1904-04-27

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Bill (No. S4) for the relief of Robert James McDuff Roger.-Mr. Grant.
Bill (No. 85) to incorporate the Alberta Railway and Irrigation Company, and to amalgamate therewith the Alberta Railway and Coal Company, the Canadian Northwest Irrigation Company and the St. Mary's River Railway Company.-Mr. Oliver.

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Mr. ROBERT BICKERDIKE (Montreal, St. Lawrence) moved for leave to introduce Bill (No. 86) to amend the Criminal Code of 1892 respecting the punishment of fraudulent debtors. He said : This Bill was introduced in the Senate and passed that House last session, but never reached this House. It provides for the keeping of books by traders who do business on credit. It will compel a trader doing business and buying-goods on credit to the extent of $1,000 to keep books. A law of this kind exists in several countries, particularly in France and Scotland. A trader who buys on credit, if

unable to pay, should be able to show what has become of the goods which he purchased. If you do not compel him to do this, you leave the door open to a great deal of fraud.
I am introducing this measure at the request of the Chambre de Commerce of Montreal, backed up by nearly all the boards of trade in the Dominion.
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first time.


Mr. HACKETT asked :: 1.	How many claims were presented to the government by shippers ol fresh fish and other perishable goods, for compensation because of loss sustained through the irregular crossing of the winter steamers between Prince Edward Island and the mainland, in the spring of 1903 ?
2.	What are the names of the claimants ?
3.	What is the amount claimed by each ?
4.	What was the amount allowed to each ?
5.	Have the claims been paid ? And if not, why not ?


Hon. RAYMOND PREFONTAINE (Minister of Marine and Fisheries).: If the hon. gentleman would ask for a return, that would be more satisfactory to himself and the House. The correspondence is rather voluminous. An investigation was held, and there are many documents to file. There will be no delay whatever in getting the information.


SABLE ISLAND, TREE PLANTATION.
Mr. KAULBACH asked :: 1.	Did the government last year or the year previous, cause a quantity of trees and shrubs to be planted on Sable Island ?
2.	If so, how many w^re planted ?
3.	What varieties did they consist of ?
4.	Has the government any recent report of the success of the tree-planting experiments on Sable Island ?


Hon. RAYMOND PREFONTAINE (Minister of Marine and Fisheries) :: 1.	Yes. In May, 1901, trees were planted.
2.	Edghty-two thousand.
3.	The departmental report of 1901, page 26, contains the names of the varieties.
4.	The last report received for the year 1903 from the superintendent of Sable Island, R. J. Boutilier, is not encouraging. The weather for the last two seasons has had a bad effect upon the young trees. The annual reports of the Department of Marine and Fisheries for the years 1901 and 1902 contain information on the subject.


FISHING RIGHTS IN HUDSON BAY.
Mr. SPROULE asked :: 1.	Have fishing rights in Hudson's Bay, or waters adjacent thereto, been granted this year to the British American Fish Company, or other parties ? If so, to whom ?
2.	What are the waters covered by the concession ?
3.	What is the annual rental to be paid ?
4.	What is the duration of the lease ?
5.	Were tenders invited for the fishing privileges covered by the lease in question ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I would like my hon. friend to move for a return. The answer to the question would involve reading all the documents connected with those licenses, which are very voluminous. There is no objection to filing the document as soon as the motion is passed.


CANADA AND MEXICO STEAMSHIP SERVICE.
Mr. R. L. BORDEN asked :: 1.	Has the government under consideration a proposal for the inauguration of a direct steamship service between Canada and Mexico .
2.	Has the government reached any conclusion on the subject, and does it expect to announce any policy during the present session ?
3.	From what Canadian ports will the proposed service be available ?
4.	When is it expected that the proposed service will begin ?


Right Hon.   S@: Yes, the government has under consideration a proposal for the inauguration of a direct steamship service between Canada and Mexico. The government has reached the conclusion that such a service would be eminently useful if possible to obtain it on fair terms. The details are not yet settled. We expect a representative from the government of Mexico this session and then will make an announcement to the House.


FISHING BOUNTIES.
Mr. R. L. BORDEN asked :: 1.	Have the cheques for fishing bounties been delivered to the persons entitled thereto in respect to the past year ?
2.	If not, how many still remain undelivered ?
3.	What is the cause of the delay ?
4.	Is the government aware that the delay in the delivery of the cheques has,caused a great deal of inconvenience in certain districts in the maritime provinces ?


Hon. RAYMOND PREFONTAINE (Minister of Marine and Fisheries).: 1.	A portion has not yet been sent out for distribution.
2.	Those for the counties of Yarmouth. Inverness and King's, in the province of Nova Scotia ; Prince county, Prince Edward island ; the Magdalen Islands and part of the county of Saguenay, P. Q.
3.	When the work was at a stage to permit of proceeding with distribution, the department was without any room accommodation for the large extra staff required, and was waiting from day to day for the rooms to be vacated by the Department of the Northwest Mounted Police.
4.	No.



RAILWAY CONNECTION AT BROCK-YILLE.

Mr. GEORGE TAYLOR (South Leeds).: Before the Orders of the Day are called, I would like to inquire from the hon. Minister of Railways and Canals and the hon. Postmaster General, what action they have taken to have better connection between the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Grand Trunk Railway at Brockville ? I brought this matter to the attention of the House a week ago yesterday. Neither hon. gentlemen were present, but I presume the right hon. the First Minister communicated with them. Owing to these railways not connecting at Brockville, the public is put to great inconvenience, but I do not complain of that so much as the delay in the delivery of the mails. All the mails from Toronto to Brockville gathered by the Grand Trunk Railway, arrive at Brockville a short time after the train has left for the capital. The mail bags are thrown off at Brockville a little after three o'clock in the afternoon. They remain there until the next morning and reach Ottawa between 9 and 11 o'clock in the morning, so that there is only one mail from the west. I presume that the Postmaster General has taken action in this matter in order to bring about a change in that respect. He pays the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Grand Trunk Railway for carrying mails, and I am quite certain that the people living between Toronto and Brockville are entitled to a better service than they have at present.


Right Hon.   S@: Immediately upon this matter being brought to the attention of the House by the hon. gentleman (Mr. Taylor)
I wrote to the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Grand Trunk Railway in regard to it. I understand that the Grand Trunk train referred to reaches Brockville at 2.40 in the afternoon.


George Taylor: No, that is the fast passenger train, and it does not carry mails.


Sir WILLIAM MULOCK.: The complaint referred to the 2.40 train.


George Taylor: That is the passenger train.


William Mulock: The hon. gentleman (Mr. Taylor) in his remarks stated that the mails came by that train.


George Taylor: No.


William Mulock: Well I have been misled to that extent. At all events,
I wrote to the Canadian Pacific Railway explaining the complaint of the hon. gentleman and asked them if they could not arrange to have their train for Ottawa await the arrival of the Grand Trunk train at Brockville. No answer to that communication has yet been received.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: 


Hon. H. R. EMMERSON (Minister of Railways and Canals).: I think the question has been fully answered by the hon. the Postmaster General. This question of train connections comes within the scope of the Railway Commission and their attention has been called to it. It is a matter of very serious importance to the people concerned.



NEWFOUNDLAND FISHERIES.

Mr. C. E. KAULBACH (Lunenburg).: Mr. Speaker, I desire to call attention to a matter which is of vital interest to the fishermen of the maritime provinces, more especially to the fishermen engaged in deep sea fishing, along the Newfoundland shore. I observe in this morning's ' Citizen ' an item headed :
TREATY IS SUPERSEDED Newfoundland Fish to enter United States Free of Duty.
Valuable Monopoly Granted to an American Syndicate which will be able to get Its Products Duty Free into the United States.
This, I may say, Mr. Speaker, is simply an attempt of a renewal of the former Bond-Blaine treaty that had been brought about unfortunately in the year 1890 by Mr. Bond, now Sir Robert Bond, with the Secretary of the United States. Mr. But.no. The fishermen of the maritime provinces, realizing at that time the unfortunate position in which they would be placed by this treaty, appealed to the government then in power and met with a very favourable response. The government appealed to the imperial government through the Secretary of State, and action under the Bond-Blaine treaty as proposed, was withheld. Since then, an effort has been made during the regime of the present government to resurrect this treaty and at that I time I again brought the matter up in the I House and asked the government to intercede with the imperial authorities in order to have the matter treated in the same manner as it had been previously treated. I do not know, however, what action was taken at that time, but nothing was done. We now find by this reference in this morning's ' Citizen ' that they are again endeavouring to bring this about under the Bond-Hay treaty. This has been very strongly advocated by Sir Robert Bond, the premier of Newfoundland, and it is now before the Foreign Relations Committee of Congress with the hope of 1 its being ratified. This treaty I consider is not altogether in the interests of the fishermen of Newfoundland, as was shown when the effort to secure this treaty was previously made, for the reason that if the bait of Newfoundland is to be disposed of as proposed by this treaty, the bait fish will be used up by the Americans when they should be

preserved for the fishermen of Newfoundland, in order that they may secure the fish in their own waters. When that effort was made in 1890, we appealed very strongly to have its passage annulled, because when our fishermen visited those shores they would be compelled to purchase bait from the Newfoundland fishermen and that only in limited quantities, quite insufficient in many cases to enable them to successfully prosecute their industry. We felt that under these circumstances we would be handicapped to such an extent that the fishing fleet which is the pride of the county I represent, would be practically annihilated. I would ask the government, therefore, under the circumstances to take the matter into their very serious consideration, and take such steps as will preserve to our fishermen the opportunities which they have a right to enjoy and to see to it that the interests of the fishermen of the maritime provinces are guarded, fostered and promoted. The fishermen last year were seriously handicapped owing to the want of bait fish, which were very scarce on the shore at that time, and as a result their success in fishing during the past season has not been by any means what they would have desired. Under this treaty a company is to be formed known as the Newfoundland Cold Storage Company, with a capital of one half million dollars, but it states here that that capital may be increased to something like three millions, which would, constitute- a complete monopoly. Such a company would gather up all the fish from the various fisheries which would be placed in its cold storage plant, and as a result we might be deprived entirely of any bait for the deep sea fishermen visiting the Newfoundland coast. I therefore feel that the government will see for themselves the deprivation which the fishermen of the maritime provinces will suffer if such an arrangement as proposed is carried out. It is a matter which I feel is of vital importance to the fishermen of the maritime provinces, and I would not speak so earnestly in the matter now, if I did not feel that their interests would be completely sacrificed if this treaty is ratified.


