1902-05-02

FIRST READINGS.

[Stage Direction]
Bill (No. 150) to amend the Weights and Measures Act.-Mr. Campbell.
Bill (No. 151) respecting the remission of penalties.-The Minister of Justice.

[Stage Direction]
The MINISTER OF JUSTICE moved for leave to introduce Bill (No. 152) further to amend the provisions of Chap. 183 of the Revised Statutes with respect to the Halifax Industrial School, and Saint Patrick's Home at Halifax.
Mr. BORDEN (Halifax).: What is the nature of it ?


The MINISTER OF JUSTICE.: It is merely to extend the age at which boys shall be admitted to the reformatory. At the present time the age limit is sixteen years, but the local legislature has passed a Bill to extend the age to eighteen years. This is to make our statute conform to the statute of the local legislature.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first time.

Mr. BELL.: I wish to call the attention of the First Minister to a return which I moved for on the 26th of February, which is not yet down.


The PRIME MINISTER.: About dismissals ?


John William Bell: Yes.


The PRIME MINISTER.: My hon. friend called my attention to this matter of dismissal some few days ago, and I sent an urgent letter to all the departments but have so far not received the information required. I shall call attention to the matter again.



POST OFFICE ACT.

[Stage Direction]
Bill (No. 106) to amend the Post Office Act (the Postmaster General) read the second time, and House went into committee thereon.
On section 1,
Mr.   CLARICE@: What is the object of removing these officers from the provisions of the Civil Service Act ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL (Hon. Wm. Mulock).: By the Civil Service Act

they are required to undergo a preliminary examination and it is intended to discontinue this system and substitute the departmental examination. It was not considered of any practical importance that these officers should be required to have special qualifications necessary to pass the examination required by the civil service examiners. A more practical examination would probably be better.


Mr. CLARKE.: What would be the nature of the examination ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: That would be for the department to prescribe. It would be such an examination that would call for a knowledge of the elementary subjects, such as reading and writing and a little arithmetic, in order to see if they have the necessary education to enable them to discharge the duties of their office.


Edward Frederick Clarke: That is practically the examination that they are called on to pass now.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: In the first place, they will not have to pay anything. At present a very large number of persons present themselves annually for examination who are never called to any position, but under this Bill no man will be requested to undergo an examination unless there is a position for him. It will be the same practice as is followed in the Toronto police corps, I presume. Under the present law, thousands of persons have presented themselves at the annual examinations, at considerable cost to themselves, and the great majority of them never receive an appointment.


Mr. SPROULE.: This Bill will afford opportunities to the department to pass those whom they wish to pass, whether eligible or not. I think that the system of submitting these young men for examination to some entirely independent board, where each applicant stands on his own merits, is much better than to leave the department to select those to whom they wish to give appointments and exclude those whom they do not want to pass.


Mr. PUTTEE.: This Bill will take that branch of the service altogether out of the operation of the Civil Service Act. It will be excluded, not simply in respect of examinations, but of everything else. This brings up the question of the terms of employment. Under the Civil Service Act these men are yearly employees, getting yearly salaries, but under this Bill their salary will be so much per day, and it does not provide how many hours will constitute a day's work. If we are to change from the yearly system to the day system, we should define how many hours constitute a day's work, and will entitle a man to a day's pay. It seems to me that eight hours work in the eleven between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. should be the limit. It is an essential principle of 127*
employment by the day, that the number of hours should be defined. A man might work a sufficient number of hours in a day to entitle him to two day's pay. That cannot be the case under the present system, under which the employees are paid by the month or the year.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: There is nothing in the law to-day defining what should be the length of a day's work. It seems to me it is equally necessary to pass a rule in the one case as in the other, if it be necessary at all. There is nothing to show that there has been any abuse as regards overwork in the branch I have to do with. Some people have very exaggerated ideas of the labour exacted from many of these officials. So far as the length of the day is concerned, the only class that takes exception to this measure is the letter carriers. I had an account taken of their labour, and I find that the average day of the letter carriers on duty throughout Canada is eight hours and twenty-one minutes. There will be no enlargement of that day, and there is no necessity for any statutory provision on the subject.


Edward Frederick Clarke: Can the hon. minister give us the particulars respecting the information he has collected as to the length of day? These men have to go to the post office in the morning to get the letters and put them in shipshape before beginning delivery. Is that time included ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: I understand that the eight hours and twenty-one minutes includes all the time they are on duty.


Arthur W. Puttee: If that be the case, it ought to be easily arranged to have the number of hours specified in this Bill. At present there is no specified number of hours. The employees are under the monthly wage system, under which a man does what work there is to be done, and will sometimes have longer and sometimes shorter days. But when we change to the day system, we are paying so much money for so many hours work, and the question is how many hours work should be in the'day. If a man does ten hour's work, that would amount to $2.50 at 25 cents per hour. We should either have the one system or the other. If we introduce the day labour system, we should specify the number of hours per day.


Mr. BARKER.: Many letter carriers are very uneasy as to what their position will be after this Bill becomes law. This Bill puts them on day work. They regard their positions as of a permanent character, and they are very uneasy as to whether they will simply be in the position of men employed for the day, whose services may be dispensed with to-morrow.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: The measure will in no way whatever weaken

their tenure of office. There is a clause in the measure saying that they shall be removable only by Order in Council. That is all the guarantee that any one in the civil service has, and there is no more possibility of their being dismissed without cause under this provision than under the existing condition of affairs. I am not aware of any parliament having fixed by law what shall be the particular hours constituting a day's work. My hon. friend (Mr. Barker) may know of some case of that kind and if so. I would like to hear of it. The postal departments may. as a matter of policy, name a number of hours in their regulations, but I am not aware of any legislative body or parliament binding its hands in that way.


John William Bell: Will the Postmaster General allow a question ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: Yes, with pleasure.


John William Bell: I understood the hon. gentleman to say that, at present, under the Civil Service Act these officials could be dismissed only by Order in Council, and that hereafter they would have the same protection. But, this Act declares that it shall supersede the Civil Service Act.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: But; iu clause 12 of this Act it is provided :
Appointments, promotions, reductions in grade and dismissals under this Act shall be made by the Governor in Council.


Edward Frederick Clarke: What practice obtains in the United States respecting the hours of employment of letter carriers ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: I am not familiar with the American practice.


Mr. HEYD.: The objection I see to fixing the hours of labour to a day's work is that the men have a certain beat in which to discharge their duties and an active man can probably do his work in six or seven hours, while a slower man will take eight or nine hours. To keep all employed for the same length of time, it will be necessary to make the beats for some men at least 25 per cent greater than for others. A man exercising diligence in the pursuit of his business can lessen the number of hours to a considerable extent. If the average is now, as the Postmaster General has said, eight hours and twenty-one minutes, that is not too long a day's work.


Arthur W. Puttee: That may be an argument why the staff should be left under the present Civil Service Act, which allows and provides for all that. But we are adopting a new policy, a new principle altogether, and it seems to me that it is absolutely necessary that the number of hours' work should be specified and limited. I think it should be eight hours within eleven, which would give two or three hours a day when the men are not required on the beat.


Hon. Mr. MULOCK.: 


Charles Bernhard Heyd: What action would the Postmaster General be compelled to take if a man could not do an ordinary day's work in eight hours ?


Arthur W. Puttee: If an ordinary man could not do the work it would be necessary to engage more than one ordinary man for the work.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: In what respect is the Civil Service Act so defective that the Postmaster General introduces this Bill ? This seems to be rather in the line of discrediting the Civil Service Act and taking a large number from under it that were intended originally to be under the provisions of that Act.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: My hon. friend only sees what he thinks are the bad spots in this Bill. I hope he will be able to see something good in it.


Edward Frederick Clarke: We do.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: I will try to point out some of the good points. This is not forced upon anybody now in the service. It applies to those to be appointed hereafter, but gives those now in the service the privilege of availing themselves of it, if they think it is to their advantage; but if they do not think so, they are left in the full enjoyment of their rights. Now, I have not heard any complaints from any of the classes in question, with the exception of the letter carriers. Let me state what the position of the letter carriers is to-day. As far back as 1872, the law with regard to the appointment for letter carriers provided that their initial salary should; be $300 a year, with an annual increase of $40 until a maximum of $500-or a possible maximum of $600 under certain conditions-was attained. That continued to be the rate until 1874. On the change of government in 1874, a change was made in the initial salary, the Mackenzie government fixing the amount at $400. No other changes were made at that time. That continued to be the law until the downfall Orf the Mackenzie government. When the new government came into office, they reduced the initial salary to from $400 to $300 a year. That reduction continued in force from 1878 until 1882, when the then government made a change reducing the annual increase from $40 to $30, and confirming the reduction of initial salary from $400 to $300. Iu 1885 they increased the initial salary from $300 to $360, leaving the annual increase at $30. This continued from 1885 up to the present time. In the public interest it is advisable that there should be some incentive to letter carriers to report for duty when duty calls. The public expect their mail to be delivered to them with regularity. But this cannot be accomplished if when the letter carriers should appear for duty on a given morning a considerable number of them are absent. Experience has shown that those who are

on yearly pay are absent very much more often than those who are on day's pay. It becomes necessary sometimes to engage persons to act as letter carriers, who are not eligible to be appointed under the Civil Service Act. They discharge the same duties as those appointed under the Civil Service Act and their pay is, perhaps, slightly less. Good men taken on in that position are allowed to continue and my information is that those who are on the civil service list are absent from duty three times as long per annum-over and above the statutory holidays-as those who are on by the day. The day's pay is an incentive to them to report for duty. I understand that in England the same principle obtains, and if a letter carrier does not appear for duty at the proper time he loses his day's pay or a great portion of it. There are substitutes appointed and the letter carrier suffers a pecuniary loss because of his absence. X do not know how it is in the United States, but, perhaps, my hon. friend from West Toronto (Mr. Clarke) is informed on that point.


Mr. CLARKE  .@: The information I have is very limited, but I was going to say after what had been stated by the hon. member for Winnipeg (Mr. Puttee) with regard to the reduction of hours, that I understand [DOT]there are two staffs delivering, beginning earlier and continuing later, and that the men work eight hours a day. I am not sure, however, that such is the case.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: At all events there is a manifest advantage in having some means of exerting pressure upon this class of officers, so that they shall appear at the time of duty. It is as essential for them as for the trainmen to appear when required. They are required to perform a class of duty the regularity of which is, all important, and we are frequently embarrassed because letter carriers at the last moment fail to appear at the time appointed. It is necessary to meet that weak point in the service, and a measure of this kind is in the public interest in that respect alone. Now I have said that this measure is in other respects an advantage to the employees. For example, I have had a statement prepared by the officers to show the difference between the salaries received under the present law and those which will be received under the proposed law. Take the case of. a letter carrier to-day entering the service. As the law has been for about the last twenty years, entering at $360 a year, his salary increasing at $30 a year until he attains the maximum of $600, he will enter upon his ninth year before he will attain the maximum of $600. Under the proposed measure he will enter as a probationer for a period of six months, he will be learning the route and the small matters they have to learn. At the end of six months he is supposed to be qualified to be confirmed in his position. During that probationery period he is under instructions, we have to detail a man, so to speak, to teach him, not necessarily go with him all the time ; but he is under tutelage for a time. Nevertheless during that period of tutelage he is paid $1.20 a day for six months. As soon as he is qualified to be confirmed in his appointment he then begins his salary of $1.50 a day, which amounts to $469.50 per annum. We give him two weeks leave of absence, and at the expiration of two years his pay goes up to $547.75 a year. At the end of those two years he will be entitled to promotion, assuming always that he has deserved it, to $2 a day, or $626 a year. His salary will remain at $626 unless he should be promoted or reduced in rank. Assuming he remains at $626, when he has entered upon his ninth year of service, an officer appointed under this law will have received during that period from the commencement, $713.50 more than under the present law. In addition to this there is a provision that a letter carrier may get every year a bonus of 10 days extra holidays where his conduct has been reasonably satisfactory. It does not mean that there is a prize only to the top man, but I am hoping that a number of men in the service will win this 10 days extra holidays, or he may at his option receive $2 a day, or $20, in lieu of these extra ten days.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Do you strike off his pay for each day's absence ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: Now if he should accept $20 a year in lieu of the holidays, he would receive during that comparative period that I have referred to, $883.50 more under this proposed measure than under the existing law, or an average without the bonus of $20 a year, of $83.94, and with the bonus of $20 a year, an average of $103.94 more than under the present law.


Edward Frederick Clarke: What about superannuation ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: The Superannuation Act was repealed some years ago, and the Retirement Act has been adopted in lieu of it. They are living under the Retirement Act, and that is wholly for their benefit, not for the benefit of the country.


Edward Frederick Clarke: The hon. gentleman was making a comparison of the condition of the letter carriers under his law, and the conditions under the old law. Will he give us an idea of how much better off these men will be in respect to superannuation?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: It is not necessary to discuss a repealed Act; if the hon. gentleman will ask me to discuss the Retirement Act I will be glad to do so. The Retirement Act is now in force as to all new appointees and all appointees of recent years, so that the Superannuation Act each year is having less and less application, and

if this Act was to drop it would not affect anybody, either under the Superannuation or the Retirement Acts.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: When the hon. gentleman was speaking of the salary, I asked if he made any provision for striking off from their salary for days they were absent, and he did not deign to answer.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: Because the question was not applicable to my observations, and would have been more fittingly asked at a latter period. At the same time I would say to the hon. gentleman that the Bill provides for payment of a day's work, it also gives the men two weeks leave of absence. I believe the hon. gentleman is an employer of labour himself, as I am sure many of us in this House are, and he knows something about fines, rates of pay, and so forth. Perhaps the hon. member for East Grey (Mr. Sproule) will tell us whether he considers these rates will be regarded in his part of the world as reasonable to be paid by the taxpayers of Canada.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I think that is merely evading the question. 1 asked what I regarded as a proper and a courteous question.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: I have answered the question.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: If the minister does not choose to reply he need not do so. The answer he has given is no answer at all.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: The hon. gentleman asked me if there is a provision made for leave of absence.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I asked whether there was a provision made for a reduction of their wages when they were absent.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: As I explained, they are paid for the time they work. That is a system perfectly easy to understand. A man is paid so much per day for the time he works, he is also paid for two weeks that he does not work, and may be paid for ten days further that he does not work. If he is absent more days than that, his pay is stopped during the additional period of absence.


Mr. COCHRANE.: I want to remind the minister', when he wants members on this side to be courteous to him, that when he was on this side of the House himself he did not draw the line so closely, and he was not very courteous.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: I hope I have improved my methods.
Mr. qOCHRANE. Not much.
Mr. LaRIVIERE. What about cases of sickness ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: I was about to say when I began my observations, that no class of officials except letter Hon. Mr. MULOCK.
carriers take exception to this measure, and inasmuch as those who object to it are not bound by it, I hardly see that they have much standing. I happen to have received yesterday the following communication which shows another side to this question : Toronto, April 26, 1902. Hon. Wm. Mulock, P.M.G.
Dear Sir,-At a meeting of the employees of the Toronto post office including porters, messengers, box collectors and mail transfer agents, it was unanimously agreed that your amendment to the Post Office Act is a move in the right direction and we would be glad to see it pass and will be pleased to come under the provisions contained therein.
Respectfully submitted.
Your obedient servants,
P. S. RUTTAN, Secretary (pro tem), W. J. RAY, Chairman.


Edward Frederick Clarke: You do not know where the meeting was held In Toronto ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: I know nothing except .what the communication says.


Edward Frederick Clarke: Does it refer to the letter carriers being pleased ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: I have read every word of it. Shall I read it again?


Edward Frederick Clarke: If you please.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL :: (reading)
Toronto, April 26, 1902. Hon. Wm. Mulock, P.M.G.,
Ottawa.
Dear Sir,-At a meeting of the employees of the Toronto Post Office Department including porters, messengers, box collectors and mail transfer agents, it was unanimously agreed that your amendment to the Post Office Act is a move iu the right direction and we would be glad to see it pass and will be pleased to come under the provisions contained therein.
They have the option of coming In or not coming In.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: That does not include the letter carriers because it says nothing about them.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: I am not speaking for the letter carriers. I am explaining that I have heard from all these employees except the letter carriers. As to the others they have sent me this communication.


Edward Frederick Clarke: You do not know how many were present at the meeting ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: I have told the hon. gentleman that the document contains all the information I possess on the subject.
Mr. LaRIVIERE. My hon. friend has not answered my question in regard to cases of sickness. Employees should lose their pay, of course, if they are absent from work, but in cases of sickness will they be deprived of their pay ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: The law makes no provision for their being pain when they are not at work, except for two weeks annual leave and for ten days additional pay as bonus.
Mr. LaRIVIERE. Does not my hon. friend think it would be unfair to make them lose their pay if they are sick ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: Well, the ten days bonus will more than pay them for that. During the year gone by statistics have been collected and they show that the ten days bonus that we give them will quite pay for absences from other causes than holidays.
Mr. LaRIVIERE. So that they will have to get sick during these ten days, or otherwise they will lose their pay ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: That will be for their election. This will cure a great many of sickness.


Edward Frederick Clarke: If they get pay now during sickness and they are to be deprived of that pay under the provisions of this Bill they will not be in as good a position. They get pay now if they can get a medical certificate, but under the provisions of this Bill, they will be deprived of pay during the time they are sick. Am I right in saying that ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: I have explained that they are paid for the days they work, and they are paid for fourteen days holidays when they do not work. They are also paid a ten days bonus, and as to the rest if they do not work other days, they are not paid for other days, whatever be the cause of absence. The civil service is very bad for the health at times. We find a great many absent when pay goes on who might perhaps be able to do their work if pay did not go on. We have had numerous cases of rapid recovery when it was made clear that longer absence would be accompanied by loss of pay. I was about to give the committee some information as to the rates of pay in other walks of life for people who are more or less in the public service. Take the case of policemen. I have a schedule showing the rates of pay of that class of people. In the city of Brantford the rate of pay is $1.30 per day for me first year, increasing to $1.40 the next year, and then, in the fourth year, to $1.50, after ten years $1.60 and after sixteen years $1.70 per day. They receive no pension, they work nine hours a day and receive uniforms.


Mr. TAYLOR.: They have lots of pickings.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: I should be sorry to think that of them. I think they are a highly respectable body of men. In Hamilton the policemen receive $1.40 a day at appointment, after one year $1.80, and after six years $1.90 per day. They have the benefit of the police benefit fund, their hours
of work are eight hours a day and they receive uniforms, except shoes and underclothing. In Kingston policemen receive $35 a month upon entrance, and $40 a month after. They receive uo pensions but they are granted $45 per annum as a clothing allowance. They work twelve hours a day. In London they deceive $1.40 a day on entrance, $1.55 after a year, and $1.90, usually, after three or four years. They are entitled to the police benefit fund, they receive uniforms, but no boots or underclothing, and they work eight hours during day duty, and nine hours during night duty. In Montreal they receive $9.20 per week on entrance, $10.20 after one year, $11.20 after three years and $12.20 a week for specially good men. They are entitled to share in the Police Benefit Society fund and they receive uniforms. They work twelve hours a day, six hours of inside and six hours of outside duty.


Edward Frederick Clarke: What about sick pay at these different places ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: I have no information here as to that.


Edward Frederick Clarke: You did not get the information on that ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: There is nothing in regard to that.
Mr. [DOT]CLARKE. Is that a return from the Labour Department ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: No. In Ottawa policemen receive $35 per month for three months and after three months $40, after one year $45 and after that $50, $55, or $60 on recommendation. They receive uniforms, no pension, work ten and a quarter hours day duty, and eight and three-quarters hours night duty. In Toronto they receive $1.30 a day on appointment, $1.50 after one year, with good conduct ;	$1.75,
after three years. That $1.75 continues until the end of seven years after which the pay is $2 per day. They receive half pay after 25 years service. They work eight hours a day which can be extended when necessary. In St. John they get $1.40 a day upon entrance.


