He a tariff in protection of the interests ducive to the wealth of the country of Canada, could not but be bene- than a farming community, intelligent ficial to the people of Canada, and industrious, and loyal as was the and could not but promote their farming community of Canada; but a prosperity. When the check which country required something more. It was put upon legislation in the was insane to talk about any policy United States, by the Southern mem- which would prevent or restrict other bers of Congress, was removed by developments of industry except in secession of the States, and withdrawal the direction of agriculture. He of their representatives, pressure from believed believed that a few gentlemen who Pennsylvania and New England was were favourably disposed, at least to brought to bear on the Government of what was called by courtesy the great the United States, and a tariff was Reform party, held such a policy of made to suit every body's interest,-a restriction. He had seen it persisttariff which, without doubt, has been ently brought forward and argued, disastrous in many respects. But, not only with earnestness but with a after all, the general effect of the bitterness and virulence which the tariff upon the United States has occasion did not certainly seem to been far from disastrous, this tem- call for; and he could not understand porary trouble may have arisen why they could not hold their own from it. Look, at her cities spring- convictions and reason upon those ing up and extending their borders convictions without constantly misrein all directions; look at the vast in- presenting the convictions of others crease of the area of cultivation year who held them upon as good a founby year, and the general prosperity dation and with as good a reason as which has marked her career for the those held by their opponents. past eighteen or twenty years. She never had known anything that had had met with a check. There had been so bitter and so uncompromising been over-production, they did as had been the crusade against the not dispute tha; and that did not manufacturing and other interests of a dispute that a high tariff engendered manufacturing character, by certain over-production; but it was not neces- gentlemen who pretended to lead sary to din that into their ears when the Reform party of this country. He speaking of protection to their strug- was astonished, because he did not see gling mannfacturers in Canada. No how any good could possibly be gained such proposition had ever been made by it, and he was sure the course that or thought of by the gentleman who had been pursued was not one caìculhad been authorized to speak for theated to advance the interests which party of which he was a humble mem- the gentlemen had taken into their ber, as had been put into their mouths special charge. by an opponent whenever the question of Protection had been agitated by the hon. gentlemen opposite, on their summer perambulations. He saw the other day, that in Illinois, which was not known as a great manufacturing States, the manufactures for the last year amounted to two hundred and five million dollars. If that was correct it was better that sum should be produced by manufacture than by mere agriculture; and nobody would tell him that it was not to the advantage of the country that cities should grow and thrive, and that we should restrict the growth of communities in those aggregations which were the centres of culture and refinement. Nothing could be more con Heaven suffered violence. as MR. PLUMB requested the hon. the Minister Illinois, the Minister of the Interior to take him into his confidence to the remarks he had just made, which he (Mr. Plumb) did not hear, and regretted that his request was not complied with. He continued by saying, that notwithstanding the commercial trouble and disaster which had fallen upon the United States, to which the hon. member for North Norfolk (Mr.Charlton) had so frequently referred, he had seen personally the greatest prosperity flowing out of the manufacturing interests of a large city, with which he was very familiar. He visited that city four weeks ago, and | depression was not caused by the dewas astonished, as he drove through its pression in the United States, as the suburbs, by the improvement and ex- hon. member for North Norfolk tensive piles of buildings which had (Mr. Charlton) asserted; it had been sprung up in all directions. He was caused by excessive protection. The surprised to find that its population had causes laid far deeper and the conincreased from 60,000 to nearly 100,000 sequences were more extended, they within the last ten or twelve years, could not be thrust away by a paraand to observe evidences of wealth graph in the Address. The House which far exceeded anything within was told there were signs of returning his former knowledge of that city in prosperity. He failed to perceive that which he had long been a resident. such signs existed. They usually beOn enquiring from the gentleman gan with the people, and were not with whom he was driving as to who usually first brought to notice through were the owners and occupiers of the a speech from the Throne. Honourlong lines of spacious and costly manable members should first discover sions and numerous rows and streets evidences of returning prosperity of comfortable dwellings, he reclined among their constituents, but he reand replied that they were men who gretted to say that he had failed to had accumulated wealth from manu- find them. Anything that would show factures and other industries. It was there was returning prosperity, they explained that the city had at one upon the Opposition side of the House, time a large wholesale trade in dry as well as all other patriotic Canadians goods and hardware, but that the trade desiring to promote the interests of had been carried further west, and in the country, would hail with pleasure. its place manufactures had sprung up It was a scandalous slander on the hon. and given the people increased pros- members of the Opposition, that perity. That prosperity had extended was uttered by the hon, the Premier in to the surrounding country, and it was replying to the right hon. member for astonishing what a change had taken Kingston (Sir John A. Macdonald), place in old farms formerly held under when he said, referring to