that we were correct in our argument, but, as the hon. gentleman seemed to doubt it, I did all he could reasonably expect I referred the matter to the highest law officer of the Crown, by whose decision the Government is necessarily bound in such a case, and finding, to my regret, that we had been too liberal, and had misconstrued the Statute in that particular respect and given the gentleman $300 more than he was entitled to, we acted on the law and withdrew the $300. Sir, I cannot see anything in anything in that course which either deserves the censure of the House, or in any way fairly exposes us to the reproach of having violated any pledge to that gentleman; and I can tell the hon. gentleman that Mr. Ratchford would have been superannuated at that time, whether his allowance had been $300 or $600, or whatever it might have been. The hon. gentleman declares he does not ask for higher duties, and that what he asks is for a readjustment of the duties. Well, it would give us the greatest possible pleasure to see the hon. gentleman explain to a convention of manufacturers how he would give them any increased protection without increasing the duties; and, although I have the highest respect for the adroitness of the hon. gentleman, still I think that, brought face to face with those hard-headed representatives of the manufacturing interests with whom I have been so often brought in contact in my official duties, he would find it extremely difficult to convince them that any possible readjustment of the duties which did not involve very largely increased duties would do them the smallest good or in the slightest degree satisfy the expectations he has raised. He is pleased to say that it would be an easy step for us, by the readjustment of the sugar duties,-of all things in the world, by a readjustment of the sugar duties—to offer a great benefit to a manufacturing interest worth millions, and at the same time to afford employment to a large part of our population. Now, Sir, I have this to say-that if you choose to lower duties in this respect, you must put on other taxes to make up the gap in the revenue. An HON. MEMBER: No. MR. CARTWRIGHT: Yes. Yes. The hon. gentleman has no ground for saying that,in this country, the conditions of which differ entirely from those of England, any reduction in duty would bring a corresponding increase in the consumption; he must bear in mind that, so great would be the reduction, it would be necessary that a very large amount indeed of additional taxation should be levied. I am not going to enter into. minute details as to the effect of this on our West India trade. I am stating what the universal opinion of those with whom I have conferred upon the subject is, and it is this: that, if you lower those duties materially, you must supply the loss to your revenue from some other quarter. I have pointed out the results which flowed from the tariff introduced by Sir Alexander Galt in 1859, and which was maintained to the great injury, as I believe, of the people of Canada, and, as I know, to the great dissatisfaction of a great many of the people of Canada for eight or nine years. What that tariff did in effect was this: it created a few millionaires at the expense of the whole bulk of the sugarconsuming population of Canada. object to that, Sir; and I take issue with the hon. gentleman when he says that a million dollars would be expended in wages or for any other such purpose, or in the purchase of material for sugar-refining in this country. Sir, the reverse is very much more nearly the case. If those duties were reduced as he desires, probably $100,000 would be spent in wages in this country and a million of dollars would be lost to the people of Canada; the whole, or the greater part of which would find its way into the pockets of the sugar-refiners. The hon. gentleman objects to my estimate as to the results of Protection. He declares that I have greatly understated the effects which might be produced by such a readjustment of the tariff as would exclude some twenty-five or thirty millions of dollars of our present importations. Well, Sir, I adhere to my statement; and, with respect to the cotton trade, which the hon.gntleman was good enough to declare employed some 50,000 hands-when he spoke, I presumed I our an that he alluded to one particular branch time be equally eligible to be elected a alone of this trade—I have to tell him | High Commissioner. I do not quarrel that the last returns from England show with the hon. gentleman for differing that the English cotton trade employs, in opinion with me about that. I say not 50,000, but 500,000 hands, as nearly the Treaty of Washington was an as may be; the hon. gentleman having, unworthy concession on the part of apparently, omitted a cypher, though the Imperial Government, a concession an important cypher, in the state- which I opposed and which I have ment be made. Sir, he declares that regretted, although it might have been policy as to the United necessary for us to accept it as being a States was this: that we had to go as thing impossible to refuse at that time suppliants to Washington; and when -a point on which I am not going to asked what we had to give, we had to enter into this argument at reply we had nothing to give in