Edward Frederick Clarke: Will the hon. Postmaster General allow me to interrupt him ? WTbat did he say in regard to the pay in Toronto ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: They get $2 a day after seven years service.


Edward Frederick Clarke: Well, there is a further provision for increase of pay after a given number of years.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: I have not that. What is it ?


Edward Frederick Clarke: They get ten cents a day additional for each good conduct mark.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: How long do they serve before receiving good conduct pay ?


Edward Frederick Clarke: I cannot remember that. Besides, this pay of $2 is for seven days in the week.
The POSTM ' >TER GENERAL. Well, the good conduct stripe may be a good feature.


Matthew Henry Cochrane: What has all this information to do with the Bill ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: It is to show the committee what is paid in other walks of life. In St. John they get $1.40 on entrance, $1.50 after three years, and 81.60 after six years. They are on duty twelve hours in day time and ten hours at night. In Winnipeg the pay is $50 per month on entrance, $60 after one year, $65 after two years, $70 after three years; no pension; they get two full uniforms; work nine hours a day. In Vancouver the pay is $60 a month, increased to $70 after the first year. They receive two uniforms a year and equipment, work nine hours, including one hour for luncheon. It says a pension fund will be shortly established. In Halifax the pay is $400 a year, increased to $450 after one year's service, and they receive full uniforms and work ten hours a day.


George Taylor: Where did the Postmaster General get these statistics ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: My department wrote to the different cities for them.


George Taylor: Has the Postmaster General gathered all the facts? Can he tell us whether when a constable is off duty on account of sick leave, his pay is docked, as in the case of the post office service?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: I have no information on that point.


George Taylor: When you get the statistics you should get all the facts, so as to make a fair comparison.
Mr. LaRIVIERE. What comparison is
there between policemen and letter carriers; irrespective of salaries, of course?


Edward Frederick Clarke: They both have to walk.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: Some people might think that a policeman's duties were altogether more onerous and hazardous.


Edward Frederick Clarke: They have different beats from the letter carriers.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: The letter carriers work, as a rule, during the day time, and policemen are on duty at night often. I should think that if a man had a choice of serving as a letter carrier or as a policeman, the pay being equal, no doubt he would be a letter carrier. I think this because we are deluged with applications for the position of letter carrier, and they are often from men who have good callings; not unskilled men, but men who have trades.


William Mulock: Why do they come to the government service when they have a trade of their own ? They evidently admire some features of it. There is constant employment, regularity of occupation, and their employer is sure to be able to pay them.
Mr. LaRIVIERE. That is the reason why I tell my hon. friend that he makes a grave mistake in comparing letter carriers to policemen.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: In
what way ?
Mr. LaRIVIERE. Because it shows that in most cases the policemen are better off than the letter carriers.
The	POSTMASTER	GENERAL.	It
shows altogether the other way.
Mr. TAYLOR, Might I ask the hon. gentleman why he makes the law in reference to letter carriers and mail clerks different from that of government employees in other departments. As I understand it, in the inside service, where persons are working by the day they are paid for seven days. The Minister of Agriculture told us the other night that in the census department the officials are being paid for seven days, and I think that is the rule in all the other departments. Why make a different rule for these hard-worked letter carriers, who have to be out rain or shine, perhaps ten or twelve hours a day, and who if they are sick, lose their day's pay.


Arthur W. Puttee: I hope the Postmaster General does not think that we are only picking out the bad spots in this Bill. I have been carefully through the Rill and have compared it with the present system, and I am prepared to say that there are some good features to it, but at the same time it is our duty when in committee to pick out the bad spots. There is no doubt that the limitation of the time for reaching the maximum salary is a good feature in this Bill. The old system of $30 a year increase for nine years before a man reached the very low maximum was altogether absurd. If we can get some necessary amendments as regards the hours, and one or two other things in this Bill it will accomplish a great deal of good. One good feature is that it does away with Sunday work. As a matter of fact, at the present time in some cities, if not all, the letter carriers are brought to the office to do some kind of work on Sunday, but under this Bill the local officers will have to report if there is necessity for that, and they will be paid for Sunday. But better still, it will have the effect of doing away with Sunday work altogether, and that is a good feature. My own opinion, however, is that this Bill does not touch the right spot. The Postmaster General wishes to make his letter carrier staff more effective, and there is no doubt that an effective staff of letter carriers is


Edward Frederick Clarke: What is the matter with the system ?


Arthur W. Puttee: The patronage system ; that is the matter with the system.


Edward Frederick Clarke: Does this Bill do away with that?


Arthur W. Puttee: Not at all. A bad system does not produce good results, and I am not surprised to hear the Postmaster General say that there are weak spots in his staff. The very fact that a Bill of this kind is thought to be necesasry to cure some of the diseases is evidence that there is a bad system, and that it is producing bad results. I had hoped that the Postmaster General would have been able to take the bull by the horns in this case. An effective staff is necessary, and I thought that the hon. gentleman might be able to take the matter of appointing and governing the staff altogether out of the field of politics; and partisan politics at that. That is what makes the staff non-effective and inefficient. It is that that some men know they can be sick and they can play with the officials because they will be sustained by the influence they can bring to bear.


Charles Bernhard Heyd: I would like the hon. gentleman (Mr. Puttee) to give us the information on which he bases his statement that this staff is inefficient.


Arthur W. Puttee: I am only drawing what I think to be the proper inference from what the Postmaster General told us himself. He said that men paid by the day are only sick one-third as much as men working under the Civil Serive Act.


Edward Frederick Clarke: Do you state that is a fact yourself?


Arthur W. Puttee: I heard the Postmaster General state it.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: I stated it. I have information in my department to that effect.


Edward Frederick Clarke: Have you information to the effect that when men are employed by the month or year there is three times more sick leave than when they are employed by the day?
The POSTS1 ASTER GENERAL. These are statistics I have from the Toronto bffice.


George Taylor: We should get the ministers working by the day.
The POSTS1ASTER GENERAL. And the members of parliament.


Edward Frederick Clarke: Is it not a fact that when a man is off sick he has to send a medical certificate to the department?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: Certificates should be produced, but we very often find that these certificates are not wholly what they appear to be. Slen may be sick in reality, and yet they may have occasioned their own sickness. We have many instances, if your want details.


Edward Frederick Clarke: That often happens.


Arthur W. Puttee: I am inclined to think, at all events, that there is some foundation for this opinion. I am not stating that the letter carrier staff is inefficient all through ; but, as a necessary result of the system, there are very weak spots in the operation of the service. The very fact that it is thought necessary to introduce a Bill of this kind, in order to get the men there every morning and not to have any misses, means that there have been misses in the past, and that as a matter of fact the staff is not as efficient as it would be under a better system. I thought we might possibly have a proposition to take this service away from the influence of politics altogether, and put it on a basis where merit and proper attention to work would be recognized and well paid. Now, there are some weak spots in this Bill, and if there are not some radical amendments made in it, I question very much whether it would not be better to keep to the Civil Service Act. For one thing, it does not state the hours which shall constitute a day's work. Then, it should include labourers, sorters and stampers. Then, subsection 2 of section 4 recognizes a new and bad principle, which I hope will be struck out of the Bill; that is, it provides that in the case of inefficiency, reductions in grade may be made.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: That is not a change in the law.


Arthur W. Puttee: It is a bad principle. This service consists wholly of manual labour, and we start on the very proper system of having men enter at the lowest grade and go up to the maximum. In labour of this kind, when a man is young, he is at his highest efficiency, and as he grows old he necessarily becomes less efficient, and this provision means that he is going down the ladder. It is a bad principle to recognize in an Act of parliament. If the man has performed his duties faithfully in the best years of his life, he should not be reduced in grade ; but he should be kept so long as he is able to do the work, and should then be superannuated. This provision should be made to read that in case of inefficient or unsatisfactory service or the committal of any offence against the rules, a man should be suspended as a penalty. That, it seems to me, would accomplish any object the Postmaster General has in view. But if we are going to leave the service under political influence, it is a bad principle to place in the hands of a minister the power to put a man down instead

of up. It is a principle to which I cannot agree.


Charles Bernhard Heyd: I have taken considerable interest in this Bill and have given it careful study. One reason for that is that since I have had the honour of occupying a seat in this House, we have established in the city of Brantford a free letter delivery, and I naturally made myself conversant with that system, in order to see that the men employed were not overworked and were not underpaid ; and a great many of the letter carriers throughout the country have written to me asking me to look after their interests in this matter. Now, I can say, after a careful study of this Bill, that it establishes a system most favourable to the working classes, and the most liberal in its pay, of any that exists anywhere in the Dominion of Canada. There is no agricultural or machine or carpenter shop anywhere in this country where men are getting as good pay as these men will receive under this Bill, or where they work shorter hours.
The Bill applies to two classes of people-those who are trying to get into the government employ, and those now in it. Those that are in do not need to take the benefit of these provisions unless they like. Those that are without do not need to come under its provisions unless they want a government job. The first question is, how will the Bill affect those who are trying to get into the service ? At present a man is appointed at $1.15 a day, whereas under the Bill he will be appointed at $1.25, and he will be expected to act as probationer for a period of six months, during which time his pay will be $15 greater than it was under the old system. Under the old system a man was appointed at $360 per annum. Under the new system, after six months probation, he gets $469.50 per annum, or $109.50 more than under the old system. After the first year, under the present system, he gets $390. Under the new system he will get $409.50, or an increase of $79.50. At the end of the second year he can be put into grade ' C,' then his pay becomes $1.75 per day, or $547.75 per annum, which is $127.75 per annum more than he gets under the old system. In the fourth year, under the old system, he gets $450. while under the new system he gets $547.75, or an increase of $97.75. So that the man coming into the service will improve his position in four years by $414.50, and from that time he will be in receipt of $626 per annum.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Does the hon. member in his calculation provide that the employee shall work every day except Sunday ?


Charles Bernhard Heyd: I am assuming that. As the Bill applies to those of the present staff who choose to come under these provisions, it has this effect upon all men who have been one, two, three, or four years in the service. If a man has been four years in the service he passes at once into class ' D.' Mr. PUTTEE.
which gives him $600 a year. If he has been five years in the service, and is drawing $480 a year at present, he will draw $626, or an increase of $146 a year. If he has been six years in the service, his wages will increase by $116 ; if he has been seven years in the service, they will increase by $86 ; if eight years, by $50 ; and if he is becoming a $600 man, the highest point to which he can reach under the present system, his wages will be $26 more. No injustice is done to anybody in that class, and the only man who has any cause of complaint at all is the man who is now getting $600 a year. This whole thing originated because a petition was sent in by the letter carriers for an increase of pay ; and the desire of the great majority of the employees of the Post Office Department has been gratified by this very radical increase. But it applies with less force to the class now getting $600 a year, and we have the right to ask whether $600 a year is not fair pay. We must not forget that there is another class into which a man may enter at the end of four years. By diligent service or by the discharge of especially arduous labour, he can be advanced to class ' E,' in which his wage is increased to $704.25 per annum.
I regard that as a very high rate of wages, higher than is paid in any manufacturing establishment in Canada to any class of employees no matter what years of apprenticeship they have to serve. In addition these post office employees get two weeks leave of absence, and under special circumstances that leave is extended ten days longer, equal to twenty dollars in money, besides getting clothing for the ordinary discharge of their duties, and also shoe leather. All classes under this Bill will be better off than they are now. The only class that has any occasion to complain is that which is now getting $600 and desires more pay, and which may not be satisfied with an increase of $26. We have a right to compare the salaries paid these men with those paid in other walks of life, to see whether these men are really underpaid at $600 a year. I suppose we would regard a street car conductor as a man sufficiently intelligent and qualified, physically, morally and mentally, to be a letter carrier. Well, the salary of an Ottawa street car conductor is $9 a week for ten hours work per day, whereas the pay of a letter carrier is $12 a week for an average day's labour of eight hours twenty-one minutes, or say nine hours. Or in a year the letter carrier gets $150 more than the man who is employed on an Ottawa street car. AVe do not need to take policemen or firemen or men of that class, but you can go into the big factories and look at the wages paid there. Take the tool makers in the machine shops, the lathers, the planers, the vice hands and fitters and others, and vou will find that they are not paid the wages paid in the Post Office Department. Is there any reason why a man who is a messenger

in the post office should have more wages than a man who has served an apprenticeship five, six or seven years in a manufacturing establishment V What are the necessary qualifications for a letter carrier? He requires sufficient intelligence and education to read the addresses on the letters and sufficient honesty to deliver them. He does not require any special training. AVhen I had the honour of appointing six letter carriers in Brantford, the system was arranged, the letters were delivered, and the whole thing worked like clock work from its very inception. There was not even a slip from the very start. That shows that it does not require special intelligence to do the work. We have got along so far without trouble or friction in Brantford. It may be said the letter carriers there do not do as much work as in Toronto and in Ottawa. But judging by the receipts in the Brantford post office, the Brantford postmen do more work than those of any other city in Canada, because the receipts are greater in proportion to the number of letter carriers than they are anywhere else in the Dominion. The work does not demand special intelligence. It does not require an apprenticeship of five or six years, and the wages of $600 per year are abnormally high as compared with those paid in other walks of life where years of apprenticeship are required and a considerable amount of technical skill. My sympathies are always witn the men who work for a daily wage, but at the same time we must not make the position of a letter carrier so exceedingly desirable that men in other avocations will begin to grumble. Why should a tool maker, a trade which requires superior expertness and years of experience, be paid less wages than a letter carrier ? A tool maker works in Toronto fifty-five hours for $14.70, and in Brantford fifty hours per week for $12. The lathe hand, who has to serve an apprenticeship of six years, gets in Brantford an average weekly wage of $9.25 for a day of twelve hours, and in Toronto $12 a week, which is a small wage compared with what is paid a post office messenger. And when these men only show up at 9 a.m., do they get paid a full day ? Not at all. And when they are absent one or two days on account of sickness, do they get paid in full ? No, they only get paid for the hours they work. In all these avocations a man is paid only the hours he labours, and I do not see why a letter carrier should be in a different position.
Take the planers and shapers in an engine shop, also high class work, they get from $10,30 to $11 per week in Brantford and $13 in Toronto. Take the vice hands and fitters, they get in Brantford from $10 to $11.80 per week and in Toronto $12.75. Then there are the drill hands, who do an inferior class of work, they only get $9 per week in Toronto. You can go through all the agricultural implement establishments in this
country, take any branch of their business requiring the greatest amount of training and years of apprenticeship, and no where are they paying the wages received by the letter carriers of Canada to-day. Go to St. Thomas, where recently the government built a drill shed under the schedule of fair wages, which is always regarded as pretty high, and what do we find. AVe find that the contractor's foreman carpenter gets $2.25 per day ; the excavators, $1.50 per day ; builders' labourers $1.50 per day ; joiners, $2 per day ; stair builders, $2 per day ; plumbers, $2 per day; metal roofers, $1.25 per day. I do not need to go on through the whole list, but when we find the highest class men in these factories are not paid as high a wage as $626 a year, we are justified in asking that their case be considered fairly on its merits and not solely from the point of view of its disadvantages. I am glad that in Brantford our letter carriers are pretty well satisfied with the arrangement now proposed. They drafted a resolution and sent it on to me as follows :
Dear Sir,-I am instructed by the letter carriers of Brantford to inform you that they have had a copy of the new Post Office Act, that is now before the House, and after giving it the consideration that is necessary to come to any conclusion as to its merits, and how it will affect us under present conditions, after all due consideration having been given to all the changes it contains, as far as it affects Brantford, we are satisfied with the Bill as it stands, and would ask you to support it in the House, as we are confident you will. We learn that Toronto is against it and may ask for its withdrawal, but we do not want to see any such thing happen, as we are of the opinion that or. the whole it is as good as the most of us could expect and better for us in Brantford than we expected, and we hope that it will become law without any opposition from the carriers.
On behalf of Brantford carriers, I have the honour to be,
Yours respectfully,



GEORGEBROATCH,

[Stage Direction]
Letter Carrier.
That is the opinion of the men in Brantford, whose wages will be advanced immediately to the extent almost of $146 per annum. Why should they not approve of this ? There is not a man in the whole employ of the Post Office Department, there is not a letter carrier who has any right to complain except the man who is now getting $600 a year, and will only get $26 more. I have stated that a wage of $2 a day for a man who gets his appointment, say at the age of 25 and holds it as long as he can do the work has a pretty good thing. Take the agricultural implement shops, the Massey-Harris Company. They will pay their hands a less wage than these letter carriers get. and for ten weeks in the year they are shut down.
There is hardly an agricultural implement shop in this country in which they do not lay off their men from six to ten weeks in the year, and they do not then pay as high
[Stage Direction]
a rate of wages as is paid to these men. Take bricklayers, earning $3 a day ; they apparently get big wages, but they only work for eight months in the year. Plasterers earn $3 a day, but work nine months in the year. Stonemasons are paid $3 a day and work for only nine months in the year. And all these trades require skill, they require training, they require an apprenticeship. These employees of the country get more money than those engaged in other avocations, and besides they have steady employment, no dockages as long as they discharge their duties, and they have the possibility before them of getting Into a class in which they will draw $700 a year. They have no right to complain. The Postmaster General in this Bill, is treating the employees of the country with almost prodigal liberality, such as I am fully persuaded, will satisfy the great mass of the letter carriers.
Thomas Simpson Sproule: I think the bon. gentleman's (Mr. Heyd's) defence of the Bill is commendable from his point of view, and admirably gotten up. But it is not quite so strong as it might appear to be. The hon. gentleman evidently starts with the assumption that any one who rises to ask a question is thereby condemning the Bill.


Charles Bernhard Heyd: I did not say that.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: That is the .only inference to be drawn from the tenor of the hon. gentleman's argument. And the Postmaster General (Hon. Mr. Mulock) when invited to give legitimate information which might enable us to judge the merits of the Bill seems to jump at the same conclusion. My first observation with regard to the Bill was designed to elicit on this point-it seemed that the effect of the Bill would be to remove a large class of civil servants from under the provisions of the Civil Service Act, and I wished to know in what respect that law was defective. It seemed to me that, if the Civil Service Act were not what it should be, it would be better to prepare one that was more suitable and so improve the whole service, rather thap make a special law for one class. I regret that the asking of questions with a view to gaining reasonable information disturbs the Postmaster General and rutiles his temper. When members put courteous questions, I think they are entitled to respectful answers, without the minister immediately concerned jumping to the conclusion that the request for information indicates opposition to his proposals. I had neither intention nor desire to oppose the Bill, but merely sought to elicit such information as would enable me to judge whether this Bill would improve the public service and do greater justice to public officers than the Civil Service Act or not. I do not think that any member of parliament is stepping aside from his duty in asking for such questions, and I think that a Minister of the Crown is doing 1 Mr. HEYD.
less than his duty who is not prepared to answer those questions courteously. The time when the Bill is brought up is the time for us to get information that we may intelligently judge of the merits of the Bill. The hon. Postmaster General, no doubt, gave us a great deal of information in connection with the measure. But there was information he did not give, whether it was because he misunderstood the question or because his mind was running in another channel and he wished to engage in a general defence of the Bill, I do not know. At any rate, he seemed to be more anxious to prove that the Bill would have good results and that it would do justice to the letter carriers than to compare the Bill with the Civil Service Act and prove that this Bill is better. I listened with a good deal of attention to the speech in support of the Bill delivered by the hon. member for South Brant (Mr. Heyd). I have no doubt the hon. gentleman prepared his brief very carefully. When he read his certificate of character to the Bill which he had received from the letter carriers, it sounded to me as if it were something prepared by the hon. gentleman himself to give to the House as a clincher of his argument.