Mr. SPROULE.: Might I ask my hon. friend if he is not mistaken in speaking of the Bond-Hay treaty. I think they expect to get the concession under the Anglo-American treaty of 1818, because I know that the same question came up in Ontario. Americans claimed that under this treaty any American fisherman had the right to bring fish into the United States.


Charles Edwin Kaulbach: Under the treaty of 1818, there has been an expression of doubt as to whether American fishermen could go on that shore and fish. That question was brought up before when the treaty was referred to in 1890. Dut subsequently the matter was dropped, and I think that
is simply a reference by some American writers which has had no material effect as respects the ronritime provinces.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER (Prime Minister).: Would my hon. friend (Mr. Kaul-bach) read the despatch published in the ' Citizen ' ? I have not seen it.


Charles Edwin Kaulbach: This despatch, which is dated from Toronto, is as follows :-
Toronto, April 26.-The ' Globe ' to-day gives prominence to a letter by Norman Smith writing from St. John's, Nfld., under date of April 19, detailing the facts of the establishing of an extensive fishing industry in that island by an American syndicate, as follows :
A Bill passed last week by the legislative assembly of Newfoundland has rendered very remote the ratification of the Bond-Hay treaty. The island has long been desirous of completing a reciprocal arrangement with the United States under which Newfoundland fish should be allowed to enter free of duty in return for fishing privileges conceded to Americans on the shores of the colony. In 1890 Mr. (now Sir) Robert Bond negotiated in Washington what is known as the Bond-Blaine treaty. Canada protested against the ratification of the treaty, and had sufficient influence with the imperial government to successfully prevent its being signed, Newfoundland resented Canada's action, and in and out of season worked hard to have the embargo removed.
Last year its representations were effective, and Premier Bond immediately opened correspondence with Secretary Hay. Soon afterwards the Bond-Hay treaty, based on the Bond-Blaine agreement, was drawn up. The treaty is now before the Foreign Relations Committee of Congress, and strong hope has been expressed in the island that, despite the strenuous opposition of American fishery interests, it would be ratified.



AMERICANS GET CONCESSIONS.

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The Bill which the assembly of the colony has just passed provides for the granting of assistance to a United States company which proposes to go into the cold storage business on a large scale. The company is guaranteed for twenty years a dividend of 5 per cent per annum on a capital of half a million dollars on condition that $250,000 is spent on a cold storage plant and $200,000 expended yearly in the purchase of fish in the island for export. The company also undertakes to preserve bait in cold storage, and distribute the same at a reasonable price wherever it is needed by Newfoundland fishermen, an undertaking that will undoubtedly be a great boon to the fishermen, enabling them, as it will, to overcome the difficulty they have hitherto laboured under, of frequently being unable to obtain bait in localities where fishing is good.

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The company, as has been said, intends to go into the business on a very large scale, and instead of being capitalized at half a million, it will probably issue stock to the extent of two or three millions, and instead of spending $250,000 on a plant, a million will be nearer the mark. It proposes to establish a central cold storage station, and a number of sub-stations
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in various parts of the island. At these substations flsli will be purchased, shipped to the central depot and thence to the United States.
The American duty on fish, both fresh and dried, averages about three-quarters of a cent per pound. The Bond-Hay treaty looks to the removal of the duty on dried fish, the Washington authorities refusing absolutely to consider any change In respect to fresh fish.
The Newfoundland Cold Storage Company, the concern which has been given assistance by the [DOT] island government, will be able to ship fish, both fresh and dried, into the United States free of duty, and this is how it can be done :
The law department at Washington has given an incontrovertible opinion that, under an Anglo-American treaty signed In 1818, any American citizen may fish in certain waters of Newfoundland, and that the fish so caught in such waters are not liable to duty in the United States. On representations from the Newfoundland Cold Storage Company that certain disabilities exist preventing Americans from deriving full benefit from the treaty concessions, and that it proposes to remove those disabilities by employing Newfoundland fishermen to assist in supplying the chmpany with fish, the Washington authorities have declared that there is nothing to prevent all the fish shipped in American bottoms by the company to the United States from entering free of duty, even though not entirely caught by American fishermen.
In other words, the company referred to can apparently take into its employ if it chooses, all the Newfoundland fishermen, and ship the product of their labours into the United States free

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The leverage the Newfoundland government has hitherto used in its endeavour to obtain concessions from the United States has been that at any time it could enforce a Bait Act against American fishermen, such as that now in operation against the French, or raise considerably the license fee now imposed. But the Newfoundland government by its guarantee has connected itself financially with the cold storage company and cannot place any disabilities in its way without materially affecting its own interests. It has guaranteed this company 5 per cent interest on its half million capital for twenty years, and cannot restrict its operations. The Bill providing for the guarantee was a special Bill, and, therefore, practically grants a monopoly to the company, and hands over to it to all intents and purposes, the control of the bait supply.

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An idea of the concession which has been .granted to the company may be gathered from tne tact that, should it confine its operations tc storing and shipping 50 tons of fish per day, the saving m the American duty at ihree-
?"L° a C?nt pound wiI1 alone amount to 5225,000 yearly. The company proposes, how-eveL to. operate a line of steamers, and the probatulity is that Its output will be from 100 to 150 tons per day.
Th® c0'npa"y originally proposed to export the fish to the United States in bond via Sydney Cape Breton establishing at that point a cold storage warehouse, but the severity of the past
7ortT8 P,'°?n lhat S^ney Is not a ter port it is most probable that this idea will
partabandoned and Boston made the receiving
Charles Edwin Kaulbach: All the advantages of the agreement will not by any means be on the side of the company. The island fishermen will undoubtedly benefit very considerably. They will obtain not only all the advantages of the Bon*d-Hay treaty, but their fish will be admitted into the United'states free ; they will have the benefits of a great modern cold storage system, and in addition it will be enabled to obtain frozen bait in localities where bait is scarce.
So valuable is the concession to the company, however, that there is very little likelihood of the government being called upon to make up any deficiency in the profits.
The Newfoundland government still expects to put through the Bond-Hay treaty, but to everybody who has studied the details of the concession granted to the American company, no reason is apparent why the Washington government should do anything. When the Gloucester interests are informed of the proposals cf the company there probably will be wigs on the green ; but the Newfoundland Act has been duly signed, and the Washington law authorities have given an opinion in writing that would be extremely difficult to upset.
This, Mr. Speaker, you will see will handicap us to a very great extent. With the tremendous output they expect to have of bait fish it will handicap the maritime provinces fishermen employed in the deep sea fishing in going to these quarters for bait. It will not only hamper them in the obtaining of bait, but it will hamper them as well in the price, and it will mean that the industry will he wiped out completely. The ship building industry which is a very material industry, and one from which we gather, particularly in my county, a large amount of profit, will suffer a depression which will affect a large class of men, ship builders, blacksmiths, carpenters and every one else employed in connection with that industry. Under these circumstances I appeal very strongly to the right hon. premier in this connection, and I ask him to take active and early measures to meet the situation that I have pointed out. I move the adjournment of the House.
Right hon. Sir WILFRID LAURIER (Prime Minister). Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that, as has already been pointed out by the hon. member for East Grey (Mr. Sproule), my hon. friend from Lunenburg (Mr. Kaulbach) has not really apprehended the point of the information contained in this letter. My hon. friend opened his remarks by expressing the hope that the government would interfere to prevent the ratification of the Bond-Hay treaty as the government of Sir John Macdonald did in 1891 to prevent the ratification of the Bond-Blaine treaty. But. as has been stated in this letter, and which is a matter of common information, the Bond-Hay treaty has been suspended in the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. It was referred two years ago to the Committee on Foreign Relations, it has never come out of the committee yet and it has practically been suspended. But.

as lias already been stated by the bon. member for East Grey the point is not at all whether the Bond-Hay treaty is ratified or not ratified. If the information contained in this letter is correct, it matters not at all from the point of view of the apprehension of my hon. friend whether the Bond-Hay treaty is ratified or not. The complaint made in this letter, or rather the facts brought to the attention of my hon. friend, are that the legislature of Newfoundland has organized and subsidized a company to export fish to the United States, to supply bait to American fisherman, to have American capital employed in the island to supply the bait and also to allow them to use their privileges with the expectation that these fish will be shipped to the United States free of duty. Whether, under such circumstances, fish could be exported to the United States free of duty, seems to be altogether a matter of domestic concern to the United States government, as to which we cannot have a voice, and as to which any action we might take would be absolutely without effect. My hon. friend has more reason to look with hope to the action of the Gloucester fishermen, because I see that the correspondence says, that as soon as the tenor of this new Bill passed by the Newfoundland legislature is known in Gloucester, there will be wigs on the green. I have information that already some action has been taken within the last two or three days, by the Gloucester fishermen. I have received from the United States, certain resolutions passed by the Gloucester fishermen, strongly protesting against any action which would deprive them of the rights which they have always claimed. If it were a matter in which the application of the Bond-Blaine treaty were involved, there would be some point in the remarks of my hon. friend (Mr. Kaulbaeh). So far as I can see at present, the action of which'he complains has no relation whatever to the Bond-Blaine treaty, but is a matter of domestic concern for the Newfoundland legislature, and for the American Congress.