a cartoon in feudal tenure, where, on account of the a comic paper, that they of the Opposithe restrictions on the land, in the tion were seeking to detain the spectre form of quarter sales, service and of hard times, and bring it to their aid labour and rent in kind, there was not in the coming election. Patriotism the encouragement which should be did not, however, all lie on the other given to the occupants. The gentle- side of the House, and the Conservaman who held those lands allowed the tives had equal right, considering the rents to run in arrears, and the farms, record of the right hon. member enowing to the difficulties respecting trusted with the leadership of the tenure, became almost valueless. Since party, and who was the most maligned that time, owing to the prosperity and most abused man in Canada to-day, of the city to which he had to claim an interest in the country, referred, and the rise of another and not to desire any continuance of city six miles distant, having a the disasters that were occurring on population of 50,000 or 60,000, built every hand, of whatever political adup by manufacturers, having iron vantage it might bring to either, works, rolling mills, a Bessemer steel though he doubted whether it could manufactory and other industries, the benefit either side. They did not delands in the neighbourhood for twenty sire that the country should suffer what or thirty miles round had doubled in it had suffered during the last three value, and there great and perma- or four years, for which he and many nent prosperity had been established, others were of opinion the present notwithstanding a temporary check Government was to a very appreciable by reason of the depression of extent responsible. The House had which they had heard so much, and heard from the hon. member for which no one could deny, and which North Norfolk (Mr. Charlton) a little they knew prevailed not only there tall talk, or the old story about the but elsewhere. The universal trade Pacific Railway. The insinuation had aid, but the inception and carrying out of the scheme was due to the foresight, courage and perseverance of four or five men who took the work in hand, when no other parties would take it up, and successfully accomplished it against ten times the power of argument and sarcasm which had been expended in this House to crush the Pacific Railway scheme which the right hon. member for Kingston (Sir John A. Macdonald) and his colleagues submitted to Parliament in 1871. Not only had that Union Central road been built, but it was a paying success; it had earned enough to pay seven or eight per cent. on a capital which had been enormously watered to the extent of double its cost at least; the price of its gold bonds had never been below par, even during the worst commercial depression. It could not be denied that Canada, with all its resources, great advantages and the untold wealth of its undeveloped territory,and with the whole power of the Dominion united, as it should have been, in the building of a Pacific Railway, could not carry out what four or five men unaided had accomplished and made profitable. The construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway was notthey were told by the Premier it was—a mad scheme, the advocacy of which should cause the Opposition to be held up to universal execration; but it was a feasible and reasonable scheme, which not only the Conservative party had taken up, and the completion of which, within a reasonable period, it had urged, and not urged alone and unaided, but it was in full accord with the views of the great organ of the Reform party which advocated in 1871; a scheme the delay of which would been thrown out that owing to the tre- | the iron upon the track at the rate of mendous responsibility which had one mile and one mile and a half a day. been cast by the late Government upon One of the tracklayers gave him last their successors, the surveys of the year a memorandum of track laid at that road had been dragged along year after rate under his supervision. The enter year at an enormous cost, and that theprise, of course, received Government gentleman having had all the possible and impossible routes surveyed including that through the Rocky and Cascade Mountains, had not yet been able to make up their minds as to the Pacific terminus. He was afraid they would not have engineering light enough to enable them to make up their minds until after the next election. He was afraid there was a reason why it was not desirable, probably in their view, that a question which might have a little effect on the result of the elections in British Columbia, though he did not believe it would make much difference, should not be decided; but he thought the Government should select the terminus without delay and without fear of the consequences. The House had heard that because the surveys had been so extensive, because the Government had run lines through parts of the country where there was no chance or possibility of finding feasible routes for building the road on account of the inhospitable climate or the impracticable country, that this was another evidence of the recklessness of the previous Administration in undertaking to build the Pacific Railway in ten years. Hon. gentlemen opposite knew it had been stated over and over again that the time it was proposed to carry out the scheme for building a Canadian Pacific Railway, vast railway projects in the United States, many almost important as the one then in contemplation by Canada, were being pushed on to completion. The great railway across the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada was built by private enterprise, and the most difficult part, viz: that leading from the connection with the Union Pacific to the Pacific Ocean, making its connection north in Utah, was built through the indomitable perseverance of four or five unknown men living in Sacramento and its neighbourhood, who took the enterprise in hand and carried it to completion in four years. They had as be ruinous to the country. It told them that there should be no hesitation, that the scheme should be pushed forward then while the Northern Pacific was threatening us as a rival route. They were then told by the Globe that there were engineering difficulties in the way, and that this country should not only no