Charles Bernhard Heyd: If I may be permitted. I would like to say that I did not know the letter carriers had had a meeting and passed resolutions or that they were going to write to me.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I am glad to know that, because it relieves my mind of the impression that the whole thing had been got up by the hon. gentleman himself and that he had done it out of kindness to the Postmaster General and to help him over a difficult place. It seems necessary that I should assure the Postmaster General that I am not opposing the Bill, nor do I regard the Bill as altogether a bad one. I think it has some features that might be improved, but that in some respects it is ahead of the Civil Service Act. But there is one thing about it that struck me from the first as being somewhat inappropriate. If the Civil Service Act is not a suitable one, it seems to me we ought to amend it and have all branches of the service under the one Act.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: There are many others besides the letter carriers who are outside the Act.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I know there are. And for that reason I have always regarded the Civil Service Act as requiring amendment. If the Civil Service Act is entirely unsuitable, we ought to do away with it and have another in its place. I would not complain of this Bill if it results in giving us more efficient employees and in doing justice to those wffio engaged in the service of the country. But I wish the Postmaster General to understand that when I put a question I do not put it with a desire of in-

terfering with him in the discharge of his duties, or of ruffling his usually good temper in conducting matters on the floor of the House.


Mr. LANCASTER.: I would like to ask the Postmaster General if he does not think that this would be a good time to provide for a free delivery system in all the cities of the; Dominion ? I notice that some cities have that system, while others of equal importance are without it. That strikes one as not being in accord with the principle of one law for all. My hon. friend from Brantford was able to tell us how well things were working in Brantford and how the Bill would apply there. I can hardly know anything about the matter because we have no letter carriers. Yet I represent as important a city as does the hon. gentleman, the city of St. Catharines. As we have no free delivery system there I can hardly know what these hon. gentlemen are talking about. Would not this be a good time for the Postmaster General to propose an enactment, if an enactment is necessary, that all cities of the Dominion shall have the same system of free delivery ? Of course I can understand that in large cities there must be more frequent delivery than in small cities. In a city like Toronto they may well require five or six deliveries a day. But why should not a city like St. Catharines have at least two deliveries, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. What fairness is there to that part of the country in the present state of affairs ? I would like to ask the Postmaster General to give me some words of encouragement as to what we may look for in that respect.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: When I took charge of the department I found that St. Catharines was not enjoying free delivery. The hon. gentleman's friends had had an opportunity during many years of giving that city a free delivery system.


Edward Arthur Lancaster: The city has grown since then.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: I am glad to hear it has made such progress, and I hope the government have contributed toward it. I have made some progress in the way of extending the free delivery system by giving it to the city of Brantford. Therefore, my hon. friend (Mr. Lancaster) will see that there is movement in the direction he suggests. I am not able to tell him, however, on what day the system will take effect in St. Catharines. Such a provision will not find an appropriate place in a Bill of this kind, an item in the estimates would be necessary for that purpose. Whenever Council can be induced to provide the ways and means, then the Post Office Department will put the system into force.


Mr. MAXWELL.: I was glad to hear the hon. member for Grey declare that he was heartily in sympathy with this Bill. I may
say that I also rejoice that this Bill has been introduced, because I do not think there is the slightest doubt but that it is a great improvement on anything that we have had, so far as letter carriers are concerned. We have quite a staff in the city of Vancouver, somewhere over thirty now, which this Bill more or less affects, and I think I voice their sentiment in saying that they will be very glad of the changes proposed in this Bill. So far as I have information by letter, they are very anxious, in common with other letter carriers of the Dominion, that some change should be made for their benefit. While they have naturally been looking for more, perhaps, than they are going to get, I think every fair-minded man will come to the conclusion that they are on the whole fairly treated in the present Bill. The hon. member for Brantford might have gone a good deal further in his remarks, so far as the pay of the men is concerned in his province. I have in mind a class of men who have to spend three or four years at a university in the Dominion of Canada, and then have to take a theological training as well, and the salary of the great bulk of that profession in Canada to-day is from $600 to $700 a year. So that when we compare their salary with that of the letter carriers, I think the latter receive very fail treatment, not only from the government, but from the people of Canada. But my main object in rising was to say a word in favour of the stampers and sorters of the post office.


Charles Bernhard Heyd: They are affected In the
same way.


George Ritchie Maxwell: No, they are not included in the Bill, and I would like to have them included. So far as Vancouver is concerned, we have some very intelligent and industrious young men who have been appointed as stampers and sorters, and who show considerable intelligence by the fact that they have passed the qualifying examination. Their pay is particularly small I think for men of that calibre.


Edward Frederick Clarke: What do they receive


George Ritchie Maxwell: $40 a month, the same as the letter carriers. I think the benefits are so important in this Bill that they ought to be extended to the stampers and sorters.


Mr. ROBINSON (Elgin).: I would suggest to the minister that he add a clause to his Bill giving all cities of 10,000 inhabitants the benefit of free mail delivery. I think that would meet the approbation of nearly all cities of that size in Canada.


Edward Frederick Clarke: There are some good features in this Bill, and I cheerfully recognize that fact. I refer to the shortening of the time, after a man enters the service as a letter carrier, when he may receive the maximum salary of the position. I think in view of the fact that the Post-

master General has abolished the Superannuation Act he was in duty bound to shorten the time, and I congratulate him upon having done so. A young man who is qualified to act as letter carrier does not require to train for six, eight or nine years before he receives the maximum salary. If he is not fit to discharge the duties of letter carrier at the end of two or three years, he ought not to be permitted to remain in the service. I think it is only reasonable and just that the amendment which the Postmaster General has made should receive the approval of the House. I cordially support it, and have great pleasure in doing so. But when the >hon. gentleman and his friends opposite attempt to argue that this Bill improves the position of the letter carriers of this country beyond what it was before he came into office, he has a very difficult proposition to prove. He and his friends seem to forget that before the Superannuation Act was abolished the letter carriers contributed 2 per cent of their salary towards a superannuation fund, and after they had served from 20 to 35 years they got a pension of 20-50ths or 35-50ths as the case might be, of their salary for the remainder of their lives. The abolition of that Act put this class of men who have been appoiuted since that time, upon a very different footing from that occupied by the carriers .before. The position of a carrier under the Superannuation Act was far better than it is under the proposed amendment to the law. I need not take up. the time elaborating that fact, it must be patent to every one who will give it consideration. But I refer particularly to the case of men who entered the service prior to 1896, the men who have served the public as letter carriers for a great many years, and it must not be forgotten that these men served the country on a very small salary for a number of years, commencing at $300 ' and increasing by $30 a year ; but, as the hon. gentleman says, it took eight or nine years to attain the maximum of their class. These men are not benefited by this Act; and these men constitute the vast majority of the letter carriers of this Dominion. Their position is not improved in any way by the Act which has been introduced, notwithstanding the fact that they have been very largely supported by public sentiment in the demands which they have made for several years past upon the Post Office Department for an increase. Now, it seems to me they have not been treated as frankly as they had a right to expect, in view ofthe statements that were made to them when a deputation waited upon the Postmaster General .to represent and to advocate their case. During his absence last year the question of remuneration to be paid to letter carriers was brought before the House by the hon. member for Ottawa (Mr. Birkett). I find in the ' Hansard ' of May 21, last year, at page 5792, the following remarks by the hon. member for Ottawa :


Mr CLARKE.: 
An hon. MEMBER.: Where is the member for Nanaimo ?


Edward Frederick Clarke: I do not know where the hon. member for Vancouver (Mr. Smith) is. He is not in his seat. I have no doubt he is otherwise engaged. During the early part of the year the * Globe ' newspaper took up the cudgels on behalf of the letter carriers and strongly supported their contention for an increase of pay. I find, on January 6th, the following article:-
The Letter Carriers' Pay.
The Post Office Department ought to begin the new year by raising the salaries of the letter carriers. Rent, food and expenses of all kinds are higher to-day than some years ago, and the carriers' wages are now altogether too low. Economy is a good thing, no doubt, but what, can be done by keeping down the wages of tbesie men will make hardly an appreciable difference in the annual expenditure of the Dominion, while it makes a big difference to the postmen. Parliament ought to sympathize with these mien. The Indemnity of members of parliament, including the senators, has been raised from $1,000 to $1,500. If it costs a member $1,500 to live for four months, how does he expect a postman to live for a year on a fifth or fourth of that amount ? This matter has now been delayed long enough, and we hope that the very reasonable request of these faithful servants ol' the public will be complied with at an early clay.
The hon. Postmaster General, in the statement which he presented to the House, gave statistics as to the pay which was given to the letter carriers as far back as 25 or 30 years ago, but it is an acknowledged fact, and the hon. gentleman will not deny
it, that the cost of living has substantially increased since that time. The letter carriers, living in cities, have to pay more rent, they have to pay more for their food than they did then, and in view of the increased expenditures which they are called upon to make in order to live it is not unreasonable or unfair that the demand which they have made should receive the favourable consideration of the government. The hon. Postmaster General has the advantage of having at his elbow all the time the Minister of Labour to aid in preparing measures affecting the working classes, and I am sure that hon. gentleman must have drawn his attention to the resolutions which have been passed by representative labour organizations as to the compensation which the letter carriers are receiving to-day. On page 33 of the report of the Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Session of the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada, held at Toronto, September 8th-14th, 1892. the following resolution was adopted. This resolutipn was moved by the gentleman who now occupies the position of fair-wage officer in the Department of Labour, and it was seconded by the gentleman who now occupies the position of secretary of the Labour Bureau of the province of Ontario. These gentlemen were well qualified apparently to speak in the interests of those on whose beihalf the resolution was moved. The congress which they addressed was so impressed with the reasonableness of the resolution that it was passed unanimously. I will read it for the information of the committee :
Moved by Mr. D. J. O'Donohue, seconded by Mr. R. Glockling and resolved,
That in the opinion of this congress the minimum salary of letter carriers in the public service should be not less than $600 per annum, and that it be an instruction to the executive committee of this congress to use Its best efic.rts In pressing this view of the case upon the government.
In 1898 the Trades and Labour Congress wrestled with the subject again and passed the following resolution :-
Moved by Mr. Mortimer, seconded by Mr. Watson and resolved,
Whereas, the letter carriers and other postal assistants of Canada have frequently appeared before different trades councils of the Dominion and complained that the conditions under which they worked were not such as should exist among government employees ; and whereas, these trade councils have investigated and found that these men had a just grievance, in that they received insufficient wages, had no set hours of labour and had no definite system of promotion ; therefore be It resolved, that we urge upon the Dominion government the necessity of establishing a minimum wage of $2 a day for eight hours work, and so regulating the department chat letter carriers may depend upon promotion for faithful services.
Last year, at Brantford, the Trades and Labour Congress again dealt with this matter, so that the attention of the hon. Postmaster General and his colleagues must

have been drawn to the attitude which organized labour has taken in respect to the pay of the letter carriers. In 1901 this resolution was adopted :
That the letter carriers of the Dominion having, by petition, requested the hon. Postmaster General to consider the advisability and justice of granting an increase of 20 per cent in the present scale of wages, and gs the letter carriers have not as yet received the consideration which their petition merited, be it
Resolved, that it be an instruction to the incoming executive committee of this congress to i.rimediately, by petition or otherwise, draw the serious attention of the Postmaster General to the fact that the increased prices of the various necessaries of lit3, such as food, rent and fuel, render it necessary that this urgent and important question should receive immediate and favourable consideration and settlement.
Now, Mr. Chairman, what consideration has been given in this Bill to the large body of the letter carriers of the Dominion ? Has their position been improved ? Not in the slightest degree. Those who have been in the service for eight years and have obtained the maximum are getting $49 per month, while in the scale provided for by the Postmaster General those in class D will receive $49.40. That is the only difference I can see, except that in the case of men appointed since 1896, they may reach the maximum in 44 years, hut, as I have said, those who have already obtained the maximum pay will not have their position improved in the slightest degree. They have asked for bread and it looks to me as if they had received from the Postmaster General a stone. Their position remains exactly as it was before. There is not the slightest difference made in their position, notwithstanding the petitions which they have presented from time to time ; notwithstanding the assurances which they have received from the Postmaster General and his colleagues; notwithstanding that they have established that the cost of living has substantially increased during the past five years. The position of these letter carriers, proven to have been unsatisfactory, has not been bettered in the slightest by the Bill introduced by the minister (Hon. Mr. Mulock). It does not affect the men who are receiving the maximum. The hon. gentleman from Brantford (Mr. Heyd) read a resolution that was passed by the letter carriers of his city. Their position undoubtedly will be improved under the operation of the Bill, and they ought to give credit to the Postmaster General. But the reason why their position will he improved is because they have only been appointed during the last two or three years, and they will reach the maximum in a shorter time than if the provisions of the old Act were in force. They are in duty bound to give credit to the Postmaster General, because the Bill beneficially affects them to that extent. I do not desire to speak at


Edward Frederick Clarke: greater length, because I know that the time of the minister is very short here this afternoon, and I would not like to interfere in any way with his arrangements. I repeat that the Postmaster General has not done what the letter carriers expected he would do, or what they were given to understand he would do. No amount of specious argument can establish that the position of these industrious, hard working, faithful men has been improved in any way by this measure. In August last there was a flourish of trumpets in the ' Evening Star,' a very excellent paper printed in Toronto, which supports the Postmaster General, and it was owing to the fact that somevorder had been issued by the Post Office Department respecting the purchase of supplies for use in that department. It is worth reading. It says:
Current Wages and Union Hours-The stipulations for all who furnish Post Office supplies.
Ottawa, Aug. 28.-Hon. William Mulock has decided that all men or firms furnishing supplies of all kinds to the Post Office' Department must pay the current rate of wages to their employees and adopt the union hours of labour. This applies to goods whether, sold under contract or not. At present the regulations apply only to contracts, but the principle has now been extended so as to become operative in thie case of all who are on the patronage list of the department. Hereafter all persons who sell goods to the Post. Office Department will have to make a sworn declaration that they have complied with the new regulation before they will receive payment.
If that statement is correcc, the Postmaster General deserves credit for having issued the regulation, but I think the rule should apply to the employees in his own department as well as to those from whom supplies are purchased. It is a notorious fact that those who have been employed in his department in collecting letters from the street letter boxes have had to work seven nights in the week. Their hours of labour are more than nine or ten hours. They were on duty from eight o'clock in the morning until sometimes ten o'clock or eleven o'clock at night. I think, therefore, that it is a good rule to have a regulation of this kind apply first of ail to the employees of the hon. gentleman's own department. 1 think charity, justice, and fair play should commence at home, and I believe with my hon. friend from Winnipeg (Mr. Puttee) that an amendment should be made in this Bill, fixing the hours which the letter carriers have to work, if their wages are not to be increased. The hon. gentleman said that one man could distribute a greater number of letters -in a given time than another. That is quite true, but I wish to say that so far as the city of Toronto is concerned, in many cases the letter carriers are overburdened with work. They are not able to carry out all the letters and mail matter, and so not only automobiles but

wagons are used to bring an additional load to meet them on their beats, when they have their work partially done. This is a condition that should be remedied. These men are employed, some of them, from six o'clock and half past six in the morning until five and half past five at night, and they are out in the most severe weather. As the hon. gentleman knows, they are employed on holidays, when there is at least one delivery. They have to discharge arduous duties; they are a faithful body of men, and they deserve better consideration from the Postmaster General. I hope that before this Bill goes through, the Postmaster General will concede that the grades shall be rearranged, and that men, after having served a reasonable time in class D, will be put into class E. There is no provision made for them going into class E, except on the recommendation of the officer who has supervision. The whole trend of this Act places these employees practically in the hands of the administration of the day. They need not be raised from class A to class B, or from class B to class C, or from class C to class D, or raised to class E unless the officer says so. The letter-carriers who are affected by this Bill are entirely in the hands of the government of the day; they will owe their promotion to superior officers in every case, and in that way the Bill will have an injurious effect, and ought to be amended before it is passed. I would suggest that it should be amended in this way:	That unless these men are
reported against as being inefficient, they should in the natural order of things and at the end of a given time be promoted from class to class. Is that an unreasonable proposition? I submit that promotion should not be ou account of some extraordinarily arduous service, but that if they have faithfully served for a given number of years they should be promoted from class D to class E. Why is grade E put in ? Why is the hope held out that they may some day succeed in getting $2.25 a day? Who is to determine when that promotion is to be accorded to them ? It is most unfair to them that the provision should be worded in that way. The highest class ought to be attainable by them after a reasonable length of service with good conduct, or else it ought to be struck out of the Bill altogether. I hope the minister will amend clause 3 by providing that at the end of a certain number of years men shall be promoted from grade D to grade E, thus making the maximum $2.25 per day, instead of $2 as at present. The men who are now in the service get holidays and they are paid if they are absent on sick leave. Under the provisions of this Bill they get 14 days holidays, but they have now 21 days, and under the Bill they will receive no pay whatever if they are sick. Is their position improved under the new order of things? Not at all. The Postmaster General says 128
that if men are not paid for the time they are absent on account of sickness there will be less sickness. That is hardly a warranted reflection to make on these men. If men are found shirking their work; if men are found shamming sickness they should be dismissed from the service. I repeat that the position accorded to the letter carriers under this Bill is a much less favourable one than the letter carriers of the Dominion had a right to expect. I hope that the Postmaster General will so amend the Bill, that after a certain number of years' service men can reach class E and receive $2.25 a day, and that some definite time should be fixed as to the number of hours in a day's work. The hon. member for Winnipeg says the day should be eight hours. That is a reasonable proposition, and I hope it will be embodied in the Bill before it is eventually passed.
I notice that in the United States Congress an effort is being made to substantially increase the pay of the letter carriers on the other side, and the same arguments are there used on behalf of the men as may fairly be used here. For instance, the increased cost of living and the increased amount of work done. Under these circumstances and in view of the efficient manner in which our carriers do their work, I think the Postmaster General1 pught to make the maximum pay at least $2.25 per day, and fix the hours of labour at not more than eight in the eleven. If the Bill were amended in these respects, I am sure it would be generally acceptable to all the men in the service and be highly appreciated.
I notice that there is a clause providing for the appointment of a superintendent of the city post offices. Who is superintending the city post offices now ? Is the work not being done efficiently now ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: There is no regular provision for the superintending of city post offices in the full sense of the word. These offices are supposed to be more or less under the supervision of the inspector, but the post office inspectors have not got that intimate acquaintance with the technical post office work which makes them competent to discharge the duties that would be required of a chief city superintendent. I mentioned on a former occasion the gentleman I had in my mind for the office, and I think my hon. friend will agree that a better appointment could not be made.


Mr. HE  YD@: I find that one of the objections in the minds of the letter carriers is this. Under the present Civil Service Act, the wages of the letter carriers, sorters, and others increase from $360 to $600 per year by annual increases of $30. The letter carriers are under the impression that this works automatically, and that the increase takes place without the intervention of anybody, but under the new Bill, a recommen-



dation is required and thus the increase may be refused.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: I may say that parliament was informed some time ago that the late Minister of Justice, Sir Oliver Mowat, gave it as his legal opinion that no civil servant was entitled to the annual increase provided in the Civil Service Act, except on the recommendation of the Governor General in Council, and on the money being voted by parliament. He gave it as his opinion that no civil servant has any legal right to the increase, but that the*, increase is a matter wholly within the discretion of parliament and the government. Recommendations for the increases are therefore necessary to-day, and these words do not in the slightest degree vary the law, but give expression to what is the law, so that the letter caiTiers and others will know quite well that they have to depend for their increase upon the recommendation for the promotion. There is every disposition to be lenient with all public officers. In my own department my instructions are that every civil servant, who has a salary of $800 or less, should be given the annual increment unless there is good ground for disqualifying him. Every one is given the increase unless his superior officer reports against him. That is the rule adopted, and it is no unkindness to the staff to let them understand that even if the hand is not very often used, there is a master hand which may be used. They are treated with the utmost consideration, and this Bill is in no sense a measure to give arbitrary power, which might or might not be abused, and I am satisfied that these observations which I am making will be of benefit to the staff themselves. They are meant In kindness, whether accepted in that light or not. As to the provisions whereby some of the letter carriers might be promoted to class E at $2.25 per day, there will be some appointments of that kind, especially in the leading cities, where there are greater responsibilities devolving upon some of the letter carriers and where their duties are perhaps more onerous. Those who are getting the maximum to-day will get $26 more to begin with, and if they work the 313 days they Will get a $20 bonus besides, if their services were satisfactory. It is not meant that the work must be specially satisfactory, but what would be considered a reasonably fair and satisfactory service, such as would commend itself to any respectable man. Public officers cannot withhold or give certificates arbitrarily. They are amenable to public opinion even if they are not actuated by conscientious motives, and the general disposition is to be very friendly to those beneath them. You can rely on it that every superior officer will, wherever possible, recommend the letter carriers and these other various officials for the increase, and unless these officials have disqualified themselves


Charles Bernhard Heyd: by bad conduct, they will get the extra $20 as well as the $26. Those in receipt of $600 a year will get $46 extra, and will have the chance of getting a further increase in grade E of $78 a year. The increase of $46 on the salary of $600 is an increase of between 7 per cent and 8 per cent, which is not an insignificant increase.
As regards the hon. gentleman's statement that I had made some promise, I must disclaim anything of the kind. I am aware that some organizations have passed resolutions in which I am reported as having promised to a delegation which waited on me in March, 1901, that there would be an increase. But I was extremely careful, as I am on all occasions, not to make any promise. You have yet to find an occasion when I have made a promise to any individual or deputation as to what the government or council would do. What I stated was that the matter would receive my best consideration, and that I hoped to mature a plan which I would leave with my hon. colleague the Minister of Finance to present to parliament. The Minister of Finance was present. I had a scheme in my mind at the time, which is somewhat the same as that presented to-day, and which does provide a measure of Increase to those who chose to avail themselves of it. I wrote a confidential report to my colleague, the Minister of Finance, setting forth my views and requesting him to take up the measure and bring it before my colleagues. But during my voyage I came to the conclusion that the views that I had left behind were not sufficiently definite and that it would be better to defer the matter until the present session, and I cabled to my colleague, the Minister of Finance, to that effect. But I want to make it quite clear that I never made a promise beyond what I have stated on the floor of the House to-day.


