Legislative A—embly wonderful thing for our young people. More of them are taking part in competitive ■ports and in field sports and our showing is improving every year in this respect. Also Allied Youth; the efforts that are being made by that division on behalf of our young people with respect to the problems of alcoholism. I was interested in meeting the other day a number of young people from various parts of the Island at the hotel who were attending a conference of the Allied Youth movement. And so, Mr. Speaker , I come to the end of my remarks. I regret that I had to take so much time to cover all the failures and inadequacies of the present ad¬ ministration, but I am sure they will try and defend themselves as best they can. So I must conclude my remarks or else we may outdo Moses in his more than forty day in this desert of ideas which constitutes the Speech from the Throne. (Applause). Honourable Daniel J. MacDoaald (First Kings), Minister of Agriculture: First of all, Mr. Speaker , I congratulate you on your appointment to this high position and the manner in which you are conducting the affairs of this House. Your task is not an easy one due to the manner in which some of the members of this House have acted in the last two days. They haven't shown, in some respects, very high regard for the rules that have been set down. But however, Sir, you are doing a splendid job and you, with the character you have and everybody recognizes, we know that things will go a little better from now until the end of the Session. I would like also, Mr. Speaker , to congratulate the Mover and the Seconder of the Speech from the Throne. The two Honourable Members did a commendable job. For one, it was his first endeavour on the floor of this House; of course, as far as speaking is concerned it certainly comes easily to him and he did the job which most of us expected him to do. The same applies to the Honourable Member who seconded the Speech also. Our Deputy Speaker : I would like to commend you, Sir, on your appointment. As Deputy Speaker you have not had the chair too much as yet but we do know, as the Session progresses, we will be seeing more of you in action. Now, Mr. Speaker , I think with all due respect I should say a few words with respect to potatoes in this province. It is a very necessary crop and one which is certainly the economic backbone of our province. I would like to say, and also I would like to have some of the honourable members on the other side pay strict attention to this, especially the honourable senior member from the First District of Queens, some of the remarks which he made with regard to what we expect of potatoes. I think he should take note of some of the things that I am going to relate and also the honourable member here from Second Queens, the senior member. You made some remarks that certainly were not very conclusive and certainly didnt show that you had much respect or knowledge of what you were speaking. In this province we have an additional seven thousand acres of potatoes planted this year. Good growing conditions were experienced and the estimated yield will be 2.6 million hundred weights over the previous year. Seed potatoes passing inspection this year increased by 9,307 acres to a total of 34,647 acres which goes to show you that a lot of the talk about disease and so on is not quite as serious as some people would lead us to believe. We are certainly going to take every measure to counteract this, but some people have a tendency to laborate when it is not justified. The acreage in Canada increased from 298,000 acres in 1966 to 328,000 acres or almost 15% in 1966. The production in the Maritimes was 112% of last year; Central Canada was 128%, and Western Canada 116%- The holdings as of March the first were up in the Mairtimes by 42%; Central Canada , 38, and , 66%. Honourable Robert E. Campbell : The Leader is not listening to you. Honourable Daniel J. MacDoaald : Pardon ? Honourable Robert E. Campbell : The Leader of the Opposition is not listen¬ ing to you; he's asleep. —126—