Sir RICHARD CARTWRIGHT.

collected a duty of $9,576,000. In 1897, the last year of the national policy, our trade with Great Britain had fallen to $29,401,000. In 1901, our trade with Great Britain was $42,819,000, on which we collected a duty of $7,845,000. What did our preference do for Great Britain ? In eight years, under the national policy, we had lost $14,000,0001 in the four years under our policy we had gained $14,000,000. And, whereas under the old tariff on imports of about forty-three and a quarter millions, we collected $9,576,000 of duty, under our tariff, on imports of almost forty-three' millions-bear in mind, the merest fraction of a difference-we collected $7,845,000 of duty, or about $1,700,000 less duty than was collected on a nearly similar amount of goods imported into Canada in 1889. Of course, there are fluctuations, we know that perfectly well. It has been stated recently-I think the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Fisher) told us the other night-that there had been a fluctuation amounting to several millions in the importation of cheese into Great Britain. Under these circumstances what did the present government do ? Did it sit down and wail ? Not a bit. My hon. friend (Hon. Mr. Fisher) at once held a conference with those who represented the great dairy interests of this country, and they are now-applying themselves, as men should do, not to give more protection for the dairy interests, but to enable them to help themselves over their difficulty and restore the cheese interest of Canada to the proud position it has hitherto held in the British market. The hon. member for Halifax (Mr. Borden) thought it a very absurd thing that the hon. Minister of Finance should intimate that the government had anything to do with the prosperity which, thank heaven, has blessed Canada during the past four years. That is a very new doctrine from those benches. When I sat here before and the hon. gentleman's predecessor sat there, was there a day, was there an hour, in which it was not thundered out, much more loudly than my hon. friend (Mr. Borden, Halifax) has done that a government did not deserve to exist for an hour-this was what was said by Sir Charles Tupper-unless it could bring prosperity to a country ?

Mr. BORDEN (Halifax).

What does the hon. gentleman (Sir Richard Cartwright) sav about it ?

Mr. BORDEN (Halifax).

What did mv lion, friend say ?

I said then, what I say now- that even the best government that ever existed, even a government like Mackenzie's, could not altogether avert a disaster which overspread the whole world, though it could greatly modify it; and that the position of Canada while Mackenzie was at the head of the administration, compared most favourably with the condition of the adjoining republic, the United States, as every man who examined the conditions of the United States from 1873 to 1879 knows right well. That, Sir, is what I told the hon. gentleman. Now, it is quite true that the best governments cannot always avert a calamity, but unfortunately the reverse is only too true, that a government can very easily bring about disaster to a country, as I shall presently show the government which we displaced was eminently successful in doing, from 1878 to 1896.

Now, Sir, the doctrine of averages is a great doctrine, the favourite doctrine, I remember, of my old friend Sir Leonard Tilley, and I cannot see that it has advanced much in the hands of his successor. But take a sample or two of the doctrine of averages, take the case of Holland. My hon. friend was great on the fact that we apparently discriminated against Great Britain, although I do not think he quite understobd the case. We will take the case of Holland, and I call his attention to it. From Holland we imported the last year $797,000 worth of goods, and we taxed these imports $1,350,000. Was not that a fearful discrimination, 170 per cent on the average of goods we imported from Holland ? Perhaps my hon. friend thinks that, being pro-Boers, it is all right to punish the Dutch. Or how does he explain that horrible discrimination against the unfortunate Hollanders 7 We imported less than $800,000 worth, and taxed it $1,350,000. Has my hon. friend any explanation to give ?

Mr. BORDEN (Halifax).

I should say it was gin.

He is perfectly right, it was gin; and it shows the utter absurdity of applying this same doctrine of averages. Here one single article amounting to about one-fourth of the whole importation is so taxed that it brings the average up to 170 per cent. Yet the hon. gentleman thinks it is quite safe to apply the doctrine of averages as between Canada and Great Britain, and as between Canada and the United States. Now, I will give the hon. gentleman another illustration of the danger of relying on this doctrine of averages. We import from the United States this very moment a very large quantity of anthracite coal and a very large quantity of cotton wool. Suppose my hon. friend here in the exercise of his discretion was to place a duty of, let us 43

say live per cent, on those articles, and what would the result be ? Why, he would at once lower the average on the importations of American goods from twenty-five to twenty per cent. Would that be a proof that we discriminated in favour of the United States as against England ? And yet, Sir, under these conditions we would be importing goods from the United States on an average of twenty per cent as against twenty-five per cent charged against England.