Charles Bernhard Heyd: I understand that there is a rule in force that no man can be appointed as a letter carrier who is over 25 years of age. Will that be rescinded by the adoption of this Bill ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: Yes. There are many persons over 25 years of age who would be able to perform the duties of these various positions, such as packers, messengers, and so on ; and if they are paid by the day, there is not the same objection to men advanced in years being appointed that there would be if they were paid by the year.


Edward Frederick Clarke: The Postmaster General said, if I understood him correctly, that all the persons affected by this Bill would receive at least $46 a year increase.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: Yes.


Edward Frederick Clarke: If I read section 7 correctly. I do not so interpret it. Probably the Postmaster General can set me right.

The men now receiving the maximum will not come under section 7, will they ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: If they wish.


Edward Frederick Clarke: But they will have to abandon their superannuation ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: No, there is a saving clause in section 0, which provides that they shall not.


Samuel Barker: I hope the Postmaster General will extend the privileges of class ' E ' to the present employees, whether they accept the provisions of this Bill or not. There is a strong feeling among the old employees of the department that this Bill does not do them justice. The hon. minister has told us, as the fact is, that the present employees to attain the maximum salary have to serve nine or ten years. There are many who have served these lime or ten years, and there are a good many I ernaps who have served six or seven years. By this Bill these men will have placed side by side with them other men who will attain the maximum salary in four and a half years. That will, I think, breed discontent and a state of things not to the advantage of the service. If the men now in the service were allowed to have the advantages of class ' E ' in common with those who come under the Bill, I think it would do much to remove any cause of dissatisfaction in that rewpeei. I think it is not a gracious tiling foi the government to tr;a. an old and faithful civil servant in such a way that he has to be coerced to accept this Bill in order to get the advantage of it. It does seem reasonable that the special class ' E ' should not lie confined to men who ire appointed after this date, but should ais be open to old servants who have served the public well in the past.


Arthur W. Puttee: lias the hon. Postmaster General considered the suggestion made by the hon. member for Burrard (Mr. .Maxwell), to include sorters and stampers in clause 1 ?
The POSTMASTER GENERAL When we get through the Bill. I propose to offer an amendment in the form of an independent substantive clause dealing with stamp-eis and sorters.


George Ritchie Maxwell: Will you allow me to make another appeal ? According to the ruling of the Postmaster General a short time ago. the age limit at which a man could enter the service was changed. He must now be between 18 and 25, and I am in hearty sympathy with that rule. I think the younger you can get a man into the service the better, both for the service and for himself. But unfortunately there were a number of men in the service before that rule came into force, and these men, after having passed-some the pre-128J
limiuary and others the qualifying examination-were refused to be put on the permanent list because of the age limit. When this Bill is coming into force, I think it would lie a gracious act to allow all those men who have been in the post office service to receive the benefit of the Act as well as the permanent staff.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: I think my hon. friend's request is perfectly reasonable, and I will say that it is intended, as soon as this measure becomes law, to go through the list of all those now performing temporary work, and all who are suit-aide to be brought under the provisions of this Bill will be brought under its provisions.
On section 3,


Arthur W. Puttee: This provides that those in grade 'A' shall receive only $1.25 per day. Even the trackmen ou the Intercolonial Railway are going to be paid above that rate very soon, and it seems to me that this is too low a sum to recognize here as a minimum at all. Seeing that the grade only lasts six months, I think it would be a great deal bettter to make this read that the salaries of those in grades ' A ' and ' B ' shall be at the rate of $1.50 per day. The hon. member for South Brant (Mr. Heyd) says that in this class of work a man is efficient as soon as he enters the service. There is nothing to learn; there is no apprenticeship; it is work that needs a man and not a boy; and therefore there is no reason why he should be paid at that low rate. It seems to me that it should be fixed at $1.50. Then a man would be in grade ' A ' while on probation, and when it was decided to appoint him permanently, he would be moved into grade ' B.'


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: I am willing to meet my hon. friend's objection in a certain way. The six months is about as short a probationary period as you could reasonably fix; but if a man deserves the appointment sooner, then the $1.50 will begin. I am willing to put in words to provide that he shall be subject to a probationary period of not less than six months, or until he shall on the recommendation of the proper officer, be sooner confirmed in his appointment.


Arthur W. Puttee: That goes a long way towards meeting the point. But if I were the Postmaster General and were willing to go that far, I would do away with this eyesore of $1.25 a day.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: No, 1 want efficiency.
On section 4, subsection 1,
The POSTMASTER GENERAL moved that the clause be amended by striking out the words ' not less than ' in the 20th line, and, after the words ' months ' in the 20th line adding the following: Or until such earlier

period as he shall, on recommendation to the proper officer, be confirmed in his appointment.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Arthur W. Puttee: I would like to know if there is any possibility of this grade ' E ' being made more open. I suppose that the idea "at present is that very few will enter it. But it seems to me that any man who has not been especially reported against ought, after twelve years service, to enter grade ' E ' as a matter of right.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: I think it better to let the Bill go into force as it is in that respect. We will see how it works for a while. I could not agree to-day to any amendment.
Subsection, as amended, agreed to.
On section 4, subsection 2,


Arthur W. Puttee: I think the Postmaster General will see the reasonableness of asking that that subsection be altered in some way. It seems to me that the principle of reduction in grade as a man grows older should not be recognized.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: It is the law to-day.


Arthur W. Puttee: It should be worded in some way so that, in the interest of discipline a man may be subject to suspension from time to time. But, for myself, I totally object to the subsection in its present form, because it involves what seems to me an altogether harmful principle. This power to reduce the officers in grade may not be used except in case of change of government. or something like that, but the subsection does give the department power as a man grows older to reduce him in grade.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: But it does not change the law. Civil servants are liable to be reduced in grade at any time. That is very rarely done, but it is quite right that they should understand that it is possible. Civil servants are sometimes reduced in rank.


Samuel Barker: Is it to be done by Order in Council ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: Of course.


Samuel Barker: Would it not be better to say so here ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: That is covered by section 12. which provides that appointments, promotions, reductions in grade and dismissals under this Act shall be made by the Governor in Council.


Arthur W. Puttee: Then, why put in this subsection at all ? If it is put in it must be because it is expected that it will be made use of. The idea is to reduce men as they grow inefficient. And, of course, when it is a matter of carrying weight and walking


William Mulock: miles a man must grow less efficient after a certain age.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: This is a clause that is in the interest of the employees, for it makes it possible to continue old men in the service. According to my hon. friend's (Mr. Puttee's) view the employees should be kept so long as they can work under the full head of steam, and then dismiss them. But, under this subsection that will not be necessary, but a man can be given suitable work as his efficiency grows less. Whether it works well or otherwise depends upon the man in whose hands it is. An arbitrary use can be made of any power, or a fair use can be made of it. Governments are amenable to public opinion, and I do not thinly it would be fair to assume that this power will be cruelly or unfairly used. The same power exists with regard to the whole civil service to-day, and it is as well for those in the whole service to be aware of the existence of this power.
On section 10,


Robert Laird Borden: Why say ' chief superintendent ' ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: We have a number of superintendents^ and it is to prevent any confusion. We have post office inspectors who have certain duties of superintendence, and in some post offices there are persons called superintendents. He will be called the chief superintendent in order to avoid any confusion.


Robert Laird Borden: This would not interfere with the appointment of inspectors?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: No.
11. No person over thirty years of age should be eligible for appointment as railway mail clerk or as stamper and sorter.


Arthur W. Puttee: Would it not toe necessary here to make some such provision as this :
Other than those serving as temporary employees at the time of the passing of this Act.
I believe there are some who have been in the service for years and are called temporary employees, who would be debarred for appointment under this section. There are some over thirty years of age, I believe.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: I have no objection to those words. I move that these 'words be added after the word age,' ' other than those at present temporarily in the post office service.'


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
On section 13.
Robert Laird Borden: What are these sections that are repealed ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: 
The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: The only change in this section is this :	There
is at present a fund derived from assessments to make good losses that arise through the default or wrong-doing of any of our officers, and it has been held that we cannot use that fund for payment to any one except to the Crown. For example, a person has deposited money in our savings bank, and suppose a postmaster has embezzled that money, we could draw upon the assessment in respect to that loss. But if an individual transmitted a letter containing money througn the post office and one of our officers misappropriated it, although it was quite clear who had done it, we could not pay out of the assessment to the individual who had lost the money. The amendment is to make that fund liable to the individual citizen in case of a loss sustained toy him.


Robert Laird Borden: Are there regulations in force now ?


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: There were, and there will be more. There is no power to make the assessment fund available for a private citizen.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL moved :: That the word ' or ' be inserted after the word ' derived ' in the 14th line.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Robert Laird Borden: How do these regulations come before parliament, or do they come before parliament in any way? How does parliament know what they are V


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: They have to be gazetted, and they are published in the Post Office Guide, and they get to the public in that way. I do not know that there is any other way of their receiving publicity. Would the hon. gentleman (Mr Borden, Halifax) suggest something ?


Robert Laird Borden: X would suggest that these regulations might perhaps be laid on the Table of parliament within a certain number of days after the opening of the session next after they have been enacted.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: They might be incorporated in the report. .


Robert Laird Borden: Yes. unless there is some provision in the statute.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: We generally incorporate them wherever we can. \ve want to give them the widest publicity. Still, I will endeavour to meet the hon. gentleman's suggestion as far as I can.
On section 13,


Arthur W. Puttee: 
The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: This is really an amendment which is not necessary. It is quite impossible to fix the exact length of time that a letter carrier will be on his beat. He must remain on his beat until his work is completed. If the hon. gentleman would peruse the time tables in Canada I am sure he would not make that suggestion, because he will find that in many instances the length of service is under eight hours. We cannot measure oft the beats so as to fix the exact time during which a man will be out. When he goes out upon his beat he must stay there until the work is completed. The average number of hours during which letter carriers work throughout the whole of Canada is eight hours and twenty-one minutes.


Edward Frederick Clarke: The work is being steadily increased, and of course it takes longer to do it. The number of letters to be delivered on each man's beat is steadily increasing. He has to go up and down stairs and up and down in elevators, and all that kind of thing, and it might not be unreasonable to expect that you should fix some hour for commencing and finishing work.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: The debate is sufficient to indicate the view of the committee, and we will endeavour to live up to the spirit of the discussion this afternoon. The practice in the past has not inflicted any serious injustice on these men, and you can depend upon it that we will not retrograde at least. I propose to move an amendment to the Bill. There is at present a third class jn the post office outside service entering at $400 and going

up to $800. I propose to divide that third class into two classes, one to be called the fourth class, which will come in at $400 and go up to $000, and the other to begin at $600 and go up to $800, to take power to transfer to that third class stampers and sorters, and to make the annual increment in the case' of the fourth class $50 a year. I beg to move :
That portion of schedule ' B ' of the Civil Service Act entitled ' Clerks in the City Post Offices ' is amended by adding after the words 'post offices ' the following :
Fourth-class on appointment $400, by annual increase of $50 up to $600.
And by striking out ' 400 ' after the words ' third class ' and insert in lieu thereof ' 600.'
Any stamper and sorter may be promoted! to the fourth-class and on such promotion bis initial salary as such forth-class clerk shall be equal to the amount of his salary as such stamper and sorter at the time of such promotion.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Robert Laird Borden: It is not relevant to this Bill, but I would like to mention a subject as a mere matter of notice. I would like to have the hon. Postmaster General bring down the three affidavits mentioned in the memorandum of the deputy minister, dated May 1st, respecting the dismissal of Mr. Robert Kaulbach. This memorandum refers to the affidavit of Mr. John A. Shaw, Mr. George B. Phalen and Mr. Ainslie B. Shaw.


The POSTMASTER GENERAL.: I will do it.
Bill reported, read the third time, and passed.



SUPPLY.

[Stage Direction]
House in Committee of Supply.
At six o'clock, House took recess.
After Recess.
House resumed at eight o'clock.

[Stage Direction]
Bill (No. 109) respecting the Molsons Bank Pension Fund.-Mr. Osier.
Bill (No. 123) to incorporate the Canada Eastern Railway Company.-Mr. Fraser.

[Stage Direction]
Bill (No. 143) respecting the Bell Telephone Company of Canada.-Mr. Belcourt.
Bill (No. 127) to confer on the Commissioner of Patents certain powers for the relief of George Depew.-Mr. McCarthy.
Bill (No. 145) respecting the Western Alberta Railway Company.-Mr. Copp.
William Mulock: 


THE ORTHODOX RUSSO-GREEK CATHOLIC CHURCH.
[Stage Direction]
Mr. OLIVER moved second reading of Bill (No. 140) to incorporate the Bishop of the Orthodox Russo-Greek Catholic Church for North America and Aleutian Islands, and each of the parishes and missions of the said church in Manitoba and the North-west Territories.
Mr.  A. A. C.@: LaRIVIERE (Provencher). Mr. Speaker, I am not going to offer any factious opposition t* this Bill ; hut there seems to he a fatality attached to it. I see that the French translation of the Bill provides for the incorporation of the church, not the bishop, while in the English version it is the bishop of the Orthodox Greek Church. I must also call the attention of the House to the fact that in the body of the Bill there is no responsible name at all. We are asked to incorporate the bishop of the Orthodox Russo-Greek Catholic Church of North America and the Aleutian Islands and his successors in office. A bishop has no successor in office as bishop, because the word bishop itself does not imply that there is a succession.


The PRIME MINISTER.: How do you know ?
Mr. LaRIVIERE. How do I know that a king never dies ? We had a Bill before a committee this morning, containing the name of a bishop, and we incorporated that bishop and his successors in office. Surely we ought to have a responsible name, because a bishop in that sense is not an individual. There are many other irregularities in connection with this Bill. The party who is seeking incorporation under this title has never proved his identity. We have no petition besides his own, and, as I said on another occasion, he is a foreigner living in a foreign country. He claims to be Bishop of North America and the Aleutian Islands, which is a very vast diocese. Before recognizing the authority of that high clerical official, I think the House should give this matter a second thought. I will allow my hon. friend to have the second reading carried on a division, because I do not want to be committed to the principle of the Bill.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, on division, and Bill read the second time.

[Stage Direction]
House again in Committee of Supply.
Census, $120,000.
['I will inquire about It.']
George Taylor: Has the hon. minister laid on the Table the papers he promised at the last meeting ?
The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE tHon. Sydney Fisher). I think so, with the exception of the accounts which the hon.

407S
member for Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk) asked for in connection with the investigation in the province of Quebec, which I now lay on the Table. The other papers asked for were laid on the Table the day after the discussion.


George Taylor: The hon. gentleman promised to bring down the stub check-book showing the checks that were paid during January and February to the friends up in Lisgar.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: Here is a statement of the payments to the enumerators.


Robert Laird Borden: H.as the hon. gentleman laid any information on the Table with regard to a matter which I brought to his attention ? I asked him to give me the names of the enumerators who had their attention directed to the charges of fraud iu connection with the taking of the census, before these charges were made public.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: I may say to the hon. gentleman that I was misinformed when I said I believed that the enumerators had been notified of the charges made against them. I believe there was only one enumerator really who was spoken to about this investigation, and he .was spoken to informally by the hon. member for Bag*t, wiho was looking into the matter in the county of Bagot. I had a conversation with Mr. O'Connor, of Montreal, who made the investigation there. He told me that one of the enumerators, who had been working in 1891, was enumerator also in his division In 1901. I asked him if he had spoken to this enumerator, and he said that he had not spoken to him definitely, although he had asked him about it, but intended doing so. I thought he had done so, but I fotmd afterwards that he had not. I thought that several other gentlemen were spoken to, but I find that they were not.


Robert Laird Borden: The hon. gentleman was very positive the other day that a number of the enumerators had these charges of fraud brought to their attention, and had been requested to send in their replies before those charges were made public. The hon. gentleman ought to know positively before making any statement of the kind. I think it is one of the most humiliating admissions ever made by any man in this House, which the Minister of Agriculture has just made. He admits that he has brought charges broadcast against these men, and that in not one instance were these charges! brought to their attention before they were made. What justification has the hon. gentleman for slandering these men behind their backs and scattering those charges throughout the length and breadth of the country, without giving them the opportunity of saying a word in their defence ? It is only due to the hon. gentleman himself and the government and this House that some justification of that extraordinary mode of procedure should be given. We have these charges made by the Minister of Trade and Commerce and then repeated over and over again by the hon. gentleman. I did not think it possible that such a course could have been adopted without some notice having been given these men. The charges against them were not made under oath. These enumerators were not given the opportunity of examining witnesses, but they were denounced as guilty of fraud on these ex parte statements, not made under oath, and made against men who were under oath in the discharge of their duties. Surely there must be some explanation of this extraordinary mode of procedure. Surely it has not been resorted to merely to make political capital.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: What we wanted was to get at the proof and find out what explanation there was of the extraordinary condition of affairs, shown by comparisons of the figures of the census of 1891 with those of 1901. The figures of 1901 showed in many cases great decreases in population, in places where the people, who were familiar with the neighbourhood, could not believe such decreases could have taken place. The first mode of procedure was to try and check over the results of the census of 1901, and in the province of Quebec we had a ready means in the paroeliial returns of making this check. Our chock shows that the census of 1901 was fairly accurate. The difference between the parochial, and the census returns of 1901, in twenty-one constituencies, was only 8,000, and that was as close as could be expected, considering the three months difference in time between the two. The question then was whether there had been any mistake in the census returns of 1891. Going back we found a difference of 44,000 between the census of 1891 and the parochial returns of that year, which was a most extraordinary discrepancy. The question then was: Where did this discrepancy take place ? We found that a number of people had been enumerated in the Dominion census, who were not present when that census was taken, and we established this by incontrovertible evidence. I must confess that while I expected that some of the enumerators implicated had been notified, I did not give any definite instructions to that effect, and did not take any particular means for the purpose of consulting them. The evidence we had was such that it was impossible not to believe that the enumerators had unduly swelled the returns of 1891, and that being the case, I could not see any necessity for consulting the enumerators. No doubt if I had, they would have tried to shuffle out of the responsibility.