Charles Edwin Kaulbach: I am fully aware that we cannot interfere with any action that the United States may take in Congress in regard to their domestic relations ; but the strong point is there set out, that the Gloucester fishermen are interfering with the action of the United States, and on the same principle I to-day ask this government it they will interfere to protect the interests of the fisheries of the maritime- provinces? I think that could be accomplished through the Secretary of State of the Colonies, and by a reference to our sister colony of Newfoundland. If we are to be deprived of the. free capture of bait-fish on that shore, the United States will be in the harvest field, gathering the harvest, whilst we are deprived of getting the material wherewith to gather. I wish the Prime Minister
to see the matter in that light, and to use his utmost efforts, as I am sure he will, to place the matter in its proper position in the interests of our fishermen.


Mr. R. L. BORDEN (Halifax).: I appreciate what the Prime Minister has said so far as it relates to a purely domestic regulation of the United States, with regard to customs. It is perfectly clear that we can-net interfere with that, but at the same time this seems to be an indirect and somewhat ingenious mode of arriving at some of the results at least, which were to be accomplished by the Bond-Blaine Treaty. As far as the exportation of fish into the United States is concerned, I suppose the best we could say would he this :	that the government
should see that our own fishermen organized in the same way. should receive equal treatment in the United States, with the treatment accorded to the proposed company Blit the main difficulty, as I understand it. is. that there will be a monopoly of the Newfoundland bait possessed by this company. and in that way our own fishermen will be shut out from getting bait. I cau assure my right hon. friend, that that is a very serious condition of affairs for the fishermen of the maritime provinces, and no one can appreciate it better than some gentlemen on the other side, especially my hon. friend from Guysborough (Mr. Sinclair) who has taken a good deal of interest in this matter ; at all events, so far as our in shore fisheries are concerned. I really do not know what the future of the Ushering industry-particularly in the county of my hon. friend from Lunenburg-is to be, if this American company, obtaining these special privileges from the legislature of Newfoundland, shall possess practically a monopoly of all the bait in Newfoundland waters. Our fishermen have a great deal of difficulty there now. I have had occasion on behalf of some of my own constituents, to bring to the attention of the departments of the government, matters which are very annoying and very irritating, and as to which up to the present time, I have not been able to get any satisfaction. But, if in addition to all that, we are to be practically excluded by an arrangement of this kind, from the bait of Newfoundland, it is a matter that demands the most serious and earnest consideration of the government at the earliest possible moment. I realize the difficulties which have been mentioned by the Prime Minister, but it may be possible that these difficulties ean be overcome. It may be possible that there can be a friendly representation from this government to the government of Newfoundland, in which we shall insist that Canadian fishermen shall have at least the same right to obtain bait in the waters of Newfoundland as is accorded to American fishermen, or to this company organized by United States capitalists. I will not say any-

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thing further about the matter to-day, because I do not fully understand it, and of course outside of the newspaper reference, none of us have yet had time to investigate. However, it is a question that will stand investigation, and as to which we should take urgent and energetic action at the earliest possible moment.


Mr. A. C. BELL (Pictou).: Although the county from which I come, is not directly interested in this matter, yet the people of Nova Scotia generally are enormously interested, and especially is that the case in the county of Lunenburg, in which the iishing industry has developed to an enormous extent. If we are deprived of the right to obtain a sufficient quantity of bait, the advantages which we otherwise could secure by the nearness of our coast to the great fishing banks of the Atlantic, will be altogether nullified. Nothing too strong can be said by the representatives of the maritime provinces to impress on the government the seriousness of the situation. I was glad to note from a remark made by the Prime Minister, that he has had this matter in cognizance already, and has received some information in connection with it. I would urge him to do everything in his power, as he may very legitimately do, to make representations to the government of Newfoundland, so as to preserve the very great interests of the maritime provinces in these fisheries. The county of Lunenburg has attained an enormous development in the fishing industry, and similar development is quite possible for the counties along the Atlantic coast, and even for some of those within the Gulf of St. Lawrence, so that this is a matter not only of local, but of rational importance.


Hon. W. S. FIELDING (Minister of Finance).: There is one phase of the matter that I would like to say a word upon. My hon. friend from Lunenburg (Mr. Kaul-baeh) has referred to the desirability of our government interfering to prevent the consummation of what was once the Bond-Blaine treaty, but which now might be described more correctly as the Bond-Hay Treaty. I want to say to my hon. friend (Mr. Ivaulbach), and to others who have not given so much attention to the subject as he has :	that our friends in
Newfoundland are exceedingly jealous as to references of that kind. I have the means of knowing, and I state on the highest authority, that much of the hostility which now prevails in Newfoundland towards suggestions of union with the Dominion, is based, or alleged to be based, upon tb' attitude which we in Canada, have from time to time taken in relation to negotiations between the United States and Newfoundland. Newfoundland is a small colony, but Newfoundland is as much an independent colony as the Dominion of Mr. R. L. BORDEN.
Canada, and any assumption on our part of a right to interfere with her independent action, would naturally be resented. We would resent it ourselves, if we were hr the place of our friends in Newfoundland. Therefore, I would strongly urge that hon. gentlemen who may be giving attention to this question, should not approach it from the point of view of urging that we have any right to interfere with Newfoundland's position to as an independent colony. It is complained that we have done so in the past, it is claimed that the late government did so ; it is claimed that the present government have done so. and I know from the highest authority in Newfoundland that that line of action, so far as it had any foundation in Canada, has been the means of causing very much discontent among the people of Newfoundland towards Canada. We may do something by friendly negotiations with the statesmen of Newfoundland, an with the colonial office, but I submit that in all these negotiations, while we should be justified in doing what is best in our own interests, we must always do so subject to the recognition of the fact, that Newfoundland, although a small colony, is in every respect as independent as Canada is, and that we have no right to dictate to her. or to interfere with the manner in which she shall conduct her negotiations with the imperial government. Therefore, anything we may do, should be done in the way of friendly negotiations with Newfoundland, and not in the way of asserting any right to interfere with her action as an independent colony.


Mr. F. B. WADE (Annapolis).: Mr. Speaker, I would like to say a word or two on this subject. I recognize, quite as fully as the hon. gentlemen who have preceded me, the importance of this great industry, and the most important feature in connection with it is the question of bait. I do not see how we can interfere with Newfoundland chartering a company and giving it whatever powers it sees fit ; but I think we can do something in another direction to remedy any evil which might result from its action. My suggestion would be that the government take hold of the matter of supplying bait to the fishermen. Already a good deal has been done in that direction, with good results ; but I think a great deai more could be done, and it would be worth all the time and money spent, by establishing bait depots accessible to the fishing fleet. At the present time the Newfoundland bank fleet spent at least one-half or two-thirds of their time in sailing around hunting for bait, whereas if there were a depot with refrigerators maintaining a supply for the whole season's work, these vessels could go there and be sure of obtaining a supply at all times. Then it would matter very little what action the province of Newfoundland might take in this connection. This is a

matter which has engaged my attention for some time, and I intended bringing it to the attention of the government before the close of the session. I am glad to have this opportunity of expressing these views, and I know I am not alone in holding them. The matter interests many in the maritime provinces who are engaged in that great industry. and it is a great industry, the value of which is increasing very rapidly.


Mr. A. JOHNSTON (Cape Breton).: Mr. Speaker, this question lias been brought to the attention of the people of this country in a very interesting and instructive manner by a special correspondent of the Toronto ' Globe ' who has been sent to Newfoundland. In yesterday's issue of that paper this whole question is discussed very instructively and very entertainingly. I regard it as a matter of so much importance that this morning I addressed a letter to the Minister of Marine and Fisheries upon it. It may be that the correspondent in question is not in possession of all the facts, or at least is not in possession of the facts as accurately as we ought to have them. This matter, as the hon. member for Lunenburg (Mr. Kaulbaeh) has said, is of sufficient importance to warrant this government in taking every possible means to ascertain what is being done and what can be done in the way of securing to the fishermen of the maritime provinces all the rights they enjoy at the present time, and even further rights. I would therefore urge the Minister of Marine and Fisheries to take steps at as early a date as possible to inquire into this matter, and ascertain from the Newfoundland authorities what has been done and what is proposed to be done with regard to this matter.