Sir, the whole comparison that the hon. gentleman has made of the expenditure is vicious to a degree. I hoped better from the hon. gentleman. I hoped he would have had the candour, when he came to compare the expenditure of last year with that of half a dozen years ago, to point out that a very large proportion of our increased expenditure could not have occurred in the time of his predecessor, and that a very large proportion of our increased expenditure does not cost the people of Canada one cent. It has not cost one cent to the people of Canada collectively, of older Canada at any rate, that we spent a million and a half in the Yukon, because we get a million and a half and more out of the Yukon. It does not cost them one cent that we pay half a million more for sinking fund than we did in 1895. What comes out of one pocket goes into the other. If my hon. friend the Minister of Railways and Canals asks us for six millions for the purpose of carrying on the work of the Intercolonial Railway, he brings back very nearly, though not quite, six millions to us in the increased receipts, without costing the people of Canada a penny beyond the small difference between receipts and expenditures. I beg the hon. gentleman to remember that that is quite as near to an equilibrium as the predecessors of the hon. gentleman ever got. Now, Sir, he allows nothing for that, he won't allow anything for sinking fund, he won't allow anything for expenditure on the Yukon, he won't allow anything for increased receipts from the railway, he won't allow anything for increased receipts from the post office. My hon. friend the Postmaster General, I believe, is spending about $300,000, in round numbers, more than was spent in 1895. But my hon. friend is getting back $500,000 more. The deficit is very considerably less now than the deficit was then ; and the people of Canada, Sir, have received, under my hon. friends administration, the advantage that they can send a letter for two cents from one end of the British empire to the other which used to cost them five cents, and they can send a letter from one end of the Dominion to the other for two cents which used to cost them three cents ; in other words, they are being charged very little more than one-half what they were charged a few years ago. The burden of the people has been lessened to the extent of one million dollars, but no credit is to be

given, of course, to this government for anything of that kind. Why, Sir, we will take this lion, gentleman's mode of calculating and computing the average expenditure. We will suppose, for illustration's sake, that the railways were earning twenty-five millions, and that my hon. friend was expending twenty million dollars upon them. Under these conditions, if we were to apply the line of argument used by the hon. gentleman, the people of Canada would be four dollars per head worse off than they were before ; the expenditure per head would be about fourteen dollars instead of ten dollars under those circumstances, and we would be, I suppose, just so much worse off if his way of reckoning our expenditure is to prevail.

Now, the hon. gentleman must needs mix and muddle up capital and ordinary expenditure. That is always indiscreet, that always leads to confusion. They must be judged by different canons and different principles, and he would have done far better to confine himself to the ordinary expenditure. Sir, I am willing to meet the hon. gentleman, I am always willing to meet these hon. gentlemen on their own ground. 1 will take a parallel case. He was appalled just now because my hon. friend spent $57,000,000 last year and was in danger of spending $65,000,000 for all purposes during the next year. Sir, I turn to the public records which I have under my hand and I find that in 1884 this hon. gentleman's predecessors found it necessary to expend $57,800,000 ; in 1885 they found it necessary to expend $49,163,000; in 1888-let the hon. gentleman mark it-they were obliged to spend $61,837,000. Sir, on what population ? The population of Canada in 1884-85-86 amounted roughly to about 4,450,000 to 4.500,000 souls. Now, Sir, if it be such a terrible thing for us to expend $57,000,000, or even $65,000,000, if, as this hon. gentleman declares, it is so terrible a thing that the gross total expenditure of Canada for all purposes, good, bad or indifferent, whether productive or unproductive, should range to a matter of $10 or $11 per head, what has he to say of the case of 18S4 when the average annual expenditure per capita amounted to $13.50, or of 1885, when the average annual ex-jjenditure per capita amounted to $11.18, or of 1886, when it amounted to $13.75 ? It is a poor rule that wont work both ways. I care little myself for this doctrine of averages, but if it pleases the hon. gentlemen to know what the averages are, why, I am always willing to oblige them. Sir, let us look at the broad facts of the case. We find that the broad facts of the case are these : In 1895, as be can see by looking at the public records, our total expenditure on consolidated account was $38,138,000. Our population, taking his own estimate, which I do not concur in for reasons I will give presently, was about five million. Now, in 1901 it is quite true that our expenditure Sir RICHARD CARTWRIGHT.

amounted to $46,866,000 ; but of that sum $5,000,000 represented cross entries, sums which we received with one hand and which we paid out with the other, sums for sinking fund, sums for post office, sums for Vukon Territory, sums recived from the railway and paid out again in wages on the railway.

Strike, as I have a right to strike, this $5,000,000 out, and then apply your per capita calculation. What is the result V Your 5,000,000 people in 1895 spent $38,138,000 representing an expenditure per head of $7.63, and your 5,370,000, deducting the $5,000,000 I have spoken of, as entries ou both sides of the account, expended $41,360,000, being a per capita amount of $7.70 as against $7.63. Well, Sir, seven cents per head are not to be sneezed at. We required three of those cents (with the full concurrence of hon. gentlemen opposite) to pay our extra indemnity last year. We required four cents of the balance, making up the seven cents, to meet the necessary expense incurred by my hon. friend the Minister of Customs (Mr. Paterson) in collecting nearly double the revenue we had in 1895. 1 ask the hon. gentleman, does

he consider that the people of Canada are any poorer with the addition of this $5,000,060 for the purposes that I have enumerated, or, do any of the hon. gentleman's friends contend that it should be fairly counted as a part of the taxation to be reckoned against us, in stating as he did the fact that we spent $50,000,000 a year as against the $40,000,000 spent by our predecessors ? I have not the time, but I would like to go over the $3,000,000 of difference between the $46,000,000 and the $38,000,000, deducting the $5,000,000 that I have spoken of, and I think if the hon. gentleman or any of his friends, choose to go over that in detail they will see that for that additional sum that was expended by us during these five or six years the people have received very ample returns. A certain portion of that amount was expended for the benefit of the agricultural community and they have received, I venture to say, from ten to twenty fold in the increased value of their productions from the annual expenditure which was made for the purpose of promoting their interests under the administration of my hon. friend the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Fisher), Another considerable portion of that expenditure was for the purpose of promoting and increasing immigration to this country, one of the most desirable objects in a country like Canada for which we can possibly expend our money. Yet another part, with the full concurrence and approbation of these hon. gentlemen who are constantly pressing us, forsooth, to spend more money in that direction, was expended for the purpose of putting our militia on a more efficient footing. And so, I might go on through the whole of it. The hon. gentle-

man lias not chosen to do it. Possibly the hon. gentleman considered that as neither he nor his friends ventured to oppose these expenditures on the floor of the House, they could not with much decency criticise them on the present occasion.