Robert Laird Borden: That is certainly a remarkable reason. The hon. gentle-1 man listens to ex parte statements, not made

40S0
under oath, made behind the backs of these men, and assumes them to be true. He says that these men are such scoundrels that there is no use at all appealing to them. Just as if some one should accuse the kon. gentleman of burglarly, and a third person should be appealed to who would say that the hon. gentleman was guilty. It would be suggested that the bon. gentleman should be heard in his own defence, but the answer would be :	No, if the Hon. Sydney Fisher
is guilty of burglarly there is no- use in asking him, because he would deny it. That is a specimen of the hon. gentleman's logic with regard to these men. And he considers that lie is doing justice to himself, I suppose, when he makes .that explanation. He accused these men over and over again, in his speech, of fraud, and this is the only answer that he has to give to this House and to tlie country when he is expostulated with for making these charges without giving these men an opportunity to answer. And he has a number of gentlemen around him who were shocked because the other day tlie hon. member for South Lanark (Mr. Haggart) was not disposed to give the name of a gentleman who had informed him that Mr. Win. Pugsley had gone to New York. These gentlemen almost wept with sorrow and grief over that refusal. Yet the hon. gentleman and his colleagues and his friends have nothing to say when an explanation is asked with regard to this extraordinary occurrence. Fifty or sixty or perl laps a hundred enumerators-I do not know the number-are charged deliberately in this House witli fraud of a most serious character, with perjury, with violating their oaths of office, and yet tlie Minister of Agriculture says that the only excuse he has for making these charges against these men behind their backs and without giving them tlie slightest opportunity to answer, is that the charges are true and the men must be such scoundrels that there is no use in asking them about the facts. I am surprised that the hon. gentleman should venture to rise in this House when he has no better explanation than that. I venture to think that it would have been far better for him to have retained his seat, to have said nothing at all, than to give so useless an explanation of his conduct as he has given. I deeply regret, for the sake of this country, that these gentlemen, members of this government, should have so little regard for tlie decency of civilized life as to make these charges against\ the public officers without giving them the slightest opportunity to be heard in their own behalf, without even speaking to these men before the charges were made thus publicly in this House. Why, the position taken by tbe Minister of Agriculture is a monstrous one. The charges that he made were not supported by any evidence under oath, they were supported by hearsay evidence statements made, in many cases, by persons Mr. BORDEN (Halifax).
who did not pretend to speak from their own personal knowledge of the facts. The statements were not made under oath, but the returns made by these officers which are called in question, were made under oath. The work of these men was in discharge of their duty as public officers, and surely any man who undertakes to perform service for the country is at least entitled to expect that members of the government under whom he serves, or of any future government, will not attack him behind his back as has been done in this case, will not accuse him of fraud without at least giving him an opportunity of being heard in ills own defence.


Edward Frederick Clarke: Who was tlie chief census officer in 1891 ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: Mr. George Johnson.


Edward Frederick Clarke: Is he still in the employ of tlie government V


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: Yes.


Edward Frederick Clarke: Was he asked for any explanation of these alleged discrepancies, or called upon to make any report as to l ow they arose ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: He has not been called upon for such * report yet.


Edward Frederick Clarke: And he is still in the employ of the country, and occupying a responsible position. He was responsible to the government of that day and to the people of tlie country for tlie accuracy of the statements that were made ns to the results of the census of 1891. As the leader of the opposition (Mr. Borden. Halifax) has pointed out, most serious charges have been made by the hon. minister (Mr. Fisher) and one of his colleagues impugning the integrity of the enumerators in many places. Yet the gentleman who was responsible for the census and who is still a government officer has never been asked to give his views or to offer any explanation of what would appear to be very grave discrepancies in the census. Hon. gentlemen opposite have made so many statements within the last three or four years as to the progress Canada was making, as to the exodus being stopped, and as to the population of Canada increasing by leaps and bounds, that when the result of the census of 1901 was made known they had to find some pretext to justify their statements. The Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir Richard Cartwright) in 1898 estimated the population of Canada at. five and three quarter millions, and expressed tlie hope that it would soon be six millions. But when the census figures were made known and tlie hon. gentleman found that he was wide of the mark, he devoted all the energy and ability he posmesses to pouring vituperation upon those who had taken the census ot 1891.


Mr. COWAN.: Did lie not give pretty good evidence for what he said ?


Edward Frederick Clarke: Not a particle of evidence that would be accepted by the hon. gentleman (Mr. Cowan) himself as a professional man. Not one single allegation was buttressed with statements under oath from those who knew the facts. It was ungenerous and unjust for a minister of the Crown to charge these officers with fraud and perjury and with giving false returns of the *census of ten years ago. But the extraordinary spectacle is presented to us to-night of the Minister of Agriculture having still in the employment of the Crown in his department the man who must have been responsible for this loose condition of things, if it existed. Surely he should have been treated as an honourable man, and if these inaccuracies had been discovered, as alleged, he should have been asked for an explanation of them ? He surely might have been invited to consider whether the statements as to frauds were correct or not and to say whether the figures presented in 1891 in connection with the census were worthy of credence or not ?


Mahlon K. Cowan: He might have been asked to explain the knitting factories and the carpet factories shown in the census of 1891.


Edward Frederick Clarke: If the hon. gentleman (Mr. Cowan) will say something germane to the subject betore you. Mr. Chairman, I shall be happy to discuss it. I can only hear something about * knitting factories,' and I do not see what that has to do with the question. We have here a most humiliating state of affairs. Hon. members ot this House occupying the most responsible positions in Canada, ministers of the Crown, have not hesitated to make statements in this House which their friends in the country will be expected to believe, but which statements have not, so far, been justified by such evidence as to make them appeal-statements which can be relied upon as well founded. Is it the intention of the Minister of Agriculture to give Mr. Johnson an opportunity to explain, to call Mr. Johnson to liis aid in making an explanation of the discrepancies which are said to have been found in these various towns and parishes ? Would it not be reasonable to ask Mr. Johnson for an explanation ? If that gentleman is still worthy of being retained in the public service, surely he is the man who should be asked to account, if he can. for these alleged discrepancies ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: I have not come to any conclusion as to what steps I shall take in the further investigation of the census of 1891. As I said on a former occasion when this question was
discussed, this whole investigation arose out of a desire to check the census of 1901, and was carried on for that purpose, and with that object in view. The developments are shown by the papers laid on the Table of the House. As head of the bureau of statistics in 1891, no doubt Mr. Johnson is responsible for the census. But I have not suggested in any way that Mr. Johnson was responsible for these inaccuracies. All the evidence points to the fact that the enumerators in the different localities put on names for the purpose of swelling the returns. It has been suggested, though that may not be the proper explanation, that, as they were paid according to the names they put on, they sought to get more pay than they otherwise would. I have not gone Into that question, and have no results except those that I have laid on the Table. But I think these documents fully justify me and my colleague, the Minister of Trade and Commerce, in the conclusions we drew that the census of 1S91 was materially and very largely stuffed in those counties in which we have had an investigation.


George Taylor: The Minister of Agriculture came before this House last session and the session before and asked us for an appropriation for the census of 1901. That money was granted. Now the minister comes and informs this House that he has misappropriated some thirteen or fourteen thousand dollars of that money to employ commissioners to ascertain whether the census of 1S91 was correct or not.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: On what does the hon. gentleman base that statement ?


George Taylor: The minister himself stated he had paid out of the census fund $13,000 or $14,000.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: When did I say that ?


George Taylor: At the last meeting when we discussed the question.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: Did I mention any sum ?


George Taylor: No, you did not.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: The hon. gentleman's statement of the sum is absolutely incorrect.


George Taylor: We will get at it. The minister did make the statement that he had paid these commissioners out of the census vote, $13,000. I am credibly informed the sum was about $13,000.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: I have laid the statment on the Table, and if the hon. gentleman will look at it he will find it was 200 odd dollars.


George Taylor: Well, if it is only 200 cents the minister had no right to misappropriate



[Stage Direction]
funds. He never asked this House for a vote for that purpose, yet he has the audacity to come forward and say he took a sum out of the money voted for taking the census for 1901, to make an investigation of his own, and I will read the result of one of these investigations. I have here a letter from an honest man whose signature is as good as his oath. None of the other statements are made under oath, neither is this one. This gentleman is of high standing, and a strong supporter of lion, gentlemen opposite.
Belleville, January 22, 1901. Archibald Blue, Esq.,
Ottawa.
My dear Sir,-I have completed the work in ci r niection with the examinatiin of ihe census of 1891 for the Townhip of Thurlow and the city of Belleville, as requested by you.
I could have done the work much more quickly and easily had the numbers of the lots and concessions, ao well as the names of the streets been given. This difficulty, and another, which arylies particularly to the city of Belleville-1 refer to the numerous and flagrant mistakes in spelling-greatly increased my work. In many eases I at first supposed whole families had been added, but in every case I afterwards ascertained that the names had been incorrectly spelled either by the census taker or by the copyist.
The decrease of population in' the township of Thurlow is attributable to two chief causes, first, the general movement to the unsettled parts of the Dominion and secondly to the fact that no work is being done at either of the large limestone quarries at Foxboro and Point Ann, where, ten years ago, fully six hundred inhabitants were directly dependent upon this industry. It the city, of Belleville there were ten years ago, twenty or perhaps twenty-five small industries, conducted by men of moderate means, thit gave employment to a considerable number of men and boys. These have been almost entirely wiped out by the large concerns of other places. This fact coupled with the general movement west, to which I have adverted, are the causes of the decline of the population of Belleville. I am glad to be able to rip or t after a very careful examination, that I find the census of 1891 for the township of Thurlow and the city of Belleville to have been correctly taken.
I am, dear sir.
Faithfully yours, (Sgd.) N. VERMILYEA.
Now, Mr. Yermilyea reports the census in that district, which is one of the suspected ones, was correctly taken; yet the minister, with that statement in his hands, comes forward and charges the enumerators for the whole Dominion with having perpetrated frauds and stuffed the lists ; and he misappropriates funds, not voted for the purpose, to pay Mr. Vermilyea and these other commissioners who went round to investigate what was done ten years ago. If a crime has been committed the minister has committed it, for he has done what no other minister ever did in this country before-take money voted for one purpose Mr. TAYLOR.
and use it for another purpose entirely different. In the whole record of the late government he cannot find anything of that kind. Yet this minister comes forward and asks for an appropriation, and steals part of that money to pay some of liis political friends.
Some hon. MEMBERS: Order.


George Taylor: Well, ' take it,' if that is a better word-take money out of one appropriation and use it for a purpose altogether different, without informing parliament. Now, the minister may as well understand it as not. He promised us last night that he would bring down the cheque book for the payments, made in January and February, to the parties in Lisgar. He brings down a little statement here to-night, but no payment for January or February, nothing since September, October and December. I am informed that a large number of cheques were issued out of the census fund, and that there was a number of cheque books. I fancy the commissioner of census is the party who issues the cheques for paying the census claims, and he has the stubs for January and February, and I want to see them. The minister has not brought down a statement for January. I am credibly informed that a large number of cheques went out there in the Lisgar election early in February when the campaign was on. The minister promised to bring down the cheque books so that we may see what cheques were issued. We want those papers before this item goes through.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: The hon. gentleman is evidently' so excited that he does not measure his language very closely. He said a few minutes ago that he was credibly informed that this investigation about which he was talking cost 813,000 or $14,000. I have laid on the Table all the payments that have been made in regard to that investigation, and they amount up to the present time to $254, speaking from memory.


George Taylor: Perhaps they' are not all paid.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: All in the province of Quebec are. The hon. gentleman goes on and says he is credibly informed-on the same ground I suppose- that many cheques were issued for payment of the Lisgar census accounts in the months of January and February. Well, the bon. gentleman has in bis band a list of the payments, all that were made in the Lisgar census work. There has not been a single payment made except those in the list the hon. gentleman has in his hand. I have not got the cheque books here, because the stubs of the cheque books out of which the Lisgar payments are made are all regular cheque books, that come in their

408G
order. There are no other payments made than are found in those cheque hooks. I thought if I gave the hon. gentleman a list and told him on my responsibility as a minister that that list contained all the payments made for the Lisgar census, he would accept my statement. If he does not choose to, I can bring down the actual cheque books and place them on the Table ; and the hon. gentleman will find, on the statement of the accountant and the register of the bank, the date when the letters were sent out containing those cheques. These can be brought down if the hon. gentleman has any doubts.


George Taylor: Were there cheques issued just previous to the Lisgar election by the census department and sent out there ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: The hon. gentleman has them all in that list under his hand.


George Taylor: Will the minister answer my question ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: I will answer it as I proceed. I do not know the date of the Lisgar election.


George Taylor: The 17tli or 18th of February.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: If that is the case, I will look at those dates and see my accountant, and find if any were sent out at that time. The hon. gentleman has under his hand a list of every cheque that was sent to Lisgar to pay the accounts in that district. If he examines that list he will find out the date of every cheque sent, and he will find that there was not one cent in the month of February, nor in January either. Now, the hon. gentleman went on to talk about money being misappropriated, and he used very strong language. .The hon. gentleman cannot substantiate that statement in any shape or form. There was no money misappropriated. The money which was spent in that investigation was spent properly and rightly in dealing with the census of 1901 ; it was spent for the purpose of finding out whether the census of 1901, as it was taken by our enumerators, was correct. The first thing that struck us in the census of 1901 was that, in certain parts of Canada, there was a decrease of population as compared with the census of 1891. That seemed an extraordinary condition of affairs. Possibly there might have been some mistake in the census taking of 1901. We therefore took means to check over the census taken in 1901 and in that process of checking over the census we took the parochial returns in those constituencies where the population is practically altogether Catholic and consequently where the parochial returns would include practically the whole population. We found that in 21 of these counties there was a difference of 8,000 between the parochial returns and
the Dominion census returns of 1891. I may say that at the same time that was done the parochial returns of 1891 were consulted to see what the comparison was between them and the census returns of that year. The result was that we found in the parochial returns that there were a lot of names, but not by any means all of the names that were in the census and we found that the census contained numerically names that were not in the parochial returns. The question was to find out whether these census returns were correct, to find out whether the people enumerated in the census returns were there or not, and whether a mistake had occurred in the parochial returns or the census returns, and we found, on the evidence of men who knew these parishes through and through and year after year, many years before 1891. that there were people who were enumerated in the census but not in the parochial returns who were not present in these parishes and were not present when the census was taken. That was the object of the investigation. It was not an investigation to prove that the census of 1891 was incorrect but it was for the purpose of proving that the census of 1901 was and . is correct, and I think it is proved beyond peradventure, and if as a result of this investigation it has been found that the census taken toy hon. gentlemen opposite in 1891 was false and was stuffed, so much the worse for them and so much the worse for the way in which their census was taken. It was also proved that the Dominion of Canada has not been standing still, as it was thought to have been when the census returns first came out, but that, as a matter of fact, probably has increased in population at as fair a rate as could be fairly expected. The hon. gentleman speaks of this being a misappropriation of funds. As a matter of fact it was a perfectly proper expenditure for the purpose of proving that the census of 1901 was correct and was properly taken.


George Taylor: Did the hon. gentleman, in the statement which he gave to the House when he asked for money for taking the census, say that he wanted to use a portion of that money to inquire into the census of 1891.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: I had no intention of doing it at that time.


George Taylor: The hon. gentleman asked for money to take the census of 1901 and not to inquire into the census of 1891. Whether this amount of money which has been expended in this way is small or large it does not affect the question. The hon. gentleman hands in a typewritten paper containing a few names but I do not see the name of the reverend gentleman that the hon. member for Bothwell (Mr. Clancy) has referred to for having done a large amount of work. I do not see any account of money having been paid to him. The statement

contains the names of the following gentlemen and the amounts they received


Rev.   E.@: Roy, Montreal	$ 5 00


Rev.  J. R.@: Leonard, Rimouski.. .. 10 00 Rev. N. Ms rehand, Three Rivers.. 40 00 Rev. P. A. St. Germain, Nicolet .. 10 00 Rev. T. B. Morin, St. Jean de
Matha	15	00Archbishop	Begin',	Quebec	
25	00E. G. O'Connor,	Montreal	
90	35


Dr.  C. S.@: Gauthier, St. Ephrem d'Upton	 50	00
making a total of $245.35. I do not see any
reference to any money being paid to the reverend gentleman referred to by the hon. member for Bothwell.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: I do not know that that gentleman has received any. That is all that has been paid.


George Taylor: Then, there must be a lot unpaid. I do not see any account of a payment to Mr. Vermilyea, nor do I see any record of a payment to Mr. Petrie who looked after the town of Simcoe and the village of Port Dover. Nor, do I see anything paid to


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: These are the payments in Quebec. I told the hon. gentleman that the statement did not contain the list for Ontario. The other bills have not been paid.


George Taylor: How much of the vote is the hon. gentleman going to misappropriate ? I do not see the account of a payment to E. O'Callighan, of the town of Cornwall, who was a candidate in the last election. He has to have his election expenses paid and the hon. minister asks him to find out the frauds perpetrated in Cornwall in 1891 so that he may pay him a little bill. As to the statement which the hon. minister brings down I did not ask him for a statement of how much had been expended in Lisgar. I asked him for the cheque .book for January and February. He puts in a statement of the expense of taking the census in Lisgar during the year, giving the names of the enumerators, when paid, the amount paid, the total paid, and the balance claimed. In this statement he shows the balances claimed but the last payment which he shows to have been made in this statement was in the month of December. There has nothing been paid according to this statement since the month of December. Are these balances that we find to have been claimed unpaid still ? Will the hon. minister say that these balances which he shows in his statement are still unpaid or were the enumerators in Lisgar paid just previous to the election ? That is the information which I have received.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: Well, the hon. gentleman's information is entirely wrong. The statement shows what has been paid. Nothing else has been paid in Lisgar. There was no cheque sent out


George Taylor: in January or February to Lisgar at all. I have sent my accountant for the cheque book and the hon. gentleman will have it in a few minutes, and he will be able to see for himself.
Mr. TAY'LOR. Will the hon. gentleman refer these accounts to the Public Accounts Committee and allow us to have an inquiry into them ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: If the hon. gentleman will move that they be referred to the Public Accounts Committee next session he will have an inquiry.


George Taylor: This session.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: No, the Public Accounts Committee does not deal with the accounts of this year.


George Taylor: Will the hon. gentleman say that these accounts are unpaid ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: The hon. gentleman will see the total amount paid and that is all that has been paid.
Mr. TAYLOR, I ask the hon. minister if these balances which are claimed are still unpaid.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: Certainly, if they are not included in the total amount paid they are not paid.


George Taylor: The hon. minister only shows what has been paid up to December.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: Nothing has been paid in Lisgar since the last date contained in that list. I do not know that I can make it more clear.


Mr. McCREARY.: I do not much wonder that the hon. member for South Leeds (Mr. Taylor) , is a little anxious about Lisgar. Lisgar may be rather an important matter to him. Sitting beside him are the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Roche) and the hon. member for Macdonald (Mr. Boyd), both of whom took an active part in the recent election iin<Lisgar.