ex- present moment. I say it was a most change for the concessions we de- unfortunate treaty for the best manded. Sir, the hon. gentleman interests of the people of Canada, in my might have remembered why it was judgment; and, Sir, I can tell the hon. that the people of Canada had nothing gentleman that, if the High Commisto give. He might have remembered sioner at that time had been as keenly the terms of a certain Treaty of Wash- alive as he ought to have been to the ington, which stripped the people of interests of the people of Canada, he Canada of the only means they had at had, as the protocols of the negotiations that time in their power to present as show, the power of obtaining most an equivalent to the people of the valuable concessions for the people of United States, and he might have Canada in return for these fisheries, asked himself under whose adminis- which chance he let slip, and hence no tration, by whose guidance, and by unimportant portion of the difficulties whose advice were the terms of that that we have had to contend with. The shameful capitulation finally conceded. hon. gentleman complains that we MR. MASSON: Why did you send will not impose a duty on coal, and he Mr. Brown if you had nothing to offer declares that, if we would only impose such a duty, he has no doubt whatever that the interests of American coalowners would induce them at once to move for an abolition of their duty. I am afraid that he totally under-rates the value to the United States of America, or the importance to them, of the supply, chiefly of anthracite coal which they send to us. We must have that anthracite coal, ar 1 consequently the effect of imposing that duty would be, as my hon. friends opposite well know, simply to weight down the manufacturers of Canada without at all affecting the interests of the producers of the anthracite. "But," he says, "why do we impose a duty on coal oil and not on coal?" Sir, the duty on coal oil was not of my imposing; it was the hon. gentleman and his colleagues who imposed it. What we did coal oil, and his distressed Nova Scotia was very largely to reduce the duty on miner, even if he does pay 33 per cent. more than he needs, at any rate gets it 66 per cent., and perhaps 100 per cent., cheaper than he ever got it under the hon. gentleman's administration. The them ? MR. TUPPER: I would like to ask the hon. gentleman if the Government of Canada did not namo a gentleman who voted in this House for that Treaty, as the High Commissioner to carry out that arbitration-Sir Alex ander Galt? MR. CARTWRIGHT: I cannot, for the life of me, see what matter it would make whether Sir Alexander Galt had voted for the Treaty of Washington or not, or whether he was the Commissioner in the arrangement of the sum to be paid for our Fisheries. MR. TUPPER: If Sir Alexander Galt voted for a scandalous capitulation of the interests of Canada to the United States, I ask if he was a proper person to be named as Commissioner to act for the Government of Canada in carrying out the Arbitration ? MR. CARTWRIGHT: A man may be mistaken and may subsequently have seen the errors of his ways. I only hope the hon. gentleman may some hon. gentleman declares that all products imported from the United States go necessarily to displace our own. Well, Sir, I was under the impression that a very large proportion of the imports of the United States passed through this country as a means of transit, and afforded employment to our merchants, and our shippers, und our seamen. MR. TUPPER: What entered into the consumption, I said. I drew the distinction. ple from their natural productive occupations and to engage them, at great loss of capital, great loss of skill, and with great injury to the people themselves, in other occupations, as has been done to a very large extent in the United States, where the city population has increased within the past few years to something like twelve millions of people, a number out of all proportion to the natural wants and necessities of that country. I am opposed to that on many grounds; but chiefly because I believe that that unhealthy stimulus, that unhealthy collecting together of large masses of men in large cities, is a crying evil in the United States, and is one of the chief causes of the extreme depression which they now experience. Sir, it is computed by Americans themselves, by American writers of the highest position, that, of almost twelve millions of people who are unhappily collected together in a few American cities, something like four millions of people are in a state of semi-starvation, and are unable to obtain employment. That is the policy which is held up to us as a model and exemplar. But, as the hon. gentleman may, and with reason, accuse me of speaking on this subject without sufficient acquaintance with the facts of the case, perhaps he will attach a little more value to the message delivered by the Governor of the great State of New York to the Legislature of that State, but a very few weeks ago. This is what Governor Robertson, the Governor of the chief State of the Union, declares as the result of the fiscal policy of the United States: MR. CARTWRIGHT: If it be so, I presume the reason is that, as was so well explained by my hon. friend from can corn because it is