As to the capital expenditure, that, I say, is entirely on another footing. It must be judged by itself because it may be productive, or it may be unproductive. If it be not productive it is the hon. gentleman's duty, and it is the duty of his friends behind him, to criticise any proposition we make and I invite him most cordially to do so. It is all very well to say that because we have added a few million dollars to the public debt we are open to criticism. It is for the hon. gentleman to show that this expenditure will not be profitable. An addition of $20,000,000 or $30,000,000 may be a most useful and productive outlay, while, on the other hand, an addition of half a million to the public debt may be most useless and mischievous. You must judge each case on its individual merits. We are all prepared, and the hon. Minister of Public Works (Mr. Tarte) is prepared, to challenge the sharpest criticism as to any amounts we have added to the public debt for the purpose of public improvements, and here I may add as to the remainder, it is well known that a very considerable portion of the addition to the public _ debt was incurred by the gift we made to England to help her in her South African difficulty. I must say that I did hope for better things from the hon. leader of the opposition who is a lawyer and a lawyer of repute. I thought that he would have embraced this opportunity to make something like a discriminating review of these expenditures. I expected that making due allowance for the circumstances I have referred to, that recognizing the facts I have stated, that admitting that it was not fair to charge us with those large sums which came into one pocket as fast as they went out of the other, that admitting what he has not alluded to in the slightest degree that within the last four years there has been a marked increase in the cost of living and a marked increase in the rates of wages all through the Dominion necessarily involving a large increase in the cost of carrying on public-works, that allowing that there is an increase of population under our regime to be accounted for, and that this was a growing time in a period of great expansion, if then he had any criticism to make, If he thought there had been improvidence and extravagance my hon. friend might have done a great service to this country by pointing it out. I, myself, desire to say that I think the time has come when we should proceed more cautiously, when we must consider very carefully what further large expenditures we commit ourselves to, and I think that in that respect 43}

the opposition, if they choose to do their duty, may be of considerable use to us. The hon. gentleman talks very lightly and rather flippantly, I think of the progress of Cau-dian trade. I do not take quite the same view as the hon. gentleman does. I do not regard it as being a matter of indifference that our Canadian imports and Canadian exports should expand in a ratio hitherto unknown in this country. I have here a rather interesting table showing the total trade of Canada, our imports and exports, as compared with the trade of Australasia, the trade of the United States, the trade of Great Britain, the trade of Belgium, the trade of France and the trade of Germany.

I will give the House a few extracts from that which are worth considering. Our total imports, per capita, in 1890 amounted to about $24. In 1895 they were $22, per capita, and in 1900 they had risen to $30. '

Hear, hear.

The hon. gentleman dislikes to hear that Canada's imports have increased. I differ from him. I take issue with him and with all those other hon. gentlemen. I am glad to see Canada's imports increase, and I am glad to see Canada's exports increase. I think, if he does not, that if we wish to sell we must also buy. In 1890 our exports amounted to $19 per capita, in 1895 they had risen to $22, while in 1900 they had risen to $36, or nearly double within the period of ten years, and they have largely increased within the period of four years that I have alluded to. How does this compare with the trade of the other countries which I have mentioned during corresponding periods ? In Australasia imports remained stationary and exports increased at a vastly less ratio than ours. Ours rose from $19 to $36, while theirs rose from $45 to $59 per capita. In the case of the United States I find that they began in 1890 with $13 per capita, that in 1895 they had sunk to about $12, and that in 1900 the per capita exports of the United States had risen to $19. That is to say that they were just exactly in the position which we held ourselves ten years ago, and at this present moment have very little more than half per head in their export trade of that of Canada.

I take the total volume of trade. In 1890 it amounted to $44 per head; in 1895 it amounted to the same; in 1900 it had risen to $71 per head. And, how does this compare with our neighbours to the south ? In 1890 it was $26 per head in the United States; in 1895 it was $23 per head in the United States, and in 1890 their total volume of trade amounted to $29 per head; very little more than one-third per head as much as the people of Canada. I have not time to go through all these figures, hut I will give the House the general result. Of all these countries-and several of them, as you

know, are in the very van of progress in all ways-of Australia, the United States, Great Britain, Belgium, France, and Germany, Canada has increased at all points; increased in her imports, increased in her exports, increased in her total volume of trade, in a far greater ratio than the best of the others-not by any means excepting Great Britain.

Our volume of trade compares with Great Britain, as follows : In 1890 we had $41 per head; in 1890 Great Britain had $97 per head. In 1900, we had $71 per head; we had increased in the ratio of about 60 per cent; and Great Britain had $104 per head, having increased in the ratio of about 7 per cent. I commend these figures to my hon. friends opposite. They ought to do them good, but I am afraid they won't so long as they continue in their hide-bound state of adherence to their medieval ideas of trade and commerce.