Mr. ROCHE (Marquette).: I beg the hon. gentleman's pardon.
Mr. McCREARY'. The hon. gentleman (Mr. Roche) may not have been there. I will retract the statement as far as that hon. gentleman is concerned. But the hon. member for Macdonald took an active part in that election. He exercised all the eloquence of which he is possessed and put forth every effort to secure the support of the people for the Conservative candidate. He also had the premier of the province of Manitoba, the Minister of Public Works, the Attorney General and other members of the local government with him, and yet, Sir, all the Conservative electors they could find in Lisgar were 1.300. just sufficient to lose the Conservative candidate his deposit. It is no wonder that some hon. gentlemen think

the population of that county is not as large as it should be. In regard to the census taken in 1901 and the census taken in 1891 I would say that anybody who has known Winnipeg during the last few years must know that a large increase in population has taken place.
I well recollect that in 1891 when the exmayor of Winnipeg, Mr. McMicken was enumerator, he went so far that he was kicked out of some of the houses in Winnipeg because of some impertinent questions which he asked of certain people. Every one in Winnipeg who is acquainted with the facts, knows that as a matter of fact, large numbers of people left the province of Manitoba in 1894, 1895 and 1896. I remember travelling one evening from Winnipeg to Deer Lodge, a distance of five miles, as a representative of the Board of Trade, and I met on that trip 26 covered wagons with people coming from Alberta and going across the line south. But what is the condition of affairs to-day ? I have here some immigration returns published in the Winnipeg ' Free Press ' of Wednesday. April 30th, and they are well worth reading, so that hon. gentlemen can compare the condition of affairs at the present day as regards immigration with the condition formerly :
The number of immigrants arriving from the United States, for the month of March, was 3.243. The States from which they came and the numbers from each, are ;-
Iowa	573
Minnesota	499
Nebraska	410
S. Dakota	291
Kansas	249
Utah	201
Michigan	Ill
Wisconsin	-	 95
Missouri	 86
New York	 68
Massachusetts	 70
Montana-	 59
Illinois	 54
Oklahoma	 49
Indian Ter	 38
Pennsylvania	 40
Texas	 22
Idaho	 22
Rhode Island	 14
New Hampshire	 16
Indiana	 8
Ohio	  9
New Jersey	 6
Maine	 5
Wyoming	 3
Virginia	 2
Vermont	 2
N. Cardin a	 1
*Washington	 1
Florida	 1
California...'	 1
3,243
The British immigration during the same period was as follows :
English	647
Welsh	 24
Scotch	275
Irish	203
1,149
The British and American immigration into-Canada for the month of April last was 4,35b. This year it was 7,243, an increase ol nearly 60 per cent. The total number of British and American immigrants who have come to Canada this year is 10.069, as against 5,821 for the first three months of 190J.
I trust that every member of this House will weigh these figures carefully. These men who are coming to settle in Canada are onr brothers ; they are coming to help us to build up our country, and there is no use of our quarrelling with the census of 1891 or or 1901. I believe there were mistakes made in both census. I know that there were mistakes made in the census of 1891 and there were mistakes made in 1901. But so long as the people are happy and are coming into our country in such large numbers, just as large as obr railways can handle, surely we should be content and need not quarrel about the census of 1891 or of 1901. I notice that reference is made quite frequently in this House to the population of the city of Belleville. That is no doubt a remarkable city, but I am not much surprised that it is somewhat depopulated. As far as I know the city of Belleville is the home of some gentlemen who were known as the nest of traitors a few years ago, and X am not surprised that some of the best young men of that city took the idea into their head to go west. I think they are all the better for having done so. I believe that men living in a city with politicians of that sort are far better to go west than to remain there. I do not think that the members of the west should decry the census of 1901. I believe that if Sir Wilfrid I.aurier and his government remain In power for another ten years, as I believe they will, any one who decries our population now will be ashamed of his language when the census of 1911 is taken. I believe we are going to have in the west at the end of the next ten years a population, not of 400,000 but a population of 2,000.000 between Lake Superior and the Rocky Mountains. If that happy result flows from the acts of this present administration it will be something that not only the western members but the eastern members should be proud of.


George Taylor: I have no doubt that the member for Selkirk (Mr. McCreary) has enlightened the minister by the eloquence he has just displayed. Perhaps the hon. gentleman can give me a little information which I would like to know. There is a person in his constituency by the name of John Menery who put in an account for $280.60 and was paid $250.10. leaving a balance of $30.50 due him. Perhaps the

hon. member for Selkirk can tell me whether that balance Is still due to Mr. John Menery.


William Forsythe McCreary: And suppose it is.


George Taylor: Mr. George E. Laidlaw claimed $211.73 and he was paid $162 on account, a balance being due him of $49.73. Can the minister tell us if these accounts are still due or are claimed by these gentlemen ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: The hon. gentleman does not seem to understand this statement. There is first of all the name of the enumerator, then the date the cheques went out, then the amount paid. Mr. John Menery sent in a bill for his total Claim of $280.60. but the accountant cut down a portion of that as not toeing properly charged and a cheque for $250.10 was sent to Mr. Menery in settlement. The amount of $30.50 is what was not allowed of his account.


George Taylor: And he claims the balance yet.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: I do not know whether he does or not. We have had no communication from him saying whether he is content with what he got. Unless he can show some good reason that his account was unjustly and improperly cut down, he will not get more than the $250.10 that was paid him under the rules and regulations issued for the payment of the enumerators.


George Taylor: Perhaps I had better read his entire statement, so that some of these gentlemen who are claiming balances in Lis-gar may know whether they have been paid or not since December. The minister says that there was not a dollar paid in Lisgar in January Or February.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: I said that and I maintain it, nor up to the present date.


George Taylor: Perhaps the minister will hear later on something different. There are numerous claims by enumerators here averaging from $1 up to $56. My information is that all these gentlemen were settled with previous to the Lisgar election, and that the cheques were sent to them for these balances either in the month of January or February.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: That information is entirely incorrect.


George Taylor: Well, perhaps we will have a way of reaching it.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: I will give the hon. gentleman the stub cheque books, and if he can find there that payment was made to any one in Lisgar in Januarv or February, I will take back everything I have said.


Robert Laird Borden: There is one statement in the list' of documents laid on Mr. TAYLOR.
the Table of the House which I would like to inquire about. One of the officers of the department says :
The object of procuring the parochial statistics was, first, to ascertain the correctness and accuracy of our own census ; and incidentally we discovered that the census of 1891 had been unduly stuffed, and made a thorough investigation in a few counties here and there throughout Canada.
I would like to inquire what meaning the hon. gentleman attaches to the expression ' unduly stuffed.' To what extent would the census have to be stuffed before it was unduly stuffed ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: I should say myself that if it were stuffed at all it would be unduly stuffed. What was meant was that there were names improperly entered in the census of 1891, because the people were not in the country when the census was taken.


Robert Laird Borden: What were the counties in which a thorough investigation was made ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: The list was placed on the Table. There were twenty-one counties In the province of Quebec in which the parochial returns were examined.


Robert Laird Borden: May I inquire whether the hon. gentleman acquiesces in the view of his officer that that constitutes a thorough investigation ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: Yes, I think it is a thorough investigation to take the counties eminently entirely Catholic, and to check the census returns with the parochial returns in those counties. We took practically all the counties in the province of Quebec where that was the case.


Robert Laird Borden: But this is a general statement, that the census of 1891, not in those particular counties, but in all the counties of Quebec at least, was unduly stuffed.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: I think what we found in those counties would justify the statement that very generally the census of 1891 was unduly swelled by the insertion of the names of people who were not there. I referred on another occasion to a statement made on the floor of this House in 1S94 by hon. friend the Minister of Militia (Hon. Mr. Borden) as to what occurred in the province of Nova Scotia in his county on that occasion, and I think the accumulation of evidence is such as to justify the statement.


Robert Laird Borden: In other words the hon. gentleman thinks he is justified in accusing the enumerators in every county in Canada in 1891-


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: Not in every county.

Mr. 150III)EX (Halifax). In what counties, then, was the census of 1891 not unduly stuffed 7


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: I cannot tell in what counties the census was honestly taken and in what counties it was not, but we have evidence to show that in a large number of counties there was clear dishonesty in entering the names of people who were not in the country, and that being the case, I made the general statement.


Robert Laird Borden: The hon. gentleman says he has sufficient evidence on which to make a general statement that the census of 1891 was unduly stuffed, whatever that means. What I want to know is whether his information is sufficiently definite to enable him to state whether there is any county to be excepted from that statement. If there is, I would like him to name that county.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: The hou. gentleman has just heard the statement read by the hon. member for Leeds (Mr. Taylor), a statement to which I referred the other evening that the investigation in the town of Belleville and the township of Thurlow showed that the census there was accurately and properly taken. That is the only statement I have received, to show that in any particular place the census was accurately taken. I must correct myself in saying that. I am informed that there were reports laid on the Table from some counties which showed that the census was accurately taken in those counties. I cannot give the names of the counties at this moment.


Robert Laird Borden: Are not the hon. gentleman's officers prepared to give us the names of those counties ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: I have not got those names in my mind at the moment. The list was laid on the Table with the full statement in regard to them.


Mr. HACKETT.: With regard to these parochial returns were they asked from the Roman Catholic clergymen of Prince Edward Island ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: No, we made no investigation in the province of Prince Edward Island at all.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: In listening to the statements in this House regarding the conduct of the census enumerators in 1891, what they had done and what they had not done, one would readily come to the conclusion that human character was either of very little value in Canada, or that the moral code of some gentlemen in the country was at a very low ebb, because the freedom with which sweeping statements have been made regarding a large number of enumerators, extending to some thousands, that
they were practically perjurers, and had done what, if established in court, would land any one of them behind the bars of the penitentiary, is something astounding ; and when one comes to analyse the evidence on which these statements are made, one is forced to the conclusion that the parties who made them either had very little regard for men's characters or very little idea of what they were saying. I have in my hands one of these returns. It is from the town of Simcoe, and I give it as a fair sample of the others, though I have not gone over many of them. It is in just such returns that the statement was made in this House that these men had deliberately perjured and forsworn themselves. Mr. H. G. Petrie, of Simcoe, says :
The lapse of time and the consequent lapse of memory of persons having knowledge of the facts has rendered it very difficult to get information ; but notwithstanding this the list contains 120 names of persons improperly enumerated-77 in Simcoe and 43 in Port Dover- which alone instead of a decrease would have shown an increase compared with the returns of 1901.
He goes on and gives a number of these names, but the significance of the matter is that he nearly always speaks of them as being out of the place two years previous to the time the census was taken. He can manage to establish that data from the memory of people living in the locality, no matter how imperfect it is, with sufficient care to say that they were absent two years from the place or never lived in it. Then he goes on to say where he has given many of these names, that they were names of parties living in some other locality, but he is innocent enough to give himself away by saying that the names entered in the various schedules have not corresponded with many of the names. When he is giving duplicate names to show that the parties were taken in two places, he says the names do not correspond. That is sufficient to satisfy any person that the chances are that they were not the same parties at all. Although the names are the same, they were names of different individuals living in different localities.
He was depending on what was told him by people who were trying to charge their memory hack with conditions that existed ten years before. What hou. member cau say who resided ten years ago in the particular village or town in which that hon. member happens to be living ? How many of us could say on oath whelther such an individual lived ten years ago in our own town or not, or how long such an individual had been out of the place previous to 1891 '! In my opinion, had these people been put upon oath and questioned carefully and reminded that the information they were giving was information which was going to damn some people's character, they would have been much more careful. They were probably not aware of what use would be

made of the information they were giving, or they would have been much more careful. If we consider the lapse of time,, ten years, we must conclude that it would be very difficult for any one to say who were living in a certain place ten years ago. He might remember some of the prominent families or his associates in business and social relations, buit a great many other people he would utterly fail to recollect. And supposing he could remember that some were out of the place ten years ago, how could he tell how long they had been out of it, and whether they intended to come back or remain permanently away. We must not forget that in the Instructions given, the enumerators were ordered to enumerate any people who had left the place temporarily and were expected back. My attention was drawn to this in 1891 by a gentleman from the province of Quebec, who told me that this regulation would lead to an incorrect taking of the census. The enumerator puts the question to the head of a family : How many children have you ? The head of the family replies, so many, and gives the names. Then the enumerator asks of each :	Is he at home ? The head of the
family replies :	No. Then he puts the
question :	Do you expect him back ? And
in forty-nine cases out of fifty, especially iu the province of Quebec, the parent will reply iu the affirmative, even though the child had been away for years, and had married or settled down elsewihere. It is a fact that the heads of French Canadian families, iu nearly every instance, expect their children back. So that many names would go down in the census of people who were not in the locality at the time the census was taken and who did mot come back as was expected. Then the instructions go on to say that if the party is absent for a long time and the answer is not given that he is expected back, the enumerator must put this other question :	Has the
party been away over two years ? If an answer be given in the affirmative, his name is not taken down. But you can see how easy it would be for parties to be taken down, when the first question was answered in the affirmative, and how easy it would be to have many members of the family enumerated although they were out of the country at the time. I only mention this as an illustration to show how easy it was to make an incorrect census, and to do so innocently and in the faithful discharge of duty, according to instructions given. Then an analysis , is made and the census is found not absolutely correct, according to the memory of men living in the locality ten years later, and on such statements these enumerators are declared to be perjurers who ought really to be in the penitentiary. The parties who make these allegations must have very little respect for their fellow men', when they make these charges in the wholesale way they do. Take some of Mr. SPROUL.E.
these as an illustration. I find the following statement: 'McBride left Simcoe permanently in 1891, and has . not lived here since.' How could the man who made that statement know it hat McBride had left prior to 1891 and toad left permanently ? And is it not possible that McBride's name was taken down, on the statement of his parent that he was coming back; and because he has not come back since, we are to assume, on the statement of a party who is looking back ten years, that the enumerator is a liar and a perjurer ? Is that evidence on which we should rely in order to damn any one's character ? The Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Trade and Commerce ought t'o be ashamed of themselves when they make use of such statements to bolster up these flimsy charges. Here is another statement:	' James Bray, married, and not resident in Simcoe.' There is not a word said about the time. Yet this is taken as evidence that the enumerator did not do his duty. Here is another : ' George Bray, married, and gone permanently, not resident in Simcoe.' There is nothing said as to when he left Simcoe or how long he had been out of the place or whether he was there in 1S91 or not, but this is considered as evidence that the enumerator is a liar. Here is another statement :	' James Weston, permanently engaged out of town, and not resident in 1S91 or several years prior.' I took a number of other eases, and in every instance the party was declared not to have been a resident for two years before 1891. The statement is very specific with regard to the exact tame, notwithstanding the fact that the memory of the parties who gave the information may have been defective, and there is a strange coincidence in the fact that in nearly every instance two years is given as the length of time when the parties mentioned were absent prior to 1891. Here is another statement :	' George Kelly, employed permanently on the railway, with headquarters elsewhere than Simcoe, was away a year previous to 1891.' There is nothing to verify Ithe statement, but the statement is made simply on recollection going back ten years. How does the party know that this man had been away a year before 1891 ? Is his memory infallible V Is it not possible that he may be all wroug? Yet such statements as these are taken to prove that the enumerator was a Mar and perjurer. What can the Minister of Agriculture think of himself when he takes such flimsy evidence for the purpose of damning human character ? I never heard of anything so disgraceful, and find it difficult to believe ithat any one who considers himself an honourable man should lend himself to such unworthy proceedings.


Hon. Mr. HAGGART.: A few moments ago I asked the Minister of Agriculture if these parochial returns had been asked for from Prince Edward Island ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: I understand the clergy in the province of Prince Edward Island were asked for these returns but only one was sent in.


John Graham Haggart: A moment ago the hon. minister said Ithere were none sent in.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: They were asked for, but only one was sent in, and that was from the Rev. Mr. Gallon.


Edward Hackett: That would be Bloomfield ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: I could not say whati parish.


Edward Hackett: What township ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: I cannot give that information just now.


Edward Hackett: It appears that out of a large number, seventy-nine, he was the only one that made any reply. I would like to know what part of the island he resides in 1


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: 
Edward Hackett: Were the enumerators in Prince Edward Island appointed by townships or by polling divisions ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: The enumerators everywhere were appointed by polling divisions.


Edward Hackett: Who was the enumerator in the first polling division in West Prince ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: The memorandum does not show for which polling divisions the several enumerators were appointed. But if the hon. gentleman will give me any name he wishes to cheek-


Edward Hackett: A man called Doyle.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: The hon. gentleman spoke of him the last time this item was under discussion, and I have obtained the information he desired. Doyle was appointed one of the enumerators, but when he was asked to take the oath, he declined to do so. The commissioner recommended Anthony Broderick as enumerator, and, on reference here, Broderick was appointed. He did the work and received the money.


Edward Hackett: Is the hon. minister aware that Doyle went around two days taking the .census ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: On the contrary, my information is that Broderick did the whole of the work. The books show that all the returns were made by Broderick and that the money was paid to him.


Edward Hackett: I happen to come from that county and I know all the facts. Doyle went about for a day or two taking the census, but found that he was incompetent and looked around for another man to take his place. Peter Broderick was anxious to get the job for his son, and Doyle offered for $20 to get him appointed. Broderick gave him $20 and got his son Anthony appointed, and he went around and took the census. It is difficult to say whether Broderick began where Doyle stopped or where he stopped himself.


Matthew Henry Cochrane: But Doyle got the $20 ?


Edward Hackett: Yes, he did.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: So far as the records of the department show, the commissioner there reported that Doyle, the man first appointed, refused to take the oath and the commissioner, Mr. Tweedy, recommended the appointment of Broderick. That was discussed here and the commissioner was authorized to appoint Broderick. The returns from the polling division are signed by Broderick and countersigned by the commissioner. Broderick received the money from the depart- [DOT] ment as having done the whole of the work. The cheque was made out In favour of Broderick. We have no knowledge whatever of Doyle having done any work in connection with the census. If the statement which the hon. gentleman (Mr. Hackett) makes is correct-and I have no doubt that he is convinced it is-'it has never come to our attention at all. If any farming out of the work has been done, it has been done in direct contravention of the instructions given to the commissioners and the enumerators, and we would not have recognized it. If, as the hon. gentleman says. Doyle did some of the work and (Broderick got paid for it, we know nothing of that here.


Edward Hackett: I am not finding fault with the minister in this connection, but I want to get at the facts. Will he please tell me who recommended Doyle and who recommended Broderick ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: I am informed that the recommendation of Doyle came from Mr. McLellan and Senator Yeo. When Doyle refused to take the oath Mr. Tweedy recommended Broderick. That was submitted to Sir Louis Davies, who was then a minister of the Crown, he endorsed it and Broderick was appointed.


Edward Hackett: I am pleased to get the information, and, as I say, I attribute nothing to the hon. minister in this connection.
I know the parties very weill. I was speaking with Doyle on my return from Ottawa last year. I had learned here that he was to be the enumerator. When I met him,
I said :	' Well, Martin, how are you getting along about the census.' He said :



' I am getting along fine; I have got $20 in my pocket that I got out of it, though I have only clone one or two day's work. I found it was a difficult undertaking, and I could not go ahead and take it, so, after working for a day or two I saw Peter Broderick and asked him if he would allow his son to do the work. And, I said : If you will give me $20, I will have your son appointed to take the census for the balance of the polling division.' So, it was accomplished in that way. If this kind of thing has been going on all over the Dominion, the hon. minister will see what an inefficient enumeration we have had. He will see that there must have been great looseness in the taking of the census. I am not finding fault with the minister, but simply pointing out the need for careful inspection in this work.


The MINISTER OP AGRICULTURE.: If anything of the kind the hon. gentleman speaks of has occurred elsewhere, of course it is something we know nothing about, and is directly contrary to the instructions given to all parties concerned. Of course, it could not have occurred had Broderick not been appointed. He was appointed [DOT] from here and it was supposed that he did the whole of the work. Broderick stands on our books as the enumerator for that polling subdivision, Doyle having disappeared in consequence of refusing to take the oath. That is the whole record in the department; therefore, there is no question so far as the department is concerned of any farming out of the work. If there was a bargain between Doyle and Broderick that Doyle should give up his work, or refused to take the work for a consideration from Broderick, that is a matter entirely outside the! knowledge or business of the department. I confess it is an improper thing, and should these gentlemen be referred to me again for employment, I would not employ them. I consider that farming out government work and traffic in offices is a most improper thing, and I should never allow it to be done by any of my officers, to my knowledge.


Edward Hackett: Atithony Broderick, then, was appointed solely on the responsibility of Mr. Tweedie, the commissioner, and not recommended by anybody else. Was he recommended by Mr. McLellan ?


The MINISTER OP AGRICULTURE.: No, he was recommended by Commissioner Tweedie, and that recommendation was endorsed by Sir Louis Davies. The appointment was made on that recommendation. I have just been informed that the parish of the reverend gentleman whose name I gave a few moments ago is Palmer Road.


Edward Hackett: That would be the Rev. Dr. Chaisson.