cheaper for us to Wentworth (Mr. Rymal), we buy Ameribuy American corn, and sell them other grain of ours. That is a commercial transaction by which, as I understand, both parties are benefitted. If it is true that our imports from Great Britain have decreased twenty-three millions and our imports from the United States have increased two or three millions, i suppose we buy from the United States and sell to Great Britain simply because we can obtain better bargains from the people of the United States in the one case, and better prices from the people of Great Britain in the other. If he declares that the policy of this Government is an American policy, I would like to know which is the more American of the two,—a policy which would assimmilate our position in all respects to that of the United States, or a policy which would leave us, as in the mother country, free to trade whereever we find it most to our interest to do so. I perceive that the hon. gentle"The depression in all branches of trade, man, later on, proceeded to repeat his business and manufacture, and the wreck of assertion that our policy was depopu- our too numerous railroad, mining and milllating our country, and he intimated ing ventures, have caused the throwing out of employ of a vast number of labouring men, that he thought that in any case, we who, without fault of their own, are now sufferwould be able, by a certain re-adjust-ing extreme want. While it is true that legisment of the tariff, to bring a large number of additional population into this country. Now, I have frequently, on other occasions, been obliged to combat what I conceive to be a very grave error, in an economical sense. I say that the result of all these readjustments,—the result of all these attempts to foster particular industries -is not to bring additional people into the country, but rather to divert peo lation can do little for their relief, it is well to He goes on to say:— "At the same time, another great evil was strongly developed ; individuals and corporations engaged in various branches of manufacture, taking advantage of the necessities of the Government, rushed to Congress, and by every means in their power procured for their duties, under the false pretence of raising own benefit the levy of what we call Protective revenue for the Government, but really to compel consumers to pay exorbitant prices for | United States. There is only one the favoured artile thus protected." But, Sir, mark what follows : "Under the wing and stimulus of this so-called protection, new enterprises were undertaken; new and extensive factories built; new and needless railways projected and undertaken; new mines and foundries opened, and armies of labourers allured by high wages to these enterprises from fields of agriculture and other sober and rational employments of life. The few notes of warning raised against the certain consequen ces of this wild overaction were unheeded. Extravagance of expenditure, the absence of everything like frugality and economy obtained in all directions. The empty and delusive bubble thus raised could not endure, and, although kept afloat by the whole power of the Government so long as it was possible, it met at last the inevitable day of doom. Imaginary fortunes vanished in a moment, ill-advised railway schemes, mines, mills and factories were suspended, and tens of thousands of innocent and unfortunate labourers were left without employment or the means of subsistence. Instead of the high wages by which they had been enticed from other occupations to those enterprises, they received no wages at all." "It is easier to discover the cause of this distress than to point out the manner of its relief. There can be but one permanent and effectual remedy. That is to return as speedily as possible to the condition of things that existed before the road to ruin was entered upon; by means of a return to specie payments, a sound and stable currency, and the reduction of the tariff to a strictly revenue standard. other point made by the hon. member for Cumberland, on which I wish to say a few words, if, indeed, the House has patience enough to listen to such a long discussion. The hon. gentleman on this, as on many occasions, has called the attention of the House to the fact that a very broad line separates the good and evil times which have overtaken this country. When they were in office, quoth the hon. gentleman, we had good times; when they were out, bad times followed-as a judgment on us, no doubt, for having committed the unpardonable sin of driving the hon. gentleman from office. Now, if that means anything whatever, it means this: that had the hon. gentleman remained in power, he could have averted the commercial distress which has overtaken this Let us country. see the result to which the hon. gentleman pledges himself in making such a boast. As I understand the case, the causes of distress in this country were chiefly these: one, at least, and a very important cause, was the depression which prevailed in the United States, and the almost annihilation of our trade of lumber to that country, which fell, as the House may have observed, from something like thirteen million dollars to about four and a half millions. Another cause which contributed at all events to injure