Now, Sir, this tariff-making which the hon. gentleman (Mr. Borden, Halifax) is engaged in is no doubt a very interesting problem. Perhaps he will pardon me for giving him a few hints. I am an older man than he is; I have a little more experience in the trade. I think I can give him a few hints even in the art of making a tariff to suit a protective community. Would it surprise my hon. friend (Mr. Borden, Halifax) very much to know that it would be a very easy matter indeed to make a tariff which should be at once and the same time a most highly protective tariff and yet under which the average duty on all imports would be very low indeed ? Would it surprise him to hear that ? Would he like to know how it is done-it may be useful to him ? Would it surprise him to know that it would be equally easy to double, to treble, and to quadruple the actual taxation of the people of the country and at the same time to reduce their nominal taxation to one-half or one-tliird of what it now' is ? Would it surprise him to know that ? Would it surprise him very much to know that it would be an easy matter-and he is on the high road to it- to frame a tariff under which the people of Canada should be taxed $60,000,000 a year, and under which $20,000,000 would go into the treasury and $40,000,000 would go into the pockets of a few favoured interests, from whom in good time a campaign fund might be levied as in the old days to keep the hon. gentlemen opposite in power ?

Hear, hear.

If the hon. gentleman (Mr. Borden, Halifax) does not know that, I will be very pleased to give him a few lessons in these three matters at any time he likes. Here you have the protective practice and the protective theory in a nutshell. What I have suggested is not a mere matter of academic possibility, but it is what is being done to-day in the United States, which the Sir RICHARD CARTWRIGHT.

hon. gentleman has been holding up to us during the latter part of his speech as such a model of political economy. I have very great respect for the memory of the late Mr. McKinley. 7 had the pleasure of making his acquaintance, and I very greatly honour Mr. McKinley in many respects; but he was not the sort of person whom I would advise a Canadian legislator to look up to as a model of all that was wise and prudent and successful in economic questions. The hon. gentleman (Mr. Borden, Halifax) is disposed to follow Mr. McKinley. I have no objection. It is not the first time that we have found these gentlemen hiding a very strong appreciation of American political methods and of American political designs under the guise of an earnest desire to keep up British connection.

Hear, hear.

Now, Sir, while I am on this subject, I would like to say a word to our manufacturing friends. I understand that many of them are pleased to regard me as their particular enemy. Well, Sir, I have no desire to quarrel with the manufacturers of Canada. I desire to do justice to them as I desire to do justice to all classes of my fellow-countrymen. But, I would like to say a few words to these gentlemen. Sir John Macdonald was in the habit very frequently of calling attention to a certain epitaph which he said he had seen in a grave yard, to the effect:

I was well, I would be better, here I am.

Now, Sir, I would advise our manufacturing friends to lay this to heart.

Hear, hear.

I say that this government has treated them with the greatest consideration. I say that this government used all possible care to see that their interests-not alone, mind you, but in common with the interests of the rest of the people-were safeguarded in the preparation of our present tariff. And in any alterations that may be made in the tariff, whatever line they may be pleased to take, I for one shall never advise that injustice be done to the manufacturers or done to anybody. But, I have to say to them, that they have had most uncommonly good fortune and most uncommonly good times. If they have used these well they ought to be most admirably prepared to-day to meet any reverses which may happen to overtake them, as reverses may overtake them, as reverses may overtake all classes of the community. I hope they have used their opportunities well. But, I do not believe that the way to really advance their interests is to impose higher taxes for their benefit on the rest of the community. If we are to have protection, I have this to say to the hon. gentleman (Mr. Borden, Halifax). 1 may tell him that we will see that that

protection shall be thorough. We do not want any more of the jug-handled, one-sided kind of protection which prevailed under the late administration. There are other classes to be heard. I have the honour to represent one of the richest, wealthiest, and most independent agricultural communities in the province of Ontario, and 1 can tell the hon. gentleman that the farmers of Ontario-and the farmers, 1 think, of Canada at large-are not disposed, if this protective question is to come to the front again, any more to be content with the sort of sham protection that was awarded to them before.

Hear, hear.

Sir, you cannot protect the farmers of Canada or of the North-west. You cannot protect men who raise a vast deal more of food products than they can possibly dispose of in the home market; and the price of whose farm products is fixed for them in England and in London. You cannot protect them by any paltry fence of a tariff that you may put up against importations of food from the United States. There is but one way in which the farmer, if you are going to have protection, can have a share in it. Again, I make a present to the hon. gentleman-as he appears to be desirous to protect all interests-of the way in which it ought to be done and can be done. That way is simple enough. You cannot protect the farmer, as I say, by putting up a higher tariff fence, but you can protect the farmer, if you like, by giving him a bounty on all that he raises. If you are going to have protection let it be thorough; let the farmer have protection on every bushel of grain he raises; let him have protection on every pound of bacon, every j)ound of butter, every pound of cheese, every horse, every cow, every hog, that he brings to maturity. Has he not the right V Has he not as good a right as the manufacturer, the fisherman, the lumberman, the miner ? Are not the farmers men on whose prosperity the prosperity of all of us depends-the prosperity of the manufacturer, the prosperity of the professional man, the prosperity of all classes in Canada ? And, therefore, I say, that if we are to have protection, by all manner of means let it be thorough, and let us begin, and let the hon. gentleman begin, by introducing a proper scale of protection for our farmers in the only way it can be given, namely, by giving a cash bounty down on the nail to our farmers for all they may be pleased to produce.