George Taylor: I have in my hand a cheque book for December, January and Mr. HACKETT
Pebruary. It commences December 21st, 1901. That is the only date I discover in the book; it runs on after that date until the end of the stubs. But I find some accounts on this page that I fancy belong to some part of Pebruary, because the cheques show a balance of account up to the 31st of January. I find some payments to enumerators concerning which I would like some information. What is the average pay for an enumerator ?


The MINISTER OP AGRICULTURE.: It is difficult to give the average pay, because they are paid according to a schedule of rates, according to the number of names, the number of farms, and so on. The only way I could find the average would be to take the whole number of enumerators and find out how much they had been paid in the aggregate.


George Taylor: Perhaps the minister can tell me who Geo. Coutts is, because the stubs of the cheque do not give any information at all except the name and the service.


The MINISTER OP AGRICULTURE.: I could not tell off-hand who Geo. Coutts is.


George Taylor: There are lieije three suspicious looking cheques. Geo. Coutts received for his services as enumerator $1,198.10.
The MINISTER OP 'AGRICULTURE. I am informed this man was in the Atlin district, in the north of British Columbia, on the road to the Yukon.


George Taylor: And Robert Patrick, services as enumerator, where is he V


The MINISTER OP AGRICULTURE.: I cannot find that out at the moment.


George Taylor: Perhaps these are the gentlemen who visited Lisgar.


The MINISTER OP AGRICULTURE.: I don't think they went from Atlin to Lisgar. I find in looking up the list of enumerators for the electoral district of Bur-rard in British Columbia, that Geo. Coutts and Robert Patrick were two of the enumerators for that district, which includes the whole coast line from Vancouver to the Yukon territory.


George Taylor: How many names would an enumerator have to take to earn $1,198 ?	*


The MINISTER OP AGRICULTURE.: Those men were paid by the day. Men in the outlying districts, where they would have to cover a large extent of territory, were not paid by schedule rates.


George Taylor: I find there are three gentlemen; one received $1,198, Mr. Patrick received $758. and Harry E. Brown $643.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: That, no doubt, is quite correct. The figures here are a little more. I suppose these cheques have been supplemented by others. Brown received $768, Geo. Coutts $1,216, and Robt. Patrick $800.


George Taylor: The cheque book gives practically no information. The hon. gentleman knew that, I fancy.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: I gave the hon. gentleman the information on the statement which was made out by the accountant. .


George Taylor: The statement shows there were balances.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: That is the difference between the amount claimed by these enumerators when they sent their accounts in, and the amount allowed them under the schedule rates.


George Taylor: Do they still claim a balance ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: I cannot say whether it is still claimed or not. It was the difference between the original amount as sent in by the enumerators and the account as it was allowed in the department by the auditor.


William James Roche: Is there a further balance ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: Not unless there was some extraordinary reason, because the amount paid was fixed by schedule rates. There are a few instances where the difference may be legitimately paid if proof is supplied. For instance, the voucher may not be supplied with the .account at first, and if it is properly supplied afterwards the account would be paid. I cannot tell whether these balances are due to that or due to improper charges, for* too many names, for instance, or too many farms, or something of that kind. The accounts of the enumerators in every case have been carefully checked over. I regret to say that a large proportion of them, I daresay more than half of all the accounts sent in by all the enumerators have had to be cut down materially, and have been so settled. In some cases the settlement thus awarded is accepted, in other cases the enumerators send in statements afterwards which show that in some cases the reduction had been improper, that is to say, they had a proper account if they had supplied it in proper-form, and with the propel* vouchers and explanations. In those cases, where that is clearly shown, the difference would be paid, but not unless the account was shown to be in strict consonance with the regulations and schedule rates.


George Taylor: Has the hon. gentleman what is known as supplementary cheque books ?
129J


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: There are none except those the hon. gentleman has.


George Taylor: I want to ask about Mr. J. P. R. Drouin. Who is he, and where is he working ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: He is working in the census bureau at the , present time. He is a gentleman from Montreal, appointed on the census staff, and is receiving $2 a day. The pay list is on the Table.


George Taylor: He is being paid $2.25. Has he special qualifications which entitle him to be paid that salary, while many other men are paid $1.50, $1.60 and $1.75, only occasionally $2 ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: He is in charge of a certain number of other men in the office there, looks after their work, and is therefore given extra pay.


George Taylor: Is he a brother of the candidate who retired from St. James division, Montreal, Mr. Drouin, and who, at one time, threatened to run against the present hon. member (Mr. Brunet), but who was withdrawn ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: He is a brother of Mr. J. A. Drouin.


George Taylor: Was it on account of being a brother that this gentleman was given this appointment ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: He was appointed about a year before this occurrence.


George Taylor: Was he down doing electioneering work for his brother during the campaign in Montreal for a couple of weeks or more ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: No, not that I am aware of.


George Taylor: Perhaps' the hon. gentleman's commissioner will know ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: Not that the commissioner is aware of.


George Taylor: Would the hon. minister be surprised to know that he was there for a couple of weeks and drawing his pay iat the same time ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: I would toe.


George Taylor: I think that information can be supplied to the hon. gentleman. That gentleman was provided with free transportation besides drawing his pay. He went down to help run the election for his brother and drew pay at the rate of $2.25 a day for the two weeks he was down there.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: I did not provide him with free transporta' tion. I should be very much surprised to

find that he was taking part in the campaign in Montreal and drawing pay here.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: It will be in order for the hon. Minister of Public Works (Mr. Tarte) to get up.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: I am informed that Mr. Drouin was one day [DOT] in Montreal some time ago to see his sick father, and that he was not there for a fortnight at all.


George Taylor: The hon. member for Pro-vencher (Mr. LaRiviere) and the hon. member for Montmorency (Mr. Casgrain) are not in the House to-night ? They would have had something to say on this question had they been present.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: Perhaps their statements would be about as accurate as those of the hon. gentleman.


George Taylor: Perhaps the hon. minister had better hold over the item until the information is furnished. I may say that I have been informed by gentlemen who' know this to be the fact that he drew his pay for the full two weeks while he was in Montreal during the election campaign.


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER.: Shall this item be adopted ?


John William Bell: Is it understood the item should be held over ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: No, it is not understood.


John William Bell: Mr. Chairman, I would like to say a word in reference to the matter that was mentioned in respect to which the hon. minister undertook to make the statement that the census of 1891 was dishonestly taken and stuffed with names of numerous persons who were not in the country. I think that the hon. minister has not at his command at present sufficient evidence to warrant him in making such a. statement. Apart from the fact that it would seem very improper to make a statement of that kind which involves the accuracy and honesty of most of the enumerators employed in 1891, I would be inclined to think that the hon. minister did not have at his command such evidence as would justify him in making that statement. He must rely upon evidence to make it and upon what evidence ? He simply says that certain statements are made to Mm by some individuals whom he has employed to revise the facts connected with the census of 1891. What reason has the hon. gentleman to attach more value or more importance to the statements given to him by the persons whom he has employed to revise the census of 1891 than he had to attach value to the figures givem by the enumerators at that time? Is it a certainty that all the enumerators employed by the commissioner, or the chief census officer who took the census in 1891, would be dishonest and that all the persons from whom the Hon. Mr. FISHER.
hon. minister obtained that information in the course of tMs present year would be absolutely honest ? It seems to me that there is no good ground advanced here to warrant the statement that has been made. Now, if it were true that sufficient evidence had been advanced to prove that the census of 1891, was a dishonest census, I think, unquestionably, the hon. minister would have proved the fact that a great wrong had been done to the country which had been deceived by a census which was dishonestly taken, and I would suppose in that case that the hon. minister would consider his duty not done until he had proceeded to punish, by reason of the power which the law gives him to punish the dishonesty in men who are employed by the country to do this work, any persons guilty of wrongdoing. If it be the truth that in the province of Quebec, in 21 counties, the enumerators, who must hiave been nearly all of the Roman Catholic faith, because we are told that the population was nearly all Roman Catholic-If it be the truth that in 21 counties of that province in 1891 the enumerators with one accord violated their oath and made false returns, I do not think the bon. minister will do himself justice until he proceeds to establish that fact by prosecuting these individuals in the courts. I do not see haw he can stop short of that. I think he should have bad that end iu view before he made the statement in public which he has made. I am sure that so far as a large part of the population of Canada is concerned, they will n*ever accept the statement made by the minister, or by the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Hon. Sir Richard Cartwright) for that matter, that they will not regard it as being of much weight, or as having been fully considered if the hon. minister do not proceed to vindicate the rights of the country and to punish these men who have done wrong, if they have done wrong. I would call attention to the fact that there cannot be much confidence attached to the investigation said to have been made by the hon. Minister of Agriculture. It is entirely ex parte and there is the further fact that what has always been looked upon as a binding rule in connection with the census has been clearly violated. The schedules of the census communicated to the enumerators and the officials of the country by the people under the seal of confidence, which is absolutely necessary m order to secure correct returns from the people who will not reveal their private affairs to any officials of the country unless they are satisfied that it is done in confidence, have been handed over to persons who apparently were not sworn to do exactly what was right and to act justly, or to maintain that secrecy which is necessary in order to secure the confidence of the people in that investigation. Why should the hon. minister assume. as he does assume, that all the officers'whom he has employed to make this in-

vestigation are absolutl.v correct, are absolutely honest, and that all the persons who were employed in 1891, under the chief census officer of that day, were absolutely dishonest ? Why should he ask this country and ask this committee to accept a statement prepared ten years after the facts, an ex parte statement, prepared by men not under oath and to believe that it should be more correct than a statement prepared in the regular official manner by the sworn enumerators and which was checked over by the chief census officers ? Why should the hon. minister, himself, believe such an absurd thing, and if he does believe it, why should lie ask the committee and the [DOT]country to believe such an obviously absurd story ? I think there could not be a more gross wrong done to these enumerators than to make this charge against them and then to leave It hanging in the position in which it now is. I believe it is due to these gentlemen that they should have this investigation now carried out to completion, that they should have it carried on carefully before a judge, or before an independent man, one who can command the confidence of both parties in the country, that all questions asked and all answers given should toe under oath and that such evidence should be adduced for the Use of the country as would command the confidence of every man in it.
It is well known to the Minister of Agriculture that the census of 1881 was supposed to be in excess of the actual facts, not on account of any intentional wrong doing, but because under the system whicli had been adopted, a great number of names of persons had been taken who were out of the country for more than one year, and in some cases for more than twenty years. It must be in the knowledge of the minister, that when the census of 1891 was taken, a new regulation was introduced in order to guard against that, and so far as the government of the day was concerned and so far as the officer who had charge of that census was concerned, they laid down a new proposition by which it was intended to avoid that error and to reduce the figures so that they would be more nearly accurate than the census of 1881. The result was what might have been expected ; that instead of the figures of 1891 showing such an increase over those of 1881 as might have been expected, the figures of 1891 were disappointing. Of course under the new rule a great many more names were excluded from the census of 1891 than in 1881, and the census of 1891 was more nearly correct. In the case of the census of 1901, simply because the growth of the country is less than these hon. gentlemen opposite expected, they proceeded without the authority of parliament, and in order as they alleged to vindicate the correctness of the census whicli they are now in process of making : they proceeded not to inquire into the correctness of the figures taken by their own officers-which they could have verified to a large extent because the circumstances are all fresh and the officers are living-but they proceeded to investigate the correctness of the census of 1891, relying upon the memory of persons as to facts eleven years old in order to test the correctness of the census made now. That is a most extraordinary course to pursue. The natural course would have been to have checked over the present census, or if they desired it to have checked both census. I am satisfied that no body of people in this country will accept the figures that have been given under such circumstances, as having the slightest value. I believe that the investigation should be continued, and that not only the census of 1891 but the census of 1901 should be investigated with all the solemnity of a court in a trial before a judge, and that we should in that way arrive at a nearly correct knowledge of the exact population of our country. That is a basic fact, and it is of the utmost importance that succeeding governments should know precisely the number of the people in Canada so as to mark the progress of the country. There are one of two circumstances toy which we can measure to some extent the character of the census of 1901. About the month of August, 1891, the chief census officer issued a statement of the population of Canada which agreed with the finally corrected statement as closely as one-quarter of one per cent ; an error only of some 2,000 persons. In the case of the census of 1901. in the month of January a statement was issued that the final determination of the figures was 5.369,666. but since that there has been another change made. It will be noticed that the census of 1891 was practically accurately and finally determined in four months after the census was taken, but in the census of 1901, ten months after it was taken and when we get the final result, we see that the first estimate shows an error about ten times as great as that which was made by the gentlemen who took the census of 1891, and the result of which was announced four months afterwards. This is a fact which is clear to us all, and it goes to show that there was more ability, and more care, and more thoroughness, and much more expedition shown in taking the census of 1891 than in taking the census of 1901. For that reason a great many persons in this country will continue to prefer to believe that the census of 1891 was a better census, cost less money, and was more quickly completed than the census of 1901. I do not suggest criminal wrong doing in connection with the census of 1901. but there are some circumstances in connection with that census which inspire a want of confidence in the people, and which were absent from the census of 1891. In the province of Nova Scotia there is, according to the census of 1901. but a very slight increase in the population. We find that increase entirely among the people of the

410S
French race in that province. If you take out of the census returns the increase shown in the few limited localities where people of the French race are to be found in Nova Scotia, you actually show a decrease in all the rest of the province. Now, to say the least, that is a highly improbable circumstance. It seems to me that in order to give the people of Canada confidence in the result of our census, it is not sufficient for the minister to make this partial, incomplete. and unsatisfactory investigation into the figures of 1891. but he should go on to make an absolutely thorough and exhaustive examination-not an expensive one-into the returns from some parts of the Dominion which will enable us to satisfactorily determine the result of the census of 1901, and which of course can be done much more thoroughly and much more satisfactorily than any inquiry into the census of 1891, which is now eleven years old. It has been suggested by the minister that there was a motive in 1891. I will not refer to the absurd suggestion made by the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir Richard Cartwright) as to the reasons why all these enumerators in 1891 proceeded to make themselves criminals. But I shall refer to one reason given to-night by the Minister of Agriculture. He suggested that the enumerators in 1891 swelled the figures because they were paid for each name. But the minister must know that if that had any effect in 1891 it would have a hundred fold more effect in 1901. because he raised the price paid per name. Instead of paying 3 cents per name, as was done in 1891. the minister paid 5 cents per name in 1901. The minister must see that if 3 cents per name would increase the number unduly in 1891, the payment of 5 cents per name in 1901 would necessarily aggravate the error, if the error arose from that circumstance. I do not believe we have any reason whatever to conclude that men who are taken at random, selected by the different members of parliament to act as enumerators, could be found by a government that is bad enough to look for such characters, in such numbers as would be required to make all the enumerators of the Dominion of Canada absolute criminals and willing to obey the hint or nod of any government that is bad enough to require them to falsify the figures that they put down on their schedules. I would be sorry to think that it were possible that any one could believe that it is within the bounds of possibility that any government could, through the chief census commissioner, summon to its aid and service, thousands of formerly reputable men : men for the most part respected by their neighbours, who were willing to deliberately break an oath solemnly taken, and to repeat an act of perjury or falsification 500 times over; and to do that for what reason ? Simply because a political enemy suggests that the government of that day had a motive in securing a dishonest and impro-Mr. BELL.
per return from these enumerators. I think it is a terrible charge made against the people of Canada to insinuate that there is such a class of people among us, and that they are deliberately suggested by the representatives of the* people of Canada who sit in parliament, when those representatives are asked by the government to supply them with trusty men to take an honest census of the people. It is a most improper suggestion, and if it has been sincerely made by the minister, I think he owes it to himself, to his character and reputation in the country, to every enumerator, and to the chief census officials-because they are all involved-to give them an opportunity to disprove the charge, and to show that they have acted as honest men and worthy citizens. And I would suggest-and I hope the government will accept the suggestion-that having gone as far as they have gone to raise this question and to make this charge, through the mouths of two ministers, and I dare say a third-because the Minister of Finance seems to concur in the idea that the census of 3891 was exaggerated-having made this charge against an important section of the people of Canada, they owe it to their own reputations and to the men assailed to carry that investigation to the point of enabling any fair-minded man to determine whether there is anything beneath the charge or not.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: I am glad in one way to have the endorsement of the hon. gentleman who has just sat down, of my course. He says I ought to have begun by investigating the accuracy of the census of 1901. That is exactly what I did, and what has led to all this discovery in regard to the census of 1891. The apparent anomaly which we discovered, that a large number of the rural districts of Canada had decreased in population between 1891 and 1901 according to the census returns of those years, led us to check our own returns of 1901 with the different parochial returns of the province of Quebec for 1901, and we found that they corresponded in a marked degree. We therefore believed that our census returns were correct. We then made a comparison of the parochial returns of 1891 with the census returns of 1891, and found such discrepancies that we had to believe that either the parochial returns of 1891 or the census of 1891 were inaccurate.


John William Bell: But the hon. minister did not proceed to do that in such a way as to divest the investigation entirely of partisan or government manipulation. It was done secretly. Would it not have been better to have put this investigation into the hands of a commission or a judge, so that the result would compel the acceptance of every one ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: The returns were taken as a purely departmental work. It was not done, as hon. gentlemen opposite seem to think it should have been done, by a special vote of parliament, outside of the census of 1901. It was done with the money voted for the work of the census, for the purpose of checking our returns and ascertaining whether they were correct or not. But we had to go the length we did go before we could prove it to a demonstration, and we believe that in the results which were found, which we were asked to lay on the Table, and which we have laid on the Table, it has been proved to a demonstration. Unfortunately this was not the first expose of the census of 1891. The hon. gentleman will remember that the hon. Minister of Militia of to-day, in 1894, brought up in this House the results of the census of 1891 in his county, the county of King's, N.S., and he proved conclusively at that time, by the list of names he was able to give, that the census of 1891 had been unduly swelled in that county.


John William Bell: In the case of one enumerator.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: And he offered to go on and show that the same was the case generally in the county; but the hon. gentleman's own friends, sitting at that time on this side of the House, shut off the inquiry, and refused to give the information by .which he Could have shown it, because they knew perfectly well that if my hon. friend had been allowed to go on, he would have beeu able to show that it was general in his county.


John William Bell: I do not agree jvith that.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: The hon. gentleman may not agree with the motive, but if he goes back to ' Hansard ' and other records of that day, he will find that the facts were as I have stated ; and the Minister of Militia, who is here, can corroborate me in that regard.


The MINISTER OF MILITIA AND DEFENCE.: Hear, hear.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: The hon. gentleman says I ought to prosecute the men who did that work. I would ask him what his own friends did in the county of King's ?


John William Bell: They proceeded to prosecute the enumerator, and he left the country.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: I am credibly informed that he did "not leave the country, but that two weeks later he was in an adjoining county.


John William Bell: That may be, but he left his own home.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: He left his own home and went into an adjoining county, where my hon. friend's friends did not make any effort to find him or prosecute him.
The MINISTER OF MILITIA AND
DEFENCE. If I may be allowed to interrupt for a moment, I may say that the enumerator in question had moved from my county to Amherst before the matter was brought up here at all, and he has never left Amherst from that day to this.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: It is even worse than I thought it was. The hon. gentleman's friends did not take much trouble to find him. They did not take the advice the hon. gentleman is now giving me, and prosecute this man, when they had the proof of what he had done.


