 
 encouragement to bribery, which offers a more direct 
 premium to extravagance than the policy the hon. gentle- 
 men opposite have initiated. {Hear, hear.) They were 
 not to blame perhaps for the introduction of th'e system 
 of subsidies in the first instance, because it is probable 
 Confederation could not Jiave been brought about other- 
 wise ; but they are to blame, and they have been to 
 blame, after Confederation was once brought about, for 
 destroying the financial basis on which Confederation 
 rested. 
 
 THE TRUE RE]VrEDY. 
 
 The I'emedy I offer is revision of the constitution. We 
 may have to pay handsomely for past folly, but almost at 
 any cost it is better that we should establish matters on 
 a firm and stable basis, that the Provinces should go their 
 way and manage their own affairs, and the Dominion 
 Parliament for the future go its way and manage its own 
 affairs. The second remedy is the one indicated by me 
 and my friends here in our places last year. That remedy 
 is to seek for trade relations where alone really valuable 
 enlarged trade relations can be found. It is to seek for 
 them within our reach and at our door, not 10,000 miles 
 away — not in the Antipodes, not to go to South America 
 for what we can get ten times better in North America 
 and at one-twentieth of the cost and trouble {loud cheers) ; 
 but let me say that if ever official returns spoke in trum- 
 pet tones in confirmation of the policy advocated on this 
 side and the line we took last year, they arc the identical 
 trade returns I have in my hand. What are the facts ? 
 I have mentioned them before, but they will bear reciting 
 again. What do these returns t(41 us ? They tell us that 
 last year, out of a total trade of $193,050,000, we had a 
 trade with the United States of $91,058.013 ; they tell us 
 that out of a total volume of exports of our own produce 
 
 
 i 
 
88 
 
 of $81,382,000, not mentioning goods wo do not i>roduce, 
 the United States has bought from us $40,407,483 worth, 
 Great Britain $33,648,000, and the whole of the rest of 
 the world, excepting the Umted States, ^40,9*74,000— just 
 $500,000 worth more than the United States did ; and yet 
 we are to turn our back on the United States and are to 
 go 10,000 miles away to see if somebody will buy a few 
 dollars worth of goods from us. Now, is it not a thing 
 which he that runs may read, a thing which ought to 
 open, if anything can 
 
 OPEN TUK EYES) (.>F GENTLEMEN OPPOSITE 
 
 that at the very moment when they were occupied in this 
 House belittling our trade with the United States last 
 year — they are learning more wisdom now, I am happy 
 to say — talking grandiloquently of how well Canada 
 could do without the trade of the United States, the 
 United States trade with us was growing by leaps and 
 bounds. Could there be a better i)roof of the immense 
 possibilities that that trade would afford to us, if under 
 proper development, than the fact that, fettered and 
 handcuffed as it is, with all the impediments that two 
 hostile tariffs can throw in its way, nevertheless last year, 
 while we were deliberately refusing to consider the ques- 
 tion, that trade increased by well nigh $10,000,000 ; and 
 those returns hardly indicate the true trade. In the first 
 place, it is well known that our exports to the United 
 States are 
 
 ■ SYSTEMATICAI.LY| UNDER-VALUED. 
 
 It is well known that what arc called short returns are 
 probably a good deal too small. I have here the United 
 States returns for 188*7, and likewise our own returns for 
 188t, and I call the attention of the House to a few not- 
 able facts. According to the United States returns, in 
 188*7 we sent to the United States, paying duty, 58,0Y1 
 cattle. Our own returns only showed 45,984. we sent 
 to the United States, by their returns, 20,695 horses ; our 
 returns only showed 18,52*7. We sent to the United States 
 4*7*7,*762 sheep, according to their returns, while our returns 
 only showed 363,000, besides a large number of all these 
 kinds of animals entered as not paying duty. I cannot 
 say how far or how much may be involved in that item, 
 but it does appear to me that a very considerable amount 
 ought to be added on both sides, exports and imports, to 
 
69 
 
 the volume of our trade with the United States, and the 
 more so, as it is known to me, and I dare say to the Minis- 
 ter of CuBtoms, that in spite of all the restrictions which 
 he has placed on that trade, and in spite of all the vigi- 
 lance of his oflBicers, a great many of the goods do find 
 their way into Canada without the formality of going 
 through the custom house. 
 Hon. members — " Do you call that a formality ?" 
 Sir R. Cartwright — I will not say that going through 
 the custom house is a mere formality, but I will say with- 
 out paying 
 
 TRIBUTE TO OUR CANADIAN O^SAR. 
 