I admit that it will cost a trifle. Our farmers are not greedy. They do not want 35 per cent, they do not want 40 per cent, or 50 per cent or 60 per cent ; they will be content with a very moderate rate. But, Sir, what would a moderate rate amount to ? Well I made a calculation. Say, for instance, ten cents a bushel on all the grain they raise, one cent a pound on all their

butter, all their cheese and all their pork, $10 for each decent horse, $5 for each decent cow. It would cost a trifle-$40,000,000 or $50,000,000 ; but what is that by the side of a great principle for the benefit of the whole community, such as my hon. friend advocates ? My hon. friend sitting opposite me sees that the farmers have to be considered in this matter ; and if it be so extraordinarily advantageous, by protection, to increase the manufacturing population a few thousands, what would it be if we were to add several hundreds of thousands to the farming population by a moderate system of bounties, amounting to 10 per cent only, such as I suggest to my hon. friend ?

Sir, this puts me in mind of a little story, I do not tell many stories, and therefore I may be pardoned on this occasion. It so happened that once upon a time I was present with a distinguished member of this House, who I am afraid at this moment is slightly backsliding towards protection-no less a person than my distinguished friend from North Norfolk (Mr. Charlton). Now, my distinguished friend is a devout man. We know it because he has told us so more than once ; and, like other devout men, he had seen a vision. We were present at a certain agricultural gathering. My hon. friend narrated his vision. Like Dante, he had visited the nether regions. He had travelled through the various circles, including that circle to which faithless friends, according to Dante, are committed. At last he came to a very large and very extensive room, where he saw a number of persons suspended in a very curious attitude, closely resembling flitches of bacon prepared for market. My hon. friend addressed his sable guide, and inquired what on earth they were doing with these people overhead. The black gentleman informed him that these were the souls of farmers who in their lifetime had believed in protection, but, being found too green to burn, they were hung up to dry until they could be made lit for fuel. Now, I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet; but I warn our manufacturing friends that it would not be a very difficult business- because the tempers which once influenced the patrons of industry is not dead in Ontario-in a campaign of a few months to unite the farmers of Ontario, and I suspect the farmers of some other provinces, in a demand to be given their share of protection, if protection is to be the law of Canada ; and they are wide awake enough to know that the way I suggest is the only way in which the farmers of Canada will ever obtain any fair share of protection.

Now, Sir, I have another matter to bring before this House. As I stated at the commencement of my remarks, I was very much pleased-more pleased than I can express- that this question was being brought up at the time when the records of the third census of Canada were being laid before us.

No more fitting time could be selected for investigating tbe policy under which the government of Canada has been carried on during the major part of the 24 years that have elapsed since Mr. Mackenzie was defeated. My hon. friend beside me had very great cause indeed, as I thought, to congratulate the people of Canada on the immense accession of material wealth in various ways which had marked our progress during the last four years. But, Sir, there is one thing which is more important to Canada than even an increase of wealth, and that is an increase of the number of intelligent, industrious, active and vigorous people residing in Canada. That is the true wealth of a nation. That is what I desire to see grow and increase very much more than I do savings bank deposits of the volume of trade and commerce. I beg to say to hon. gentlemen opposite. particularly to the hon. leader of the opposition, that X adhere at all points to the statement made by me, not once only, but many times in this House, that the best test of the growth of any nation, more especially any young nation like Canada, with boundless areas of fertile land untouched. lies in this, whether in such a country you find the people of the land willing to stay in it. and the strangers who come induced to remain. That is the true test, not only of the growth of the country, but of the way in which it is administered. By that test I am ready to be judged, and that test I am about to apply. I can tell the hon. gentleman that the estimate which he appeared inclined to dispute, the estimate which I made of the natural increase that might be expected in a country like Canada unless violently disturbed, is perfectly correct; and the record of our census and that of the census of the United States go very far to establish it, if they do not establish it completely.

I say that the record of the last twenty years-because in order to do justice to this matter we must go back not merely to 3801 but to 1881-is a most singular record. Prima facie that record shows the grossest misgovernment on the part of those who were entrusted with the destinies of Canada during the greater part of that period. If the opposition be correct in what they appear disposed to contend, if they are right in the statement that after four years of unexampled prosperity, after adding nearly 100 per cent to the total volume of our trade and commerce, the exodus is still going on unchecked, if our growth has been as slow since 1895 as it was before that time, then I should say that the outlook for Canada was gloomy indeed. But if analysis proves the direct reverse-if I am able to show, as I think I shall be able to show, that the plague has stopped, that the current has been reversed, that our own people are remaining in Canada and that strangers are crowding in, notably from the Sir RICHARD CARTWRIGHT.

United States, then there is a good hope for Canada, for a better era is dawning on this country.

Now, I cannot doubt that, as loyal Canadians, hon. gentlemen opposite, particularly the hon. leader of the opposition, will be very pleased to hear me say that I have good ground for stating that after a careful analysis of these two censuses, I believe first of all, the increase during the last decade is double the increase which took place during the decade from 1881 to 1891, and next, that the increase during the last five years, from 1896 to 1901, in all human probability equals the total increase of the preceding 15 years from 1881 to 1896. Sir, these are not statements to be made lightly by a man in my position, and I do not make them lightly.