Charles Edwin Kaulbach: Mr. Speaker, with your permission I would offer just a word. My hon. friend from Annapolis (Mr. Wade) has referred to the supply of bait on our own shores. A supply of bait in cold storage on our own shores would not be of advantage to Canadian fishermen visiting the Grand banks. They fish at some considerable distance to the east of St. John's Newfoundland ; and by the time they went to Nova Scotia for a supply of bait and returned to the banks where the fish may be found, the bait would be utterly worthless, unless they had a speedy or quick passage to and from. I have the most friendly feeling towards Newfoundland, and this Dominion is very warmly attached to her sister colony, who, we all feel, would not hesitate for one moment to come info the union with Canada if she realized the mutual advantages that would result from that union. This can be accomplished, however, irrespective of this question of bait which I have thought proper to bring to the notice of the government. The fact that the matter has been entered upon in a friendly spirit will, I feel sure result beneficially to the fishermen of Can- 1 68
ada. But information being obtained from the United States as to the position in which the treaty will place us as a sister colony in regard to the procuring of bait will endeavour to hamper us as far as possible.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Mr. Speaker, my attention has been brought to this correspondence in the ' Globe ' not later than this morning, and I will give immediate instructions to my officers to look into the question thoroughly, and to make a report with the least possible delay. I realize perfectly well the importance of the question and the importance of having it thoroughly studied and speedily reported upon.
Motion (Mr. Kaulbaeh) to adjourn, negatived.



QUESTION OF PRIVILIGE.

Right Hon.   S@: FIELDING (Minister of Finance) Mr. Speaker, before the Orders of the Day are called I may be permitted-a motion for adjournment having been made and lost, and it not being in order to make another-to make a statement of a personal character in reply to an observation made by an hon. gentleman opposite. I can only do so by the consent of the House ; and unless I am likely to have the unanimous consent for that purpose, I shall be compelled to allow the matter to remain over until to-morrow.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Go on.


William Stevens Fielding: If there be no objection I will make the explanation now. I desire to invite the attention of the House, as a question of privilege, to a statement made recently in debate by the hon. member for South Lanark (Mr. Haggart). I was not in the House when he spoke, and the report of his speech did not come under my notice for several days. The hon. gentleman said :
And the Finance Minister, who has been reading a lecture to the leader of the opposition ; we all know what he did. A confidential memo, prepared for my colleagues containing an estimate, based on all the applications no matter from whom, that has been made for subsidies for different railways, and sent by me to council, was used openly in the House, and the statement was added that I had submitted to my colleagues a certain estimate for financial requirements which was greatly in excess of that brought down by the Finance Minister himself. Not only did they make use of a private memo, which was prepared for council, but they justified it and falsified it, too.
This charge, Mr. Speaker, is now made for the first time, although it seems to have reference to discussions that occurred some seven or eight years ago. I submit that if there were grounds for complaint, the charge should have been made at the time referred to, when the facts were fresh in the minds of all concerned, and when if necessary an intelligent inquiry could have taken place.



But since the charge is made even at this late day, I desire to give it the fullest and most emphatic contradiction.
At the time referred to, mention was made of certain supplementary estimates said to have been prepared by the late government in 1896, and not submitted to the House. These estimates were never claimed by hon. gentlemen opposite to be confidential papers. It was freely stated that they had been distributed among Conservative candidates and used at the elections. One Conservative private member spoke of them in the House in my hearing and mentioned a part of what they contained. Hon. Mr. Foster, who discussed the subject here, did not claim that they were council papers or confidential papers of any kind. His contention was that they were merely memoranda prepared by departmental officials and never dealt with by council.
As to the special accusation of the hon. member for Lanark that I used in this House a confidential memorandum prepared by him in relation to railway subsidies, I not only give the statement the most emphatic denial, but I am utterly unable to understand to what the hon. gentleman refers. I believe that he is labouring under a mistake.
I state in the most positive and unqualified terms that I never used in debate, in this House or elsewhere, any such confidential paper as the hon. gentleman refers to or any other confidential paper whatever.


Hou. JOHN HAGGART (South Lanark).: Mr. Speaker, it is some years since there was a debate in the House in which the hon. Minister of Finance accused the late government of having brought down estimates largely in excess of what this government brought down. He stated that those estimates had been approved of by council. The fact of the matter was that they were estimates prepared in each department, notably in the Department of Railways and the Public Works Department, for presentation to council ; and every application that had been made to these departments was embodied in those estimates for the information of the colleagues of the Minister of Railways and the Minister of Public Works ; but they were never decided upon by council. We were defeated before we had an opportunity of passing upon them. Yet the hon. minister brought up, in justification of his introduction of an immense budget, the fact that the opposition, when they were in power, had introduced those estimates. I say they were a confidential document. I know that none were given out of my department to any member of parliament. I was making a comparison between the course of the Minister of Finance in using them and the course of my hon. friend the leader of the opposition in introducing and speaking on the confidential memorandum of Mr. Blair. Here was a do-Mr. FIELDING.
cument which the hon. gentleman says was prepared for council, but the estimates in which were only submitted for the consideration of my colleagues and not for presentation to the House. After reading the applications sent in, we selected those which we thought worthy of being reported to council and embodied in the estimates, to be passed upon by the council and not necessarily submitted to the House, and it was because this memorandum was represented as containing the estimates decided upon by council that I used the language my hon. friend objects to. I intended it in no sense to be personal, and have not the slightest objection to withdrawing it, if offensive.
These estimates were prepared in different departments and not to be distributed. None that I know of were ever distributed to any members of parliament. The intention was to bring them before my colleagues, and the hon. the Finance Minister, in introducing his budget, justified it by the swollen amount of these I had prepared for my colleagues.


William Stevens Fielding: I certainly agree with my hon. friend that our relations have always been most agreeable, and I am glad to hear that he had no intention of saying anything which would disturb those relations. There were two questions involved in his statement. The one was the general question as to these estimates, concerning which he and I have made some remarks. But beyond that, he referred to a special document, a confidential memorandum prepared by himself, dealing with the matter of railway subsidies. That is the document he specifically accused me of using in this House.


John Graham Haggart: I never intended anything of the kind. I did not correct my speech, but what I referred to was the estimates prepared in my department to be submitted to council.


William Stevens Fielding: My hon. friend said :
We all know what he did. A confidential memo, prepared for my colleagues, containing the estimates based on all the applications, no matter from whom, that had been made for subsidies for different railways and sent by me to council, was used openly in the House.
I may say to my hon. friend that I could not understand what this meant, and I caused a search to be made in 'Hansard' to find out if any previous reference was ever made to it, and I am advised it was not. At all events, I say now that I never heard of any such memorandum until the question was raised here, and I was not aware there was such a memorandum. I have no recollection of ever seeing it, or using it, or discussing it, or knowing anything about it. My hon. friend now says that his remarks had reference to the general estimates and not to that particular memorandum, so that there has been a misunderstanding.


John Graham Haggart: It was in reference to the genera] estimate. I referred to the speech the hon. gentleman made some time ago, and which I brought up before in the House:
We thought we were going to meet the position of the hon. gentleman and put him in an amiable mood by bringing down estimates which he himself had prepared. I quite agree with the hon. gentleman that if we had brought down those estimates, accompanied by an announcement that we expected to expend the money and effect no saving, then, undoubtedly, the hon. gentleman might have had good cause for complaint ; but the hon. gentleman will remember that, in bringing down the estimates, I made the statement-he may call it a confession if he will-that we had not been long enough in office to make ourselves familiar with all the details of the department.
I was referring to that.


William Stevens Fielding: The estimates to which the hon. gentleman now refers were not papers in the department, but estimates laid on the table, with which the Don. gentleman was not able to proceed.


John Graham Haggart: No.


William Stevens Fielding: That is not the matter in dispute at all. The matter we were talking about was papers which had not been brought down. The particular point I took exception to was that which the hon. gentleman says he had no intention of trying to make, namely, that the particular documents he himself had prepared, and which were confidential, were used by myself.


John Graham Haggart: Not at all, I was referring to the estimates altogether.


William Stevens Fielding: I certainly never saw such a memorandum.


John Graham Haggart: No ; I had prepared a set of estimates, and that was made use of by the hon. gentleman to show that the amount required by the government which had left office was equal to any which his government were proposing to ask for.



INQUIRY FOR RETURNS.

Mr. U. WILSON.: I asked for a certain return the other day, which the hon. the Postmaster General promised to bring down. Would he kindly let me know if we shall soon have it ?


Right Hon.   S@: I find that the return has been prepared by the department and forwarded in ordinary course to the Secretary of State, and should be here to-morrow.



