Mr. BENNETT:

Yes; he is restricted as to the number, but I am talking about the repairs and the feed and fodder. The limit is $200 for each quarter section?

Mr. DUNNING:

Including the seed.

Mr. BENNETT:

Well, I asked if that included the seed.

Mr. GARDINER:

It includes everything.

Mr. DUNNING:

That is the outside limit of everything.

Mr. GARDINER:

Perhaps I had better

read section 10, which clears the matter up:

A municipality which has borrowed money under this act shall from time to time expend it in the purchase and distribution of seed grain and supplies to be furnished to farmers who are unable to purchase the same without assistance and who have become unable to do so by reason of failure of crops or other adverse conditions; but the municipality shall not advance in any year seed grain and supplies of greater value than $200 in respect of any one quarter section.

That is the maximum limit for any one quarter section.

Mr. BENNETT:

In the case of oats and rye the situation would be different from that in the case of wheat.

Mr. STIRLING:

What is the total amount of money which the dominion government has guaranteed and which it has to mp?t?

Mr. DUNNING:

I gave that the other

day.

Mr. STIRLING:

It is on Hansard?

Mr. DUNNING:

I have it, but it is on Hansard. I gave it on the resolution.

Mr. BENNETT:

I am not deterred from doing what I conceive to be my duty by the criticism that I am not a farmer; I am dealing with legislation only as such. Might it not be desirable to incorporate in the statute the regulations that at the moment are purely regulations? Shortly put, the only protection we have here with respect to either of these provinces is the maximum of the amount we may guarantee.

Mr. DUNNING:

It must be used for certain purposes.

Seed Grain

Mr. BENNETT:

We are not going to have control of that. That is my whole point. You start with the municipality. The Minister of Agriculture has dwelt upon the desirability of including the municipality because of the knowledge they have of local conditions. But, while the Minister of Finance is the custodian of the country's money, the bald fact is that the amounts of $1,900,000 for Alberta and $14,500,000 for Saskatchewan constitute the only limitation imposed in connection with this whole matter. You can think it over as carefully as you may. I have been sitting here for the last fifteen minutes going over it as carefully as I can.

Mr. DUNNING:

The terms of the statute are fairly explicit.

Mr. BENNETT:

I know. But the provincial statute has been worked out by the people on the spot. What we thought of as a statute is purely regulation, and the government is introduced as one of the bodies that determine the matter, but as far as the Dominion of Canada and its taxpayers are concerned the only limitations imposed on our liability are those two amounts of $1,900,000 and $14,500,000. That is the reason why I started out with the idea that we should endeavour to impose some limitation in the way of conditions in the statute itself and make it a criminal offence to endeavour to violate it, because in communities there are rackets that arise which one little expects. I could give day and date with respect to some that have occurred in all parts of the country. We have them in every province; we all know that. All one has to do is to take the reports which come in sometimes from the mounted police, and one can find out without much difficulty what happens in some of these communities. No one for a moment questions the honesty of the great majority of the people. But when one is dealing with something which belongs to a government, the rule of conduct is not the same. I do not see sufficient safeguards in the legislation. However, I am not going to labour the matter further.

Mr. STIRLING:

Would the minister be good enough to repeat that figure-I have been looking through his statements of the other day and I do not find it-with respect to the total amount of guarantees over the seven or eight years during which the dominion government has made those guarantees.

Mr. DUNNING:

Well, the guarantee

method was applied only in 1936 and 1937. Prior to that time the government lent money to the province and the province bought the seed with the money lent to it by the federal government of that day. I assume my hon. friend does not wish me to go back that far.

Mr. STIRLING:

What I wanted to arrive at, even though it was only in the form of a rough figure, is what has it cost Canada to assist the farmers of the drought area on to their feet again?