I shall be prepared before I sit down, even at the cost of wearying my bon. friends' patience, to give chapter and verse for these rather remarkable statements. I shall be prepared to show that the error which has led to the statements which have been circulated has been caused by very gross frauds in the census of 1891 ; that the returns for 1891 were purposely and deliberately for political purposes swelled unduly : and that in consequence the apparent rate of increase from 1891 to 1901 was very materially reduced. I challenge the keenest criticism on this point. If I make good the statements to which I now pledge myself, if I am able to show that the increase during the last decade was double the increase which took place between 1881 and 1891, and that the increase during the last five years in all probability is fully equal to the increase that took place during the preceding fifteen years, then I say that is a most pregnant fact, and while it is the best augury for the future, it sheds a most lurid light on the manner in which the administration of Canada was carried on from 1878 to 1896.

Sir, I say that the passage in the Address to which the hon. gentleman referred is true in all particulars and true to the letter. But first I would desire to contradict a slanderous statement which has crept into the public press, and concerning which I believe that those who circulated it did not fully comprehend what they were about. I refer to the statement which endeavours to put the blame for the small increase in the population of Canada on the shoulders of the ladies of Canada. I stand here to refute that slander and to say that the ladies of Canada, now as ever, haVe done their duty faithfully to their country. And if our numbers are less than we think they should be, it is no fault of theirs. If the men will go away what are the poor women to do 7 It is not through any fault of theirs that the rate of increase has not been so great as we would have desired. Of course we know that evil communications corrupt good manners, and it may be that here and there, certain Yankee practices have crept in ; but

I deny that such practices have affected in the slightest degree, the great majority. They are prepared to do their duty by their country now and ever as they have always done. One thing more, I am breaking no state secret when I say that long ago I foresaw just this controversy which has occurred, and I was very desirous, when I came into office-knowing thatgross frauds had been committed in 1891 in taking the census-to establish a fair point of departure, so that we might have absolute legal proof of where Canada had arrived in 1896. There was a good deal to say against taking a census then. No doubt such a measure was a contentious one and would have been violently opposed by the other side. Our finances were not very flourishing in 1896, and I am far from saying that those who opposed the idea had not a great deal to say for themselves. But 1 regret that we did not take a census in 1896 and obtain legal, absolute proof of what our population was at that time. I think, however, I will be able to lay before this House such ample circumstantial evidence as will fully bear out the statement I have just made.

I propose to deal with the exodus in several aspects. First, as regards its extent, which has been greatly underrated, or at least not sufficiently appreciated, by the people of Canada. I propose to deal with it also with respect to the quality of the exodus, which I consider to have been, in every sense and shape, a double loss to Canada. The people we lost and sent to the United States were emphatically the very flower of our population. They were to a most unusual extent, composed of young men and women in the very best of their youth, and the only consolation I have ever been able to find has been that wherever I have gone through the United States, from one end to the other, always and everywhere, I have found Canadians doing well, occupying places of trust and emolument, and in many cases places of the very highest position. I doubt whether any equal number of the people of the United States-any equal number, whether they be native or foreign born-could show to-day so many persons well and highly placed ns the Canadian immigration to the United States. Look to the United States Senate and you will find Canadians there. Look to the United States judiciary and you will And them on the bench. Look at the very front rank of American inventors, who can surpass Edison, a Canadian boy. Look at the front rank of railway magnates, and there you will find Canadians. Everywhere you will find them, and if the very best of our people have gone to the United States, that only makes the loss to us the more severe, and how severe I shall presently proceed to show.

Our people hardly appreciate the immense extent of the loss which we sustained from

1880 to 1891. In 1880, according to the census returns of the United States, there were

717.000 Canadians in that country. In 1890 that number had increased to 080,000 ; in 1900 it amounted to 1,181,000. You will remember that in order to keep up the number of those who were found in the United States at any one of these given periods, a very much larger number than the difference between those found in 1890 and those found in 1880 must have emigrated to the United States. You cannot possibly put the death rate at less than 2 per cent per annum bearing in mind the very large number who had been in the United States a long period. If you bear that in mind, you find that Canada lost from 1880 to 1890 not less than 433,000 souls altogether, and hom 1800 to 1900 Canada lost certainly not less than 417,000 souls. In other words, in the two decades, beginning in 1880 and terminating in 1900, the total loss to Canada-the absolute and ascertained loss-was not less than 850,000 souls ; and bearing in mind that a most unusually large number of these people were men and women in the very flower of their youth, you must in all conscience, add to these the children who would naturally have been born to them had they remained in Canada, if you wish to form an estimate of the total loss to Canada duriug those years. Putting all those together, is it possible to believe that we lost less than

1.400.000 people who, ought to have been in Canada between 1880 and 1901.