GRAND TRUNK PACIFIC,

[Stage Direction]
House resumed adjourned debate on the proposed motion of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, for the second reading of Bill (No. 72) to amend the Transcontinental Railway Act.
Mr. J. R. LAVELL (Leeds and Grenville).: Mr. Speaker, the portfolio of Railways and 68J
Canals, which had been held by Mr. Blair, having become vacant by the resignation of that hon. gentleman, the country was left in doubt, save as far only as official notice was concerned, as to what has become of that portfolio. Shortly after we met here in parliament a document, which was referred to in the speech from the Throne, was placed on our desks, purporting to be an agreement signed by a gentleman who described himself as Minister of Railways and Canals But throughout this debate that gentleman who, we might reasonably have expected, would be deeply interested in the question before the House, has been conspicuous by his absence. I am glad, however, to note that he is present in the House to-day, and apparently prepared to at least listen to some of the reasons why we should not sanction this agreement which he has signed. We have not heard from him any reasons why it should be confirmed. Apart from this declaration by him at the foot of this agreement that he is Minister of Railways and Canals, and has signed it in that capacity, we know nothing of him in connection with this matter. I can quite understand that he has probably been too busy, ever since he has acquired the portfolio, to attend to so very trifling a matter as that involving an expenditure of between $100,000,000 and $200,000,000. All of his time apparently has been taken up in endeavouring to ascertain how much control of the canals he will be able to keep, and how much of what is left he can prevent falling into the hands of the Railway Commission. But as that pleasant duty ought now to be over, I trust we will have an opportunity of hearing him give us some reasons for the faith that is in him and some justification for having signed this document which has been presented to the House, and concerning which such very inadequate justification has so far been given. It would certainly require a fairly vivid imagination to assume that any reasonable justification, or even excuse, has been given us for this agreement. While, as a general rule, it is rather a disadvantage for any one to take part in a discussion after the question before the House has been debated at any length, I am glad to say that that disadvantage does not exist in this case, for two reasons. One reason is that practically no attempt has been made to deal with this subject from a broad national standpoint by those who are advocating the scheme submitted to us. From the very first, we have had no intelligent reason advanced why we should engage this country in the enormous expenditure involved. When we on this side have sought for further information, for further arguments, our requests were met in silence. When we asked for bread, we did not receive even the traditional stone, unless in the shape of a stony silence. And even on the rare occasions when members on the government side did choose to address the

House, the only answer they attempted to make to our arguments was to put up men of straw and then knock them down again. We had the second reading of a Bill involving a greater liability than any other ever introduced in this House, involving more important issues, introduced without a single argument being advanced in its support-introduced simply by a nod of the head. And when, in their innocence, the opposition considered that it ought to be discussed, we found the right hon. the First Minis ter, in his amazement that any one should dare to dispute his nod, until he found insistence was useless, insist that the matter should be carried through at once, and the opposition bend to his, will as subserviently as the majority at his back.
This, Sir, is not what the opposition is for, and I believe it will be found by hon. gentlemen opposite that the people throughout the country are coming to realize the outrageous features of this agreement, to correctly understand that a proposition is being presented to the House which involves consideration of the deepest moment to the country and to realize that the clauses in this agreement are not caricatures, but are intended as sober details in an important agreement into which the government has entered with a private corporation and which it intends to force on the country. Last session we spent many months in discussing a Bill concerning what was very improperly called a national transcontinental railway. We were told an agreement had been entered into between the government and the Grand Trunk Pacific and the Grand Trunk Railway. Amendment after amendment was proposed from this side of the House in order to modify in some measure the manifestly unwise and unfair terms of that agreement. We were told that the bargain had been completed, had been entered into, that nothing further could be done, and that we must carry this agreement as it stood ; the parties who made it were responsible parties, who would stand by it. We were told that it must be carried out exactly as signed, that the good faith of the country depended upon it. The proposition as it then stood was a somewhat peculiar one. It practically meant that the government of this country compelled the people of Canada to provide money or assume a liabiliy of about seven-eighths of the cost of the transcontinental railway, and ineidently a good deal more than one-half the responsibility for the betterments of this road, which was to be handed over to a private corporation, over which the government would not have any more control than over any other railway, this private corporation being a road which is practically controlled by a foreign country, having its interests far more largely elsewhere than in Canada, We were to receive in return a tremendous rental, amounting to an unsecured promise to pay interest for Mr. I.AVMT.L.
part of the time on part of the money. That practically was the proposition submitted by the government last year, and it has been interesting while this amending Bill has been before the House this year to note that very few of the arguments which have been presented, go to the bottom of the issue, or even go deeply into the question. Hon. gentlemen opposite have practically taken what may be called the Easter hat argument. It is said that ladies always wish to wear new hats on Easter Sunday. Two Indies appeared at church each wearing an Easter hat, and as they left church, one said to the other : How beautiful your hat is. The other lady naturally plumed herself a little but her friend continued : yels, it looks almost as nice as it did last year. That is about the substance of the argument this year, almost as nice-I do not think any member has presumed to say that it was quite as nice-as it was last year. Sir, what does this agreement mean. It is the original agreement of last year, plus some bonus additions and apologies to the Grand Trunk Pacific for not giving more. The trouble about this matter from the very beginning has been the somewhat bewildering silence that has been maintained on nearly all the important points in connection with this company, silence as to the reasons for it, silence as to the facts that might justify it. It is a matter of ancient history now that practically every argument advanced by the premier when he introduced the Railway Bill last session for building the eastern" section of this road, which is the one involving the greatest responsibility, has been dropped. They have been dropped because his reasons have been so answered that it was beyond the nerve of even the most nervy of the members on the government side to again advance his argument. Other arguments were advanced in the course of the debate, but, after all, the strong argument, practically the only argument advanced with effect in favour of this Bill on the government side, was one advanced by the premier, that his followers were going to see this through. That may be sufficient for the members on the government side, but I have faith enough in the people of this country to believe that it will be found very difficult to justify such a reason as .that before the electors. What is more, the course of events shows that the premier himself believed it was impossible to justify it before the electors. The Grand Trunk Pacific, or the Grand Trunk Railway, whichever it was that was really in default in conforming exactly to the terms of the agreement into which they themselves had entered, afforded the government an opportunity to submit the original Bill, as well as any amendments asked for and allowed, to the people of the country without causing the slightest delay in any of the operations in connection with the road. When, last session, we appealed to the government to

allow this matter to come before the people of the country before finally deciding on a question of such great moment, we were told : No, it could not wait; valuable time was being lost even in that discussion, and it was simply impossible to allow the question to stand long enough to permit it to be submitted to the electors. But before the year was out the government were well aware that the agreement, as it had been entered into last year, was not going to be carried out, and that nothing whatever could be done under that agreement until after a session of this parliament. Several months elapsed after that before this House was called. There was ample time, without causing the slightest delay, to have submitted this question to the electorate and to obtain their verdict. Where is now the argument that the road could not wait ? Who has ventured to make such a statement before the House this session ? The almost hysterical appeal of last year that time would not wait has fallen flatter than any words ever uttered in this House. Time will not wait : no, time does not wait; but the Grand Trunk Pacific had to wait, and it waited for such a length of time that there was ample opportunity to make an appeal to the people of the country, and to allow the electorate to decide on a question that so vitally affects the future of this country. This plea of not being able to wait was urged last session in connection with another matter. It was proposed to build this road through what was admittedly an uninhabited country, and the opposition urged, and urged repeatedly, that we could not obtain sufficient information to enable us to decide on the possibility of such a road, or even to decide on the terminus of such a road.
That was asked for. We were told that we would be supplied with abundant information. The old words ' mountains of information ' were used. The term has almost become classic now. Information was given us. we were told. Blue-books were published, that, we were told, contained that information. These blue-books were not published so that they could be examined by hon. members of this House until the debate was practically closed and as a consequence it is not to be wondered at that these blue-books were not extensively quoted from ; in fact, I cannot recall any case in which one of these blue-books' in particular to which I refer was ever used by hon. members on the government side of the House. But, since that debate they, as well as ourselves, have had the chance to examine that book. There is only one thought that comes to a man who looks through it and that is :	What
justification was there for putting the country to the expense of printing it ? If anything. it proves conclusively that there is by no means sufficient information available to warrant this country in undertaking the enormous expenditure involved
in the building of the eastern section of this line. There has been something since said on the question, and that by a gentleman who stands high in the estimation of the people because of his past record, a gentleman who was many times quoted by hon. members on the government side of the House in support of some of the arguments thev were advancing for the building of this road. I refer to Sir Sandford Fleming, a gentleman for whom I have the highest respect and whose opinion, as far as it is based on his own knowledge, and his knowledge on many questions is extremely wide, I Would pay a great deal of attention to. In the recess time since the House last met Sir Sandford Fleming has addressed himself to this question. He addressed the Canadian Club on the subject ' Build up Canada ' and this address, as given before the Canadian Club, has been published in magazine and pamphlet form, and I understand, distributed to the members of this House.
I am informed that it is being accepted in many quarters as an argument in favour of the building of this transcontinental rail-wav, and that it has been so used on many different occasions by hon. gentlemen opposite, more in conversation, I admit, than in the House, who, recognizing the fact that Sir Sandford Fleming's name carries great weight, have quoted his opinion to people who, they have assumed, would not read the pamphlet. With all deference to the hon. member for North Renfrew (Mr. Mackie) who, I believe, claims to have more information in regard to this northern country than any other man in this House,
I think it will be admitted that Sir Sandford Fleming has as much information and can speak with as much authority on this question as any man, and yet, if Sir Sandford Fleming's address proves anything it proves that the information we have regarding that northern country is so very limited that it is absolutely essential before the location can be made within 200 or 300 miles of any single point to make further inquiries. It proves something else. It proves that the country is very varied, w mle Sir Sandford Fleming says that that country contains a good deal of good land he does not say that he knows it of his own knowledge. I refer to this because i feel that an injustice is being done to this House by one of the members of the government. I think it will be admitted that every hon. member in this House is entitled'to wide information on a matter so important as this. I think it will be admitted that if there is any member of the government who produces information from his own knowledge of that region and that if there are many places in that northern country containing untold wealth in agricultural and minerals it is well for us to know it. I find that Sir Sandford Fleming bases practically the whole of his