self, who was always put forward as one of the most eloquent and ablest of the hon. members sitting behind the Government, who was delegated sometimes to do most delicate work for the Government, such as the Secret Service persecution, and who had distinguished himself on more than one occasion by carrying out faithfully, and to the letter, his instructions. He it was, who suggested the line of comment which he (Mr. Plumb) was at present pursuing. It was owing to that hon. gentleman's masterly effort that he (Mr. Plumb) was enabled to look further into the question, and in treating it he had followed precisely the route which that hon. member, who was the mouthpiece of the Government for the time, chose to adopt. The hon. member for North Norfolk had no doubt that the best commentary that could be made on the absurdity of the original contract for the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway in ten years, entered into by the late Government, was the difficulty experienced in the surveys, the cost of which had exceeded $3,140,000. That was just about the same sum, principal and interest, that the celebrated steel rails cost at the present day. Up to this time the purchase of those rails had been of no benefit to the country, except to show it what might be expected from the further prosecution of the work by men who had made such an enormous blunder at its very outset. Although the surveys had cost $3,140,000, the Government had not yet expended enough upon them to prepare themselves to decide on the route beyond the Rocky Mountains, and the pass through which a passage would be cut to the waters of the Pacific. It might have been expected that there had been time enough during the last three or four years to have arrived at a conclusion; but he had hinted at the reason, and ventured to say that the hon. gentlemen opposite would find out where they are and whither they ought to go, only when the people had an opportunity of telling them, as they would have before another year rolled round. He doubted whether those hon. gentlemen would then be ready to interrupt him with a sneer, and an endeavour to convey build the road but build it upon a line covert sarcasm as they had been to-day during his remarks. The hon. member for North Norfolk had been kind enough to inform the country. that the present Administration had effected a saving of millions per annum, and had carried out retrenchment in various directions. He had stated that during the first year the late Government was in office, their expenditure amounted to $13,500,000, and when they left office they were expending $23,000,000 a year. Hon. members had, however, heard before the same line of argument used, the same suggestions made and inferences drawn. These gentlemen who told them that the public expenditure had been $13,500,000 at the inception of Confederation, always forgot to mention the fact that after this was accomplished large works were undertaken and that the consolidation of the Dominion was the care of the Administration. It devolved upon the then Government to constantly increase the outlay by a system of liberal and judicious expenditure which the present Government had been unable to change in any salutary direction; and he had to say that, even upon the day when this very Budget was brought forward, showing an increase in the public expenditure during seven years from thirteen millions to twenty-three millions, his hon. friend, the present Finance Minister had nothing to say except to congratulate the then Finance Minister upon his Budget Speech, and upon his exhibit, both as to the expenditure and the receipts of the country, and to tell him that perhaps he might be a little oversanguine in his future anticipations, but yet the country must be congratulated. So far as the reports preserved the then speeches of the hon. gentleman (Mr. Cartwright), he had not at the time uttered one of those comprehensive criticisms which he would have expected to find, from the subsequent record of that hon. gentleman, that he (Mr. Cartwright) had indulged in on all occasions when the fiscal policy of the country was under discussion. Then the hon. gen. tleman sat, he (Mr. Plum) might venture to say, firmly on the Government side of the House; at any rate, he was supposed and he claimed to be an intelligent critic of the fiscal affairs and the fiscal policy of the country. The hon gentleman then took no exceptions to this policy. It had been only reserved to him (Mr. Cartwright) to attempt to show to the country that there was something culpable in the then increase of the expenditure. The natural growth of this expenditure was not objected to at that period when the Government had large surpluses every year, showing a prosperity such as was never equalled in the history of the country; and when the Government not only were able to make these large expenditures for the current and general expenses and wants of the country, but also to put from ten to twelve million dollars, at the lowest calculation, into works properly chargeable to capital, though this amount was taken from the revenue of the country. These sums were not, however, charged to capital as the Government might properly have done had they been half as reckless and half as devoid of economy and prudence as their successors. In 1873 Mr. Tilley's Budget amounted to 193 millions, an increase of 63 millions since the first year of Confederation; there was also a large increase in 1874, This was unquestionable; and he could say that Mr. Tilley's estimates were not such as they had been represented in the general speeches that had since been made on the fiiscal condition of the country, in which comparisons had been made between the two Administrations. And it was well known that in the Supplementary Estimates, Schedule A., of 1874, large additions were made to Mr. Tilley's estimates. And he undertook to say that when that gentiemen returned to the House,which he trusted would be the case at no distant day-he (Mr. Tilley) would be able to show that the greatest possible liberty, to call it by the least objectionable name, had been taken by his successor, the hon. gentleman opposite, in adding to the expenditure of that year, after he had left the House and could no longer protect or defend himself or his policy, in swelling up a larger schedule and a larger |