I have stated that this was a most miserable exhibit. I am aware that hon. gentlemen opposite have not paid very much attention to this rather unwelcome subject, and I doubt if they have ever taken the trouble to consider how other countries similarly circumstanced to ours have fared during the same period of twenty years. We, from 1880 to 1901, have barely added one million to our population. We began with 4,324,000. and we have increased to 5,370,000. What was the record in the United States during the last twenty years 1 Beginning with a population of 50,155,000, they rose to 62,000,000 in 1890, and advanced to 76,000,000 in 1900. The United States gained 26,000,000 in these twenty years, against Canada's 1,000,000. We gained at the rate of about 25 per cent- not quite that-in a period of twenty years, and the United States gained at the rate of 52 per cent. But I will take an illustration that is better than that. Take the United States at a time when they had no immigrants to fall back on, when the United States were left to their own resources, when locomotion was slow, when every yard of territory had to be gained at the point of the rifle, from 1790 to 1810, when the population of the United States was very considerably less than the population of Canada in 1880. How stands the record then ? In 1790, the United States had a population of 3,929,000 ; in 1810, the

population had risen to 7,239,000. They had gained 3,310,000 on a population of less than 4,000,000; while we with the large addition from the immigrants who came to us, had gained a bare 1,000,000 in a like period starting with a population of about 4,300,000. Am I not justified in saying that this is a most miserable exhibit ? Or, I will take the states adjoining our Northwest. Take the states of Dakota and Minnesota. In 1880, Dakota had a population of 135,000; in 1900, the population had risen to 720,000. Minnesota, in 1880, had a population of 780,000, and in 1900, the population had risen to 1,750,000. Why, in Dakota and Minnesota alone, in these twenty years, the growth of population was 1,500,000, starting as they did with a population of less than a million. Some of these hon. gentlemen opposite are fond of talking of national humiliation, because, forsooth, we buy more from the United States than we sell to the United States. But I have not heard them tell us what grievous national humiliation it is that England buys from us a great deal more than England sells to us. How it can be a disgrace to us to buy more from the United States than we sell to them, and not a disgrace for England to buy more from us than she sells to us, I do not see. But I say that this is the true national humiliation, that, under the circumstances I have stated, with boundless territories almost unexplored, with room fori fifty millions of people-I well believe, for a hundred million-we are unable, after twenty years, to point to an increase of more than one million, while the United States, under far more disadvantageous circumstances, were able to show an increase of 3,300,000. I say that this is a national disgrace, and speaks in trumpet tones of the gross mis-government and mismanagement of those who were charged with the government of the country during the greater part of that time. .

I have said that I have very grave ground to distrust the census of 1891. One of my grounds was the conduct of the government of that day when the accuracy of that census was challenged. Unfortunately, there are but few here who had seats in parliament in 1891. But those hon. gentlemen who were then in the House will remember, when my hon. friend the present Minister of Militia (Hon. Mr. Borden) rising in his place, brought forward most incontrovertible evidence that gross frauds had been committed in one subdivision at least in his own province, how his statements were received. If the government had been honest men, they would have ordered a rigorous investigation. Or. at least and at lowest, they would have abstained from throwing every obstacle in their power in the way of the investigation that my hon. friend desired. They would give us no satisfaction, no opportunity to

Sir RICHARD CARTWRIGHT.

extend the scope of our investigation. But enough was done by my hon. friend on that occasion to show clearly and distinctly, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that, in the case he gave there had been very gross and deliberate stuffing of the lists on the part of the census enumerator. That was one ground for distrust. Another and even graver ground is to be found in the conduct of the enumerators employed. There were two objects which the census enumerators of that day had in mind. They were extremely desirous of making it appear that the national policy was a success. They were extremely desirous of swelling the number of the people. As it happens, we are in possession of very perfect evidence as to the means they adopted for the purposes of glorifying the national policy. Hon. members who were in the House at that time will remember how astonished they were to find that the national policy had called into existence twenty-five thousand new industries in the space of ten years. And we were still more astonished when we got hold of vol.

' C,' the third volume of the census of 1891, and Wlien it dawned on our astonished mind what sort of means the Conservative enumerator on the warpath is ready to use for ad majorem Dei gloriam his own emolument and the renown of the national policy. I have hei-e some choice samples, very choice samples, of the way in which these gentlemen made something out of nothing and created five and twenty thousand new industries to order. I find that, in 1881, Canada had eleven carpet factories. But I find that in 1891, Canada boasted 557 carpet factories. Of these, Sir, seventy were located in the good county of Antigonish. And a curious fact it is, which I have not been able quite to understand, that it is on record that these seventy factories employed sixty-nine hands. There was one man ; sixty-four old women ; one boy, and three girls. I am inclined to believe that the man, owing to the wonderful effects of the national policy, must have become ambidexterous and so expert that he could run two factories, one with each hand. I find on further examination-I am quoting, remember, from the census record, that invaluable volume ' O ' which I desire my friends to cherish and prize-that the machinery required to run these seventy carpet factories was valued at $1,089, being an average of $15-nearly- apiece. I find that these seventy factories paid wages to the amount of $4,539, being, roughly, I think about $60 or $65 per annum, or about $1.15 a week-approximately 20 cents per day. Sir, I proceeded in my investigations, and I found that they had done nearly as well in knitting factories by the county of Shelburne, as they had done in carpet factories by the county of Antigonish. Shelburne boasted of ninety-three knitting factories. These ninety-three

knitting factories employed, I think, ninety-three hands, but I am not quite sure. At any rate, they had invested $623 in machinery, being at the rate of $6.50 per knitting factory in Shelburne. They possessed $1,500 working capital among them, being at the rate of $15 per factory. They paid in wages $1,833, being at the rate, roughly, of about $18 a year, which subdivided gave, if I remember right, about 4J cents per day.