 I am not going at this hour to repeat many of the argu- 
 ments which I used last year. Those arguments have 
 not yet been met or answered, and therefore I will refer 
 hon. gentlemen opposite to the speech which I then de- 
 livered for the further arguments I could very easily ad- 
 vance in regard to this matter. I have no doubt that, if 
 any hon. gentlemen on that side desire to take up our 
 challenge, they will find many of my hon. friends here 
 ready to make our views plain to their understanding, if 
 they are not now. What is wanted just now is rather to 
 understand exactly the obstacles which are in our way, 
 and I contend that the chief obstacle to the carrying out 
 of the well understood and well ascertained wishes of 
 the people of Canada is the conduct and past attitude of 
 the Government of Canada. Their fault in that respect 
 is very much the same as their fault in the matter of the 
 fisheries. They have managed, in some way or other, to 
 convince the people of the United States, and to convince 
 the Government of the United States, that the Govern- 
 ment of Canada, whatever the people of Canada may be, 
 are not at all desirous of cultivating friendly relations 
 with the United Slates. I cannot stop now to discuss 
 how much of that feeling may be due to the downright 
 stupidity of the Government, as shown in the case of the 
 export duty on sawlogs, how much of it may be due to 
 mere selfishness, how much may be due to a desire on 
 their part to promote their own interests and the interests 
 of the combines and manufacturers which they represent, 
 but there is too much reason to fear that these men are 
 to-day the secret opponents of the wishes of the people of 
 Canada. They hardly dare openly to avow the hostility 
 to the United States which they manifested last year, 
 
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 40 
 
 because they had Boveral ksBOUs which must have opened 
 their ey» a to the fact that a very large number of the 
 people of Canada desire full and 
 
 FREE AND UNRESTRICTED' TRADE WITH THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 {Loud cheers.) But there is danger that privately they will 
 do everything they can to make a fair treaty impossible. 
 It cannot well be otherwise. Reciprocity between the 
 United States and Canada means wealth and freedom to 
 a very large proportion of our people — freedom particularly 
 from unjust taxation, and from the power which this 
 tariff* put in the hands of the monopolists who are grind- 
 ing the people of Canada to-day. Therefore, the Govern- 
 ment to-day cannot earnestly seek to promote reciprocity, 
 though it may be in their interests to so pretend. Unless 
 the people of Canada convince them that it is at their 
 peril that they push their negligentje any further they 
 will conduct these negotations in such a way au to lead to 
 foreseen and predestined failure. I do not think they will 
 dare to provoke the United States, but I believe they will 
 interpose obstacles between what we desire and its ac- 
 complishment. This is a case in which you must judge 
 these men not by their words but by their acts, and it is 
 by their acts in the past that we have to judge them ; it 
 is from noting such paltry quibbles as that in regard to 
 packages on fruit, it is ^rom noting such mistakes as that 
 in regard to the export duty on logs, it is by such acts as 
 these that I judge that, if they dared, they would be 
 hostile to the people of the United States. I have shown 
 what I believed, and I have given reasons for my belief, 
 to be the true interest of this country at present. I am 
 very far from saying that the position in which we find 
 ourselves is the inevitable result of Confederation. I 
 believe, on the contrary, that with reasonable prudence, 
 our position might be very much better that it is. But it 
 is idle to dicuss that now. We are not concerned with 
 what might have been, but with what is at this day and 
 in this hour. I contend that our position is one of arrested 
 development, and I say that, all things considered, this is 
 the best way out of it. I say that not only is the x'l'ojcct 
 we advocate 
 
 EMINENTLY CALCULATED TO BENEFIT US MATERIALLY, 
 
 but I claim for it this benefit, this indirect result, that, 
 if it were carried out, it would necessarily curb the ex- 
 
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 41 
 
 travagancc we deplore, and would, to a gn>at vrtent, 
 though perhaps not altogcUher, because that mainly de- 
 peudfji on the people themselves, ensure honest govern- 
 ment in this country. The moment is opportune. Almost 
 the last act of the House of Representatives in the United 
 States was to pass unanimously a resolution which may 
 not perhaps indicate the precise mode or the precise way 
 in which commercial relations between the countries 
 can best be settled, but which I take and which the Gov- 
 ernment should take, as holding out the olive branch to 
 us, which is more than we deserve or than the Govern- 
 ment deserves on the part of the United States. It is a 
 declaration that they are prepared to treat with 113 for 
 freer trade relations, and it is an answer to the abmrd 
 statement which has been made that the United States 
 had not any desire for free and fair trade on free and fair 
 terms with the p3ople of Canada. More than that, it is 
 
 A TRUMPHANT VINDICATION 
 
 of the position which we have always taken on this sub- 
 ject. Let us do our duly. Let us show to the United 
 States that we are truly desirous of freedom of trade and 
 friendly relations with thom, and I am perfectly certain 
 that, when the time comes and the United States are 
 fairly approached, they will bo willing to meet us in the 
 sa'Tie spirit. In order that there may be no mistake, and 
 that the Government may understand that we are deter- 
 mined to fight this question out on the same lines that 
 we have always fought it, I beg to move in amendment 
 that you do not now leave the Chair, but that all the 
 words after " that " be struck out, and that it be resolved : 
 
 In the present condition of affairs, and in view of the recent action of 
 the House of Representatives of the TJniterl States, it is expedient that 
 steps should be taken toascertiiin on what terms and conditions arran|3;e- 
 ments can be effected with the United States for the purpose of securing; 
 fhll and unrestricted reciprocity of trade therewith. 
 
 Sir Richard Cartwrioht resumed his seat amidst 
 prolonged applause. 
 
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