argument as to the richness of portions of that northern country on some information supplied apparently, by the hon. Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Fisher). Now, I confess that when I read this, I expected that we would have heard from the hon. Minister of Agriculture. I expected that in his leisure moments, when he was not going to Japan or elsewhere, he would travel in that northern country, because he could safely go there without running any risk of having his bachelor's state changed, as, apparently, by his own statement, there are no inhabitants in those regions. But, we have not heard from the Minister of Agriculture and I think when T read a short quotation from this pamphlet, entitled ' Build up Canada ' it will be admitted that we should have heard from him, because I take it for granted that Sir Sandford Fleming wop Id not have given this information had he not been as-' sured of its correctness. Here is what Sir Sandford Fleming says in justification of his statement that the territory in question is the natural home of pulp wood and forest wealth :
What did the well informed Minister of Agriculture state in a public address delivered at Sherbrooke a few weeks back ? He spoke of this northern region as * a country in which we know there is a great abundance of splendid agricultural land, in which we know there is an enormous amount of lumber ready for the hand of man to develop.'
I submit that if the hon. Minister of Agriculture has any such information he is not doing justice to the House in not giving it to us. I want to say further that if he does not do it he misleads a very estimable gentleman, and he takes from Sir Sandford Fleming's address and Sir Sandford Fleming's pamphlet almost the only foundation that there is for saying that there is a rich country in that northern section. Now, I trust that there is a rich country in that northern section. I trust that there may be homes for millions of people up there, but I submit, that, although this matter has been under discussion for nearly a year, although this matter has been discussed from every possible point of view, we have no right to assume that the country is as has been described, until some information is given to us and we have a right to assume that no such information is available or we would have received it. If, however, there is one thing that Sir Sandford Fleming does establish from his own knowledge it is that no transcontinental railway should be built south of Lake Winnipeg or should receive any government support if it is built south of Lake \\ innipeg. This is a matter on which Sir Sandford Fleming can speak of his own knowledge, and while not quoting further from the pamphlet, although these quotations could be enlarge# i would call at-Mr. LAVELL.
tention of the hon. members of this House to the argument of Sir Sandford Fleming given of his own knowledge from facts at his own disposal which shows conclusively that any transcontinental railway built by this government or the people of this country should go north of Lake Winnipeg. But, all this simply shows that the right hon. gentleman who introduced this Rill is continuing to ask the country to go it blind, is presenting a Bill and a contract to this House and asking the support of this House for that Bill and contract without giving any reasons which appeal to intelligent men who have the interests of the country at heart. When the changes in the contract were first spoken of, it was announced that the whole difficulty arose from the fact that the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company were not prepared or did not desire to make the deposit called for by the original Act in the form laid down in the Act. When the announcement was made in the Toronto ' Globe ' and in otner papers, as read yesterday by my hon. friend from West Toronto (Mr. Clarke), that the terms of the Act would not be carried out and that the matter would have again to come to the attention of this House, it was distinctly stated that it would be purely for the purpose of varying the terms under which the deposit was to be made. When the House met some papers were laid on the table which purported to be, and I have no doubt are a complete collection of the proposed alterations in the eon-tract and the correspondence passing between the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway or the Grand Trunk Railway Company and the government respecting the amendments which were to come before the House this session. When these papers were laid on the table, in fact almost before the papers were laid on the table of the House, it was seen that the amendments which were suggested involved a great deal more than simply a change in the conditions of the deposit.
There is another thing to which too much attention cannot be drawn, and that is, that when the government stated it would give its reasons for calling another session of parliament, the ministers had before them not only these letters and these proposed alterations in the contract, but they must have had before them in substance the actual agreement which involved infinitely more than simply a change in the nature of the deposit. I submit that the government did not treat the House or the country honestly, in making the announcement in the terms they did. When, the resolutions were first introduced, the correspondence was referred to, but attention was not directed to the fact that the contract of last session was repudiated by the Grand Trunk Railway Company ; nor could it well be asserted in truth, because it had not been repudiated by

the Grand Trunk Railway Company. Attention was not called to the fact that the men who asked for these amendments were the very men who negotiated the contract of last year ; the very men whose faith was pledged to it, according to the statements of the ministers to parliament; and that they were the same who afterwards repudiated it. So far as we have any information before us, the contract of last year was never submitted to the Grand Truuk shareholders, until it was presented to them together with the amended contract included in this Bill on the Sth of March last, it is interesting to read over these proposed alterations in the original contract. The parliamentary document which sets them forth, opens with a letter signed by Sir Rivers-Wilson, president of the Grand Trunk Railway Company. This letter is interesting. Sir Rivers-Wilson signed the contract that was attached to the Act of last session, but his opening statement in this letter of December 15, 1903, is :
I sincerely hope that we have now reached a solution.
A solution of what ? One would have thought that a gentleman who put his signature to such an elaborate document, after discussing at length its terms and details with the government, would have thought a solution had been already reached. Two months had not elapsed from the prorogation of parliament, when this letter was written by Sir Rivers-Wilson, and the very first statement in it shows that that contract, which according to the statements made by the ministers in this House was such a final agreement that it had to be followed to the very letter, and was absolutely binding on every one connected with it-two months had not elapsed when apparently both the government and the Grand Trunk Railway Company came to the conclusion, that this contract was not in the least degree final. In this letter, Sir Rivers-Wilson refers to the deposit in a very gingerly fashion ; he drops the subject very hurriedly, and he proceeds to write a paragraph which is worth while reading. In the report of the meeting of the Grand Trunk shareholders iu London, objection has been taken to the use of the word ' partners,' and the hon. member for Essex (Mr. Cowan) repudiated very strongly any report that indicated that the people of Canada were partners with the Grand Trunk Railway Company. But, Sir, long before that report had reached this House, and long before the words reported in it were uttered, we have the very word ' partners ' used in this letter of Sir Rivers-Wilson. He writes :
It has always seemed to me that the government of Canada and the Grand Trunk Railway Company, being in point of fact partners in the enterprise-the former actuated by considerations of national policy, the latter by the necessity for securing its share in the growing prosperity of the Northwest-the burden of financial liability should he shared between the two in as equable proportions as possible, but I venture to think-and this view is strongly held by my board-that too large a portion of the burden has been imposed upon the Grand Trunk Company.
Well, Sir, it is hard to understand what the president of a railway company can mean by sharing with the people of Canada in 'equitable proportions.' The complaint we made was, that under the contract of last year, the people of Canada in the end bore all the financial responsibility, but apparently Sir Charles Rivers-Wilson came to the conclusion that the government of Canada were quite prepared to assume more financial responsibility than they did in the first place. That is practically the only thing which he desired to amend in the contract according to his letter, but apparently in an interview with Mr. Hays, who is referred to in the letter, certain other proposed alterations were demanded from the government. The first of these was : That the time for the completion of that western division should be extended ; the next: That the nature of the deposit and the use of the deposit should be changed ; the next: As to the lease of the eastern division ; the next: The payment if interest on the bonds, and then a 'reference to the Grand Trunk common stock. That covers all that was asked for, and all that having been granted bv the government, I can imagine how small Sir Charles Rivers-Wilson must have felt and how intensely disappointed he must have been when he found that having obtained so easily all he asked, he might have asked for more and got it too. Now, the first thing Sir Charles Rivers-Wilson asked for, was that the time for the completion of the western division should be extended. The government granted it at once, and apparently without discussion. Then he asked, that the deposit should be changed, and that request was also granted, although not in the exact form in which it was asked for. As to his demands in connection with the lease of the eastern division and the payment of interest on the bonds, it can be said that Sir Charles Rivers-Wilson and his friends were granted considerably more than they asked. It is true that government assistance was not granted in the form in which it was asked, but it is also true that it was granted in such form that they obtained substantially more than they asked for. In fact, a careful reading of the proposed alterations in the contract as submitted by the Grand Trunk Railway and the Grand Trunk Pacific, causes one to wonder whether they were not suggested by the government rather than by the Grand Trunk Railway Company, so completely are they granted to the Grand Trunk in the supplementary agreement. That would be bad enough if that were all. But is that all ?