Not to do any wrong to the neighbouring provinces, I find that in the matter of basket factories Quebec was greatly favoured. Huntingdon possessed forty basket factories, employing forty-five hands. The value of the land, of the land, Sir, on which these forty-five basket factories stood, is given by the enumerator, I think, at $690 collectively, amounting to $17 each for the value of the land. The buildings are put at $1,800 collectively, amounting to $45 per building, $62 in all. Subsequent inquiries have led me to believe they were probably wigwams, constructed of bark. Their total wages, amounting to $1,970, being $47 a year, was ninety cents a week, or say fifteen cents per day.

New Brunswick, Sir, was rich, not in baskets but in carpet factories. New Brunswick had fifty-one factories employing fifty-one hands. These fifty-one hands required $707 worth of machinery to keep them going, and they earned wages at the rate of ten cents per day. Sir, we made a pretty careful investigation. We took Port Hope. Port Hope, I believe, had 147 industrial establishments, 120 of them employed 200 hands, one man or one woman as the case might be, and about half a boy or half a girl at each factory. And so on, and so on, and so on, until, before we had threshed the thing out, it became tolerably apparent that these census enumerators had succeeded in discovering 25,000 new industrial establishments out of what an ordinary mortal would have considered about 500. Why, Sir, such was the zeal of these worthy men that it is on record that rather than omit anything they included among industrial establishments certain institutions which I believe the great and good Saint Augustin has described as necessary evils, but which, until they fell in the way of the Conservative census enumerator, no one, past or present, sacred or profane, ever yet described as an industrial institution.

Now, Mr. Speaker, X call attention to these matters for a definite purpose. Here you will see very clearly what was the animus that actuated the men who were intrusted with the task of compiling the census tables in 1891. *If they were capable, in a case where detection was almost certain, of perpetrating the gross and impudent frauds I have just narrated, think you, they would hesitate to add here and there a name to the members of the family where detection

was almost impossible, particularly under our de jure system ?

Now, Sir, X come to the Ontario returns for 1901. If these returns are correct, and if the returns for 1891 are correct, certain amazing results mak6 themselves apparent. Sir, I knew Ontario from 1881 to 1891 as few men knew it. I had travelled Ontario a dozen times from end to end during those ten years ; I had addressed hundreds of thousands of my fellow countrymen during that interval.

Mr. HUGHES (Victoria).

It had a very bad effect.

The MINISTER OF TRADE AND COIM-MERCE. I do not think, if Sir John A. Macdonald was alive, he would say that the results in 1891 were beneficial to his party. Sir, I made it a special subject of inquiry, I spoke of it in my place in parliament, I inquired constantly in every possible place where I had any opportunity of obtaining information as to the exodus which was going on in Ontario from 1881 to 1891, and I obtained all sorts of evidence that the exodus was unparalleled, and everybody who knows Ontario knows that during that decade we lost an almost unprecedented number of our people. Sir, if, as I say, the census we have now got is correct, and if the census of 1891 is correct, this very remarkable result follows, that the growth of Ontario from 1881 to 1891 was three times as great as the growth of Ontario from 1891 to 1901, although the latter period includes four years of remarkable prosperity, to the people of Ontario at any rate. It follows also that the growth of Ontario from 1891 to 1901 was scarcely one-fourth part of the growth of England during the last decade. This other very remarkable result follows : We find

that in Ontario, between 1881 and 1891, the number of families increased from 366,000 to 414,000. There was an increase of

48,000 families, and an increase in population of 191,000. In this second decade from 1891 to 1901, there was an increase of 40, 367 families, and a total growth of population of only 68,000, as against 191,000 in the previous decade. There is another remarkable fact that I have to bring forward. Putting out of count the new districts, the unorganized districts in which a great part of the increase occurred, as everybody knows, it is a remarkable circumstance that the municipal census of Ontario shows that, less Nipissing, less Muskoka, less Parry Sound and less Algoma, there was a growth of about 70,000 between 1891 and 1901, while, according to the government census, there is only an increase of 16,000. Now, Sir, what is the deduction to be drawn from that ? The deduction is unanswerable, the deduction is clear, that there were a very considerable number of persons in Ontario in 1901 more than there were in 1891, and that one of two things has occurred, either the census of Ontario has been unduly di-

minished in 1901 by the error of our enumerators, or the census of Ontario was most unduly swollen in 1891 by the gross frauds of Conservative enumerators. I recommend hon. gentlemen to wait a little before they dispute that matter.

Now, there were a great many people, like myself, who thought that it was a very remarkable circumstance indeed that with this increase of 40,000 families in the province of Ontario there should only be an apparent increase of 68,000 people. It was supposed and alleged by hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House, it was supposed and alleged by their press, it was supposed and alleged, by their supporters, that the number of people in Ontario had been largely underestimated and they selected the city of Toronto as a proof that the number of people in Toronto had been greatly under the mark in the enumeration. Well, Sir, they made an enumeration and they produced an apparent swplus of something like 13,000 over the number recorded by our enumerators. We caused an examination to be made into this matter. I have here the report, which I am going to lay on the Table of the House, of Mr. Carlyle, to whom was entrusted the duty of looking into this matter. Mr. Carlyle reported to my hon. friend the Minister of Agriculture that after a careful examination

Mr. HUGHES (Victoria).

Who is Mr. Carlyle 7