John William Bell: He can be got at yet.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: It is possible he can be, and I am not prepared to say that no step shall be taken against the gentleman who did this work. That is a question that has not been reached yet. I may say frankly that I do not think the end of this investigation is by any means reached yet. I am not prepared to make a statement to-night, but it is quite possible that this matter is of such importance that further steps may be taken, either in the courts or otherwise. But I want to point out the injustice of the hon. gentleman in taking me so severely to task for not prosecuting these men when his own friends did not attempt to prosecute this one enumerator who was within their reach, and has been for eleven years, and could have been prosecuted during all that time.
I think the hon. gentleman is a little unjust in allowing his bias to give one law for me and another for his own political friends and leader at that time. I do not wish to blame the hon. gentleman; but I think that under the circumstances he is taking a position which is hardly justified and which does not become him. As far as the investigation is concerned. I have pointed out that I did undertake to investigate the census of 1901, for which I was responsible, and in the province of Quebec, where the parochial returns were obtainable, the comparison showed, as far as it went, that the census of 1901 was accurate; and in going further with that same investigation. I found that a comparison of the parochial returns with the census of 1S91 showed that the census of 1891 was inaccurate.
I went further to find out the details and got those details-name after name, family after family, given in full and laid upon the Table of the House weeks ago. It is not a matter of making general statements, but a statement based on particular facts, which leaves no room for doubt. It may be necessary to have an investigation under oath, but that would be long, elaborate and expensive. Personally I would be glad to have such an investigation because I am

satisfied it would show clearly and distinctly that the census of 1901 was well taken and that the census of 1891 was unduly swelled in the way I have pointed out. That would be an endorsation of the work done by my department, but whether it would be worth while incurring the expenditure and taking the time, I am not prepared to say just now.


Mr. GANONG.: How is the census of the manufacturing establishments taken ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: The larger manufacturing centres were taken by special enumerators and the other places were taken by the ordinary enumerators.


Gilbert White Ganong: Were the enumerators who took the manufactures appointed on the same principle as the general enumerators-on the recommendation of the defeated candidate or local member.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: They were recommended In the same way as the others.


Gilbert White Ganong: No special qualification required ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: It was understood what they were needed for.


Gilbert White Ganong: What about the question of the fisheries ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: The fisheries were taken, as a general rule, by officers of the department of Marine and Fisheries.


Gilbert White Ganong: Who took the census of the fisheries in the county of Charlotte ?


Mr. PRINGLE.: What amount was paid Mr. E. O. Callaghan, who makes a report with reference to the town and township of Cornwall ? I find here a report from him dated January 24th, which does not seem to convey much information to the Minister of Agriculture. Mr. Callaghan finds that a number of McPhails and McDonalds have been duplicated. I would call the ministers attention to the fact that in the township of Cornwall, which is settled largely by Scotchmen, there is a number of McPhails and McDonalds who have the same names, and it is quite possible that the enumerators in 1891 have got them quite correct. There is quite a reflection cast in this report on the enumerators of 1891.
I may say that I am familiar with the names of these enumerators. They are all men of good standing in the electoral district of Cornwall and Stormont, who, I am quite satisfied, would not duplicate names. This report, to my mind, is very indefinite. Mr. Callaghan winds up by saying that the list which is appended to his report shows that there were at least 150 persons whose names were duplicated by the enumerators of the district. It seems to me' Hon. Mr. FISHER.
that these names have not been duplicated. There are many McDonalds of the same name and many McPhails and many Lapointes of the same name. I would like to know what has been paid Mr. Callaghan for this very indefinite report. I am quite satisfied that the enumerators in 1891 did their duty correctly and that there have been no errors in the census taken by them.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: If the hon. gentleman will read the report carefully he will find that Mr. Callaghan refers to that very fact. He says that there were a great many people of the same name, but he took particular pains to put in that list of 150 names those he knew perfectly well were duplicated.


Robert Abercrombie Pringle: I think the hon. gentleman is wrong in his construction of that report. That is not what Mr. Callaghan says, what he says is this : ' I do not therefore pretend that my inquiry has been full or exhaustive.' Then he goes on to point out the great difficulties in coming to any conclusion as regards the town and township of Cornwall, owing to the fact that there ai-e many McDonalds and McPhails and many of the other names mentioned in the list. I wish to ascertain the remuneration paid Mr. Callaghan as comrnis-ioner for this report.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: His account has not been sent in yet and nothing has been paid him. I may inform the hon. member for' Charlotte that Mr. Patrick McLaughlin of St. John took the fishery enumeration in Charlotte county.


Gilbert White Ganong: On whose recommendation was Mr. McLaughlin appointed ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: I think the gentleman who opposed the hon. member in the last election.


Gilbert White Ganong: What pay did he receive ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: 


Gilbert White Ganong: That account just covers one fishery district I believe ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: Yes.


Gilbert White Ganong: Have the returns been published ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: No, they are in but have not yet been tabulated.


Gilbert White Ganong: This is just an illustration of what I said the other night. We could have furnished the minister down there with all the Reformers he needed to take the census in New Brunswick, and in the selection of this gentleman I must say that, of all the Reformers in the county, he was the least fitted for the work. We have in that county one of the most. important

fisli industries in the maritime provinces, and why the minister did not send a man qualified for that position to take the fishery census is what I cannot understand. This man at one time drove a mail and I know not what else he has done. There is not a man less qualified than he to take the fishery census in that county. The minister had good officers there, men who had been fishery overseers, who could tell pretty well whether the fishermen were giving correct statements or not. Why were none of these appointed. But instead we had a man appointed who formerly drove a mail to take the census of the most important industry in Charlotte. I certainly think that if you get the report from the gentleman and compare it with this blue book you issue here, you will find that you have made a mistake in his appointment. I have consulted several gentlemen in the fishery business and it has been a perfect marvel to them that any such appointment should have been allowed to have been made by the department. In fact, I think that the information he would get from some of those engaged in the business would be very meagre. One gentleman said he did not propose to tell his business to an old woman who would report it all over the county. That is the opinion that the fishermen generally have of the census commissioner in that county. If the census of the fisheries business for the Dominion generally is taken like that in this county I think it will show very poor results for the business.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: Of course I do not know the gentleman personally, nor what his qualifications are. He was recommended as qualified for the position, and I aim informed by my officer that the returns he sent in are in good order, 'and look as if the work had been carefully and accurately done. Until the results can be tabulated and checked over, we cannot tell much more about the matter. I did not know whether he was a farmer or a [DOT]mail driver. But I can understand that a man who carries the mail through the *county would be pretty well acquainted With the people and with the business that 'is being carried on

' Mr. GANONG. He does not drive the mail over the fishing waters.


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: 'No, but he drives along the highway where the people live who carry on the fisheries. As I say, I do not know the gentleman or his qualifications.


Mr. BOYD.: I would like to ask the minister if it is his intention to stop when this item is passed ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: No. But there is an item for the census in the supplementary estimates, and on the discussion oiSthat item any of these questions can be taken up and any information
that is desiied given. But, as this item is the last one that I have in the main estimates, I think it should be passed to-niight.


Nathaniel Boyd: I have taken very little part in "the debate, but 1 have listened attentively to what has been said by others. I must say that, regarding it with as little bias as possible, it looks as if this census business was to a great extent being made the ground of party conflict in this country. I heard the discussion in this House about the census of 1891. The debate was carried on at great length. And, as I say, the same accusations that are heard upon this side of the House were made by bon. gentlemen opposite who were then in opposition. But the importance of the question involved in this census can hardly be exaggerated. It has been shown that the present census will cost more than twice as much as did the census of 1891, and counties have been named in which, although there are fewer people than there were ten years ago, the cost of taking the census is double what it was then. Observing the minister as he made his explanations, I feel sure that he was not able to explain to his own satisfaction. For, whatever opinion I may have of the hon. gentleman politically, I believe lie does like to be able to explain things to his own satisfaction. In fact, I never knew a mau to take greater delight in explanation than the hon. minister does. But he has not been able to please himself, I am sure, with his explanation of the enormous expense that has been incurred in the present census. As regards the county of Lisgar, which has been a good deal discussed, the information I gave was from men who saw the cheques in that county, cheques which were issued to straighten up the accounts of men who bad not, up to that time, been able to get their accounts settled, but who had no difficulty in doing so in the warfare that went on there in the by-election. I did not see these cheques myself, I would be very much surprised to find that the hon. minister would lend himself to such dealings as was indicated by my informants. But at the same time, I do not know how to disbelieve or disregard the facts that were given to me. This item has; been a good deal discussed, and, if bon. gentlemen on this side are satisfied to let it go, provided that there is another item on which we can get any further explanation that may be desired, I, for my part, would be willing to have it pass. The right hon. premier, who was peacefully slumbering a short time ago, has wakened up. And, as he is to represent us soon upon a very important occasion, and as we desire that he should leave here in perfect health, I should be glad not to have him detained here very much longer. If the right bon. gentleman [DOT]promises to ad.iourn the House after the [DOT]passing of this item, I, for my part-though *of course, I do not speak with any authority -would be disposed to consent to its passing.


Robert Abercrombie Pringle: This report has only 'been placed in my hands this moment. But, having glanced at it, I must say I find it *somewhat surprising and would like to ask one or two questions in connection with it. 1 do not wish to cast any reflection on the commissioner, Mr. O'Callaghan. That gentleman, I believe, attended the convention at which I was nominated, and he was then seeking the Conservative nomination, but is now, I believe, a very active Liberal in the local contest. I do not know exactly why be should have been converted so suddenly. But he has a perfect right to change his politics, if he so desires. But he says in this report:
There were hundreds oi persons employed at the time on the canal work who lived in temporary hoarding houses along the canal, of whom there is no record except the pay sheets of the contractor and the schedules of the census.
Then he winds up his report by saying be thinks there have been some 150 duplicated. He casts reflections upon men who stand very high in the electoral districts of Cornwall and Stormont, and I cannot allow this report to pass without saying a word. The men who were enumerators in the township of Cornwall stand very high in that township. I do not know what their polities are. Bbt when he mentions men in the township of Cornwall like Mr. T. J. McDonald and Mr. McLaughlin, and men in the town of Cornwall like Mr. Broderick, Mr. Shaver and Mr. Buteau ; and men in the township of Pinch like Mr. McNaugta-ton and Mr. Wood, I would be recreant in my duty if I allowed to pass without protest a report casting reflections upon gentlemen who stand so high in that community. Mr. Callaghan, I must say, is very indefinite in this report. He says he thinks there are about 150 persons whose names were duplicated by the enumerators ; but he admits in another clause of the report that it was utterly impossible for him to say whether these enumerators were right or wrong, as a large number of these people have left the locality since 1891 who had been employed in connection with public works, or on the Cornwall canal. I would like to ask the minister upon whose recommendation Mr. Callaghan was employed. Was it upon the recommendation of Mr. Mulhern, the Liberal candidate at the last election ?


The MINISTER OP AGRICULTURE.: I think Mr. Callaghan was recommended by Mr. .T. F. Mulhern. I would like to say in regard to that report-which I would like the hon. gentleman to send over to me if he would-that the two parts of the report which he says are conflicting, to my mind do not conflict at all. Mr. Callaghan says distinctly there was a large number of people on the lists who were probably canal employees and who passed away ; but there is nothing in his report to indicate that any Mr. BOYD.
of the 150 names which he mentions as being duplicated were of that class. Mr. Callaghan declares distinctly that these 150 were people about whom he knows, and were not of the class which he refers to in the other part of the report as people about whom he could not say anything. So I think that what the hon. gentleman calls an inconsistency in his report is on the contrary a confirmation of the report, and shows that what Mr. Callaghan does state he states it with positive knowledge. In the other part of the report he acknowledges there were many people there besides these 150 about whom he could not give information. He says the list which is appended shows there were at least 150 persons whose names were duplicated by the enumerators of the district, and at least ten others were recorded who were domiciled elsewhere, who were not in the place when the census was taken.


Robert Abercrombie Pringle: If the hon. gentleman will look through the list of names there he will find McPhails and McDonalds. We have any number of McPhails and McDonalds, not only in the town of Cornwall, but in the township of Cornwall.


Edward Hackett: I fully endorse the remarks made by the hon. member for Cornwall (Mr. Pringle) that the minister is endeavouring in every, possible way to satisfy the committee with regard to bis estimates. I believe he is perfectly conscientious in what he is saying to us. I would like to ask the minister -who was appointed for taking the fishery census for Prinefe county, Prince Edward Island ?


The MINISTER OP AGRICULTURE. .: Tohn Davidson, of Bedeque.


Edward Hackett: What was his salary and travelling expenses ?


The MINISTER OP AGRICULTURE.: He was paid on the whole $184.25. I have not a statement of how much his travelling expenses were. Pie was paid at the rate of $3 a day for the time he worked.


George Taylor: And $1.50 for horse hire ?


The MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE.: For all expenses, provided they showed vouchers for the accounts.


Edward Hackett: Mr. Davidson is a very competent man, I think he is all right, but lie is a fishery officer.


The MINISTER OP AGRICULTURE.: I think all the men who took the census in Prince Edward Island were fishery officers except one.
Geological Survey, $64,430.


John William Bell: Might I ask who is the head of this department now ?


The MINISTER OP THE INTERIOR (Hon. Clifford Sifton).: There has been no

permanent director appointed yet. Dr. Bell, as senior officer of the survey, is the acting director.


John William Bell: Is there any prospect of an appointment at an early date ?


The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR.: I think the appointment will be made in a few months.
Dominion lands-chargeable to income, $157,-5$2.


Nathaniel Boyd: Will there be some supplementary estimates in regard to Dominion lands ?


The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR.: I will have a vote on which my hon. friend (Mr. Boyd) may speak if he wishes.
Superintendence of insurance-to meet expenses in connection with this service, $11,500.


The MINISTER OF FINANCE.: This is an item which properly speaking is not a charge against the Dominion treasury as it is recouped to us by the insurance companies. There is a readjustment of salaries and statutory increases in two or three cases so that there is nothing special about it.
Maintenance of assay office at Vancouver, $16,000.


Mr. EARLE.: Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the hon. Minister of the Interior (Mr. Sifton) if it is his intention to establish an assay office at Dawson ?


The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR.: We have no positive intention in regard to that, but I may say to my hon. friend that the question of establishing an assay office at Dawson would depend largely on the time that the mint gets into operation so that we could buy the gold ourselves. I am under the impression that as soon as the mint is in working order we will probably require an assay office at Dawson, although I cannot speak positively about it as yet.


Thomas Earle: It has been the opinions of the trade, and of merchants generally, both on the coast and in Dawson, that the establishment of an assay office there would be more beneficial to them than an assay oflite at Vancouver. It appears that they are obliged in trade to take gold at a valuation something in excess of what it is really worth, and there is great difficulty in establishing the value of it, because it cannot be ascertained in Dawson. It has been and is the occasion of a very considerable loss to the traders there. They are at present taking gold dust at the value of $16 per ounce, and they find that when sent to the coast it does not realize more than $15 an ounce, and they have been memorializing the department to the effect that the establishment of an assay office at Dawson would enable them to handle the gold at its actual value. The banks could purchase it, or traders might remit the gold bars instead of
remitting the dust, and they would be able to ascertain the actual value on the spot.
I noticed in the press only a short time ago that the traders of Dawson have recommended very strongly that an assay office should be established there, and established at as early a date as possible ?


The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR.: I may say to my hon. friend (Mr. Earle) that my information is much to the same effect as his own. The probability is that 'the miners are not receiving altogether full value for the gold. They propose, and I think in many ways it would be desirable, to establish an assay office there. I have discussed the matter very fully with Mr. Ross, the commissioner of the Yukon, who has been here for some time, and all I can say to my hon. friend is that the whole subject will receive very full and careful consideration.
Maintenance, construction, of roads, bridges and other necessary works in connection with the Hot Spring Reservation near Banff station, N.W.T., $19,420.


Edward Hackett: What is the meaning of that item ?


The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR.: This is a general vote for the maintenance of the national park at Banff. It provides for taking care of the buildings, the museum, and the construction of roads which goes on to some extent all the time under the supervision of the superintendent. There is an increase of $5,000 this year which is to provide for the erection of a new building for the museum. The museum at present is very small and it is absolutely necessary to have a little more accommodation. The museum is one of the things that attracts the attention of visitors.


Edward Hackett: Has the park been increased in size ?
The MINISTER OB' THE INTERIOR. Yes, the Bill for the increase of the size of tlie park received its third reading a couple of days ago. T.he park will now be about 5,000 square miles in extent.


Edward Hackett: Are there many visitors in the summer season ?


Thomas Earle: The number of visitors is so great that the Canadian Pacific Railway are enlarging their hotel by the addition of several hundred rooms in order to be able to accommodate them.


The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR.: The number has very largely increased; in fact, the number was so great that during the last couple of months of the season the Canadian Pacific Railway had to send word ahead that visitors could not stop there because they had not any accommodation. As my hon. friend says, they intend to very largely increase the accommodation. It will be a matter of gratification to the House to know that the expenditure upon

this work has not been without effect in attracting visitors and has caused it to become very much more popular as a resort.


Edward Hackett: That is very satisfactory, and I am glad to hear it, because in the east a great many people say that this park is simply a pleasure ground for some of the government members. I am very pleased to hear that it is visited by a large number of people and that it is going to be a great success.


The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR.: The park is becoming a place of very general resort for visitors who take the transcontinental trip. My recollection is that when I was there in December I w-as told that the visitors for the year numbered something over 13,000. That is a very large number, and they generally remain a considerable length of time. "
Department of the Interior-Cost of litigation, $1,000.


George Taylor: When the Liberals were in opposition they charged the Conservatives with wasting this money and not employing the Solicitor General to do the work. Now we have a Solicitor General and a Minister of Justice, and the Liberals are not doing what they promised.


The MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR.: This is not much.
Department of Labour, $34,900.


George Taylor: Will there be an item for this in the supplementaries, or the further supplementaries, or the further further supplementaries, because if not I will ask it to stand.
The MINISTER uF FINANCE. I think there will. At all events, I will give my hon. friend a guarantee that he will have an opportunity of raising the question.
Printing Bureau-Plant, 5 Linotyoe machines, $15,000


George Taylor: With this new machinery will the Printing Bureau be able to do all our printing. Large sums have been paid to outside newspapers and others to do the printing, and even some of the departmental reports have been printed in that way. Surely the Printing Bureau ought to be able to do ail the printing of the government without employing the Montreal 'Herald ' and other newspapers.


The MINISTER OF FINANCE.: I do not know that I can guarantee what my hon. friend desires, but with this additional equipment we certainly can do more and there will be less occasion to go outside.
Cost of arbitration respecting the accounts between the Dominion of Canada and the provinces of Ontario and Quebec (payments on account of services rendered may bo made to members of the Civil Service, notwithstanding anything in the Civil Service Act), $3,000.


George Taylor: Is this arbitration going to sit for ever ?


Hon. Mr. SIFTON.: 


The MINISTER OF FINANCE.: I do not wonder that my hon. friend asks that because it has sat for several years longer than I imagined. We are doing everything possible to have it closed up, and I think it possible that at no distant date we will succeed.


George Taylor: Has any return been made of tbeir work ?


Tbe MINISTER OF FINANCE.: A statement is made every year as to how the matter stands.


John William Bell: How often do the arbitrators meet ?


The MINISTER OF FINANCE.: They are judges in the different provinces and they cannot meet always at our convenience. We have to consult their convenience and also the convenience of the provinces, all of which means slow progress. We have so little now to take up in the main estimates that -we might finish them to-night. The Minister of Trade and Commerce Is not present, but these estimates are not in any case increased, and that being the case, we might pass them, and there will be in tbe supplementaries some items relating to that department, so that if there is anything that requires notice hon. gentlemen will have an opportunity of bringing it up.


George Taylor: The leader of the opposition may have something to say on some of these mail subsidy items, and we will call them carried if a promise is made that they can be discussed later on.


The MINISTER OF FINANCE.: AVe will afford every opportunity for discussion at another stage.


George Taylor: Is there anything in these estimates for the fast line V


The MINISTER OF FINANCE.: Not at present. That will come in the further further supplementary estimates that my hon. friend has spoken of.
Some resolutions reported.


ADJOURNMENT-INQUIRY FOR RETURN.
[Stage Direction]
The PRIME MINISTER (Rt. Hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier) moved the adjournment of the House.
George Taylor: The leader of the opposition (Mr. Borden, Halifax), who has been called away, requested me to ask when the return respecting passes on the Intercolonial Railway, the motion for which was passed in this House on the 6th March last, will be brought down.


The PRIME MINISTER.: I will inquire about It.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to. and House adjourned
at 11.25 p.m.
[Stage Direction]

Monday, May 5, 1902.