a great many of the commercial community, was the remarkable fall in the value of goods, which left many of them with goods on their shelves of which they unable to dispose, except "Under the influence of these measures all branches of industry will assume their old and accustomed regularity and success. All departments of labour will call for employees, to whom such wages will be paid as the business will warrant and the parties can agree upon. If a surplus of unemployed labourers still remains, there are open to all in this great country countless millions of fertile acres of land upon which every industrious man can be sure of securing, for himself and family at least, a comfortable subsistence. One of the One of the greatest evils resulting to the labouring man, from the false and delusive appearances which have been displayed before them, is that they have been induced to leave the safe, peaceful at something far below cost and independent walks of agriculture to con gregate in the large cities, and there to watch and wait for something that they fancy might yield them larger returns than they could hope for from the cultivation of the soil. But, by following faithfully and earnestly the road here indicated, it will not be very long before business and trade will be restored to their natural channels, and labourers receive full employment with fair wages." That is the opinion expressed on the message lately addressed to the people of the State of New York, by the Governor, who is, at least, as competent as any member of this House to ascertain and declare to his people what have been the true results of the fiscal policy adopted by the people of the were prices. Another cause was, beyond question, the general depression which prevailed all over the world, as well as in the United States; and lastly, the chief cause was the bad harvest which existed in 1876. Are we to believe that, had the hon. gentleman been in power, it would have been within the compass of his ability to have reversed the financial depression in the United States, to have moved the world-wide depression which existed in every country of Europe? Would it have been in his power to have stopped the fall in the value of goods to which I have alluded, re or to have given us a good harvest in 1876 instead of a bad one? If, indeed, the hon. gentleman could have done all these things, then I will confess that he is omniscient and but little short of omnipotent, and I can only express my extreme astonishment that he ever allowed us to drive him from office. As I understand the case, the distress of Canada has arisen very largely from this fact: that during a period of three or four years we imported some eighty or one hundred million dollars' worth of goods more than we legitimately required. estimate is a very large one, I know; but I am very much afraid it is not much in excess of the truth. Thus, in the ensuing year, from those two causes, we lost thirty or forty millions of income on which we might reasonably have relied. The returns from The one very valuable source have fallen some from thirteen millions to thing like four millions. and a half; and in another case, as the House knows, our agricultural exports, have sunk from twenty-one millions to seven millions; being a loss in those two directions, of fifteen or sixteen millions in a single year. Now, Sir, I would like to know if any Government could have prevented the country from being poorer, when the country had engaged in operations of that kind. The loss of fifteen or sixteen millions arising from the almost total destruction of our lumber trade with the United States and the failure of our harvest, represented the diminished importations of fifteen or twenty millions, and the loss of one or two millions consequent thereupon. It appears to me the more closely the matter is investigated, the more carefully the House considers the question -and I hope hon. members will carefully consider it-it will appear to them clearly and distinctly that the causes of the depression are not under our control, and not such as may be removed by Act of Parliament, and, least of all, by assimilating our policy to that of the neighbouring country, in which, by the confession of their own authorities, the degree of distress and the permanent injury to-day far exceeds ours. I thank the House for the attention with which they have listened to these observations, and I may take occasion, at a somewhat later period of the Session, to extend my remarks a little in respect to this matter. MR. PLUMB said he presumed that the hon, the Minister of Finance would admit that Governor Robertson was a Free-trader and represented the Freetrade party. MR. CARTWRIGHT said he had always entertained great respect for Governor Robertson, but that respect had undoubtedly now increased. He understood the hon. gentleman was especially qualified to speak of Governor Robertson, for, if he (Mr. Cartwright) was correctly informed, he was at the head of the party under the hon. member for Niagara (Mr. Plumb) had served in the United States before attaining his present legislative position here. MR. MCCARTHY moved the adjournment of the debate. Motion agreed to and debate adjourned. House adjourned at Thirty minutes past Twelve o'clock. |