there are in the supplementary contract, a number of clauses that not only grant to the Grand Trunk Railway Company) everything it asked for, but it adds some entirely new conditions, so very beneficial to the Grand Trunk Pacific and so little beneficial to the country, that it can be readily understood why the president of the Grand Trunk when asking for some alterations, should hesitate even to mention them. I wish to say a word in reference to these things which were asked for and which were granted. If one takes the supplementary contract and amends last year's contract in the light of it, and sees to it that in one document is put all that the government agrees to, and all the privileges the Grand Trunk Pacific got ; and if in doing that one reads through the speeches made by the ministers last session in defence of the original contract, one cannot help wondering with exceeding amazement what on earth these ministers would have done for argument last session, had this amended contract then been before us. I say this for the reason, that practically every substantial argument that was made against the opposition last session, was based on clauses in the original contract which have been changed in this supplementary agreement. When the First Minister introduced the Bill, he laid great stress upon the fact that the government of Canada were assuming no liability in connection with the western division. He reads the covenant that the Grand Trunk Railway Company are to guarantee 25 per cent and take a second mortgage, the government having guaranteed 75 per cent and taken a first mortgage. After having called attention to the consequence of that contract, the right hon. gentleman said this :
I need not dwell upon the importance of this covenant on the part of the company. It practically takes away from the guarantee of the government all risk. There is not a dollar to be advanced by the government. We do give our credit and nothing else. And our guarantee of seventy-five per cent of the construction of the road is to be supplemented by the credit and all the backing of the Grand Trunk Railway Company itself.
That contains the argument all through of the ministers and the members on the government side to show that the country was assuming no liability with respect to the guarantee of 75 per cent. What would they have said if this supplementary agreement had been before them ? For in substance, what is it ? It takes away from the mortgage to secure these bonds the whole remedy of foreclosure. Clause 7 of the supplementary agreement goes infinitely further. It destroys the priority of the government mortgage and puts the people of Canada and the Grand Trunk Railway Company on exactly the same basis with regard to their mortgages, neither apparently having the right to foreclose. Certainly the" government mortgage cannot be foreclosed. The Mr. LAVELL. *
only remedy it gives is the placing of the railway in the hands of a receiver and dividing whatever profits there may be between the Grand Trunk Railway Company and the government, in proportion to the respective amounts of their mortgages. It takes awTay all the government's security which was announced so strongly and pressed so earnestly by the ministers last session; and it places it beyond doubt that when this guarantee of 75 per cent is given, it is given without any ' backing ' of the Grand Trunk Railway Company. The country assumes to the fullest extent the responsibility of that guarantee, and takes equal chances with the Grand Trunk Railway Company of losing money.
But, Sir, apart from these things that were asked for some reason which has not and probably never will be explained, unless this wonderful silence of the bon. Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Emmerson) is broken, we find a free gift from the government to the company in the form of two most important clauses in this supplemental agreement, which are more valuable to the Grand Trunk Railway Company even than most of the clauses of agreement of last year. The first of the two clauses to which I refer is paragraph 11, which sets out distinctly that if, during the currency of the lease of the eastern division, the Grand Trunk Railway Company shall have constructed any branch lines from the eastern section, and if at the end of the period the lease the government choose to take over the eastern division, then the government will take over from the Grand Trunk Railway Company all the lines that do not pay, and they will leave to the Grand Trunk Railway Company all the lines that do pay- there is no other meaning to be taken from that-and this too without taking the precaution of providing that no branch lines should be built without the consent of this parliament. Even with such a clause in the contract, the government would be acting blindly; but the fact is that these branch lines should not be built without the consent of this parliament. The fact is as these branch lines may be built innumerably and with perfect safety by the Grand Trunk Railway Company ; for they have arranged that they may experiment as much as they please, and at the end of the term they may keep what lines they please and let the country pay for the lines which they do not think it worth while to keep.
But, Sir, there is another clause in the supplemental agreement which, in the form in which it stands, gives the opportunity of changes in this contract and if of infinitely greater advantage to the Grand Trunk Railway Company than any that has yet been proposed ; and. what is more, it gives the opportunity to the government to make these changes without consulting or obtaining the approval of this House. That clause is clause 3, which it is worth reading in full :

Pending the completion of the eastern division by the government, the company shall be [DOT]entitled to lease from the commissioners, to be appointed under the said Act, and to operate such portions of the said eastern division as may from time to time be completed, but upon [DOT]such terms as may be agreed upon between the company and the said commissioners, which terms are not to be more onerous than those of the lease of the whole division by the said [DOT]contract provided for, save in so far as may be necessary to give full effect to the paramount right of the said commissioners next hereinafter mentioned, and subject always to the paramount right of the said commissioners to *use and operate the same without any payment of tolls or other compensation for such purposes as they may deem necessary or expedient in the execution of their commission.
What does this mean ? The eastern division. as defined by the Act is a road built by the government from Winnipeg to Moncton. That whole road is to be built before the lease begins. I think. Sir. that no one in this House will attempt to argue that the Grand Trunk Railway Company wants that "whole road built. That much-maligned report of the Grand Trunk shareholders, whether we find it in the Railway ' News ' [DOT]or in the reprint of the shorthand reporter's notes, which has been referred to frequently in this debate, proves conclusively that the Grand Trunk Railway people care nothing about any part of this eastern division except that part which will enable them to dome to North Bay. I do not think that is open to debate, let alone contradiction. Sir Charles Rivers-Wilson and Mr. Hays mention the road from Quebec to Moncton, though they refer to it as a necessity that was imposed upon them; but when dealing with the road, so far as it affects their interest and their operation of it, I defy any person to show that they ever spoke about any part except that part from Winnipeg to North Bay. What is more, no matter what report we read of that meeting, we find this argument advanced by Mr. Hays as being practically the only reason why the Grand Trunk Railway Company should go into this matter. The Grand Trunk Railway Company have teen carrying large quantities *of grain from the west ; but as the roads from which they have been getting this grain, are finding Atlantic ports for themselves, their trade in that grain will decrease. These roads will no longer act as feeders for them, and so, he said it is necessary for the Grand Trunk Railway shareholders to authorize the directors to make this agreement, in order that the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway may become the feeder of' the Grand Trunk. It can only become the feeder of the Grand Trunk by transferring its grain at North Bay or some other point where it can make connection with the Grand Trunk system. He takes that for granted throughout when speaking with the authority of a director to men whom he had to persuade in a business transaction.
I suppose I ought to stop here and refer to the vigorous way in which the hon. Min-inister of the Interior (Mr. Sifton) declared that the whole project was going through. There was to be no change, no variation, but one could not help thinking of the number of times minister after minister said this very same thing last session. And the Minister of the Interior is one of those who last year asserted most strongly that there was not going to be any change. Well, despite all these protestations, we have a number of changes submitted to us. and we find that these changes were decided upon and submitted to the Grand Trunk shareholders before the government condescended to make them public to the people of Canada. We have now to face the fact that assertions from ministers and members on the government side count for practically nothing, and we have to look carefully at what is possible within the limits of the contract without any regard to the interpretation which the government may put upon it. Suppose, for instance, the government should experience a sort of deathbed repentance and decide that this serious waste of money involved in building this road from Quebec to Moncton shall be postponed indefinitely. In that case, even if the road from Winnipeg to Quebec were built, the eastern section would not be completed, and if the Grand Trunk Pacific chose to use the line from Winnipeg to Quebec, the question arises what then would they have to pay for it ? Under the terms of the original agreement, their payment would be trivial enough, but under the amended agreement the government could say to the company : we will allow you to use that road, you may run your trains over it without paying a cent, and we will allow you to run it for fifty years, if you will only contribute decently to our campaign fund. We will do more, we will give you a bonus for running it and keep up the repairs on it for your benefit. I am not saying that the government will do this, but I am pointing out that they can. They are providing by this amended agreement that the Grand Trunk Pacific may use any part of that eastern section which is built, provided the terms agreed upon are not to be more onerous than those of the lease of the whole division as provided by the contract. After the exhibition we have had of the way the government screwed them down in the original contract, I do not blame the Grand Trunk Pacific people for insisting on an extra condition stipulating : you must not treat us any worse than you have. But what about the people ? I suppose the Dominion treasury is big enough to stand a haul. Evidently that is the opinion of the government, since we find no provision in either contract that the Graud Trunk Pacific should pay three per cent interest on the cost of4such part of the road as they may * use. Taking the contract literally, we must

conclude that if the road from Winnipeg to North Bay be built first and the balance not started for seven or eight years or completed for fourteen years, it is just a question whether the Grand Trunk Pacific would not have the right to use that portion from Winnipeg to North Bay seven years free of rent, and then, when the whole road is completed, for seven years more, and thus start all over again. The government might very well have insisted on the Grand Trunk Pacific paying every cent expended between Winnipeg and North Bay, as that is the only part of the road they desire to be built; and while I do not want to suggest inner motives that may lead to any further bargain, I do not think that I am suggesting anything improbable when I say that we might well imagine an arrangement being entered into, under this clause of the contract, by which the government would take further" time to consider the question of constructing the balance of the line-and there is nothing to prevent the balance of the road standing over fifty years longer-and in the meantime allow the Grand Trunk Pacific or Grand Trunk Railway to use this road from Winnipeg to North Bay, not only without paying a cent, but to have besides all the repairs paid by the government. An American writer has said that these are the days, not of great statesmen, but of great bankers and railway presidents. If he were in want of an illustration, he would find it in this contract. I do not blame the Grand Trunk Pacific for making the best bargain they could, for that is their business, but we are looking at this matter from the standpoint of the Canadian people, and I submit we have no right to leave this contract in such a shape that further expenditure of millions of dollars may be made in the interest of a private corporation without this House having any further say in the matter.
Strong arguments can be used against section 11, which binds the government to buy from the company any unprofitable road that the company may build, .but that clause had better stand fifty times over than section 3. which gives an opportunity to the commissioners to allow a private corporation to get the benefit of the expenditure of millions of the people's money without making any return.
In view of what we do know about that north country and the tremendous difficulties to be encountered in the building of a railway there, it will be many years before that road between North Bay and Quebec can be properly surveyed. But that other part from Winnipeg to North Bay is better known. Surveys have been made through a good portion of that country, this great corporation will require that piece of road, and the efforts of the government and of this company will no doubt be thrown into the building of it. Under the circumstances, the building of that road from Winnipeg to Mr. LAVELL.
North Bay will be accelerated and not retarded, but as regards the other portion, going through an unknown region, which may be a wilderness or an undiscovered paradise-the part between North Bay and Quebec-years must elapse before it will be built. During all these years, under this contract, the Grand Trunk Pacific will use only the part of the road which will be profitable to build, and the road from Quebec to Moncton will in all probability not be built. We cannot be guided by the statements of hon. gentlemen opposite in view of their declarations made last session, which they now calmly contradict.' Therefore it must be apparent to every one that this clause simply permits extensive alterations to be made to the contract and great benefits given to the company at the will of the govei'nment of the day without consulting parliament, and that can be done without any apparent consideration being given, no matter what the real consideration may be. It gives an opportunity to the government to make a gift of the people's money to a large corporation without getting any return save a return for party benefit. If there were no other reasons for throwing out this contract, clause 3 is sufficient because it opens the door to such extensive changes that in comparison little else in the contract need be considered.


Mr. J. E. ARMSTRONG (East Lambton).: Mr. Speaker, I shall ask the indulgence of the House, while I make a few remarks in reference to the Bill now before us, the importance of which we all recognize. I have listened with great interest to the speeches on both sides, during this debate. If before coming here I had any doubt with reference to the matter, I can assure you that after listening to this debate, I have come to the conclusion that the Grand Trunk Pacific scheme is an unreasonable and unfair proposition to present to the people cf Canada. If I could use the eloquent words of the right hon. the premier in introducing this measure, I should say that the flood of which he spoke was a calamitous flood, I believe that this is an unjustifiable expenditure of public money and when we come to look into the maps for information before us, we begin to realize that we have no surveys or information whatever that will enable us to come to a fair opinion in reference to this measure. I cannot conceive of a body of business men coming, to this House as the government have done and proposing to expend from $150,000,000 to $170,000,000 of the people's money, without proper maps, surveys or information. Who ever heard of the pTomoters of any railway company asking peojrle to take stock in a company with so little knowledge of the road over which-the line is to travel or the obstacles to be met. The only available knowledge is furnished by a man win visited a small portion of that country

over 200 years ago. It is unfair and unreasonable to ask the members of this House to support this measure on so little information. We are told there are mountains of information in this book called ' The National Transcontinental Railway,' -the resources of this country. I would rather say in looking into that book, that there were mountains of condemnation. Is there a man in this House who would take stock in this enterprise if it was floated. I do not believe any business man on either side would venture to take stock in it, yet we are asking the people of this country to spend from $150,000,000 to $170,000,000 of their money in promoting a scheme which is not in the best interests of the Dominion, yet practically every man. woman and child in this country is to be taxed to the extent of $25 a head, to promote this enterprise. We must realize the seriousness of the step we are about to take. It looks to me too much like a game of chance. I do not believe we are sent here to take any chances with reference to the expenditure of the money of this country. Why do not the government ask a mandate from the people ? The business way would have been for the government before entering upon this enterprise to employ a staff of engineers to make reports, promptly and expeditiously. This would have aided us in giving an honest, straightforward opinion in reference to this scheme. Can you wonder at members on this side of the House wanting to investigate this side of the matter before entering into a scheme involving such an enormous expenditure ? The Conservative party are not opposed to the building of railroads, or rather they are not opposed to assisting transportation. The Conservative party have been the party of construction in days gone by. They brought about confederation, they built the Canadian Pacific Railway, and I am surprised to hear hon. gentlemen condemn the construction of that railway which was so successfully carried out by the Conservative party. The Conservative party, to a great extent, built our canals and improved our waterways. The object of the Conservative party is not to tear down, but rather to build up and construct. The Conservative party in this matter desire to extend the Intercolonial Railway on to the Pacific Ocean. The Intercolonial Railway, as you are aware, is a government road ; it has cost this country over $70,000,000, and instead of paralleling that road, we desire to extend it through to Winnipeg and on to the Pacific Ocean. Then we would have in every sense of the word, a government road, a people's read, a road controlled entirely by the government and the people of this country. By doing that we would be binding the provinces of this great Dominion together with a bond of steel. It would not only cement the provinces as nothing else would, but it would give prompt and efficient aid
to the Northwest long before it can be expected that the Grand Trunk Pacific can possibly give that aid. It would be a government road in every respect, all the rolling stock and equipment, every rail and tie, every foot of ground, from ocean to ocean, would be under the control of the government of this country. The Canadian Pacific Railway, of which we, have heard so much from the opposite side' with reference to rates, would be practically under government control. If we had the control of this road, as we naturally would have if we owned it, we would be able to ccntrol any road running from east to west across our country. That would be a guarantee that the shippers of grain from the west to our eastern ports and the shippers of goods from the cities and towns along that line of railroad in the east, would be protected from exorbitant freight rates. They will be able to ship these goods at the actual cost rate of freight.
Now, why can not we have a government road ? Is it not an opportune time ? Are the people not prepared to pay for this road ? When we come to realize that the government of this country are prepared to spend from $150,000,000 to $175,000,000 and turn that amount of money over to the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company, and when the Grand Trunk Railway Company say distinctly that they only expect to spend $15,000,000 more, is it not natural to expect that the people will condemn any government for not having sufficient business ability to pay that extra $15,000,000 so as to own and control the road for all time to come ? The Grand Trunk say that it would cost them $15,000,000. If the project is such a good One as hon. gentlemen on the government benches would lead us to believe, why do they not pay this extra $15,000,000 and have full control of the road? The government have no proof that the project they propose is a good one and the opposition have shown them an altogether better proposition. As was stated before in reference to the Intercolonial Railway we have spent over $70,000,000 on that road. We ignore that road and send it begging. Why not extend it and make it a paying proposition ? There is no doubt about it, Mr. Speaker, that if the road were extended as has been proposed it would be a decidedly paying proposition. That its extension will meet with the general approval of the people of this country I have not the slightest doubt. It is surely not good judgment on the part of the government to build a railway paralleling to a great extent the Intercolonial Railway. The only part of the proposed new road that is not likely to parallel the Intercolonial Railway will be located near the American border which seems to be approached with such'great fear by hon. gentlemen opposite. The Intercolonial Railway, extend-

ed as proposed, would take the freight and distribute it throughout the Northwest. Not c pound of freight could possibly go to an American port. To-day the Grand Trunk Railway Company are compelled by the shareholders of that company to have a large amount of freight shipped by way of Portland. We cannot expect that they will [DOT]carry the freight, as proposed, down to St. John and Halifax when they can have it delivered at Portland and be able to pay larger dividends to the people who own the stock and in this way increase their income. The government proposition in short, is to expend from $150,000,000 to $170,000,000 of the people's money in building a road, when $15,000,000 more would have enabled the government to have completed and owned the road from ocean to ocean. They then without maps, surveys, *or any other information, save that a rose bloomed in the spring up north, strike an imaginary line from Moncton to Winnipeg and on to Port Simpson, and they say no matter what mountains or obstacles are in the way. no matter if we can never obtain a pound of freight, they are prepared to carry it out. It does not matter whether people obtain a livelihood in those regions to the north, it is there that the railroad must run. It is the determination of the government that the railway must be built, and when we find hon. gentlemen opposite stating that they stand or fall by the proposition, we realize that they are determined to make this expenditure whether it meets with the approval of the people or not. In accepting this proposition the Grand Trunk Railway Company are running no risks. The short haul to Portland has been mentioned; the result of this arrangement is that United States ports will be built up at the expense of Canadian ports. Do you wonder at the ex-Minister of Railways and Canals saying that it was a grave and egregious error, a calamitous blunder and one which will deal disaster to the future of our country ? The government have no definite idea of where they are going to run this road nor what it will cost this country. Can you wonder then that the opposition are lighting this scheme for everything that is in them ? Gan you wonder that the people and the press of our country are demanding that the government shall accept the proposition which has been made in reference to the governmental road ? The original proposition made by the government was bad enough, but when we come to examine the arrangement which has been laid before us we realize that every word that is in the amendments, is practically a word in favour of granting something towards the Grand Trunk Railway Company, and that there is not ont word in the interest of Mr. ARMSTRONG.
granting anything on behalf of the people of our country. There haa not been a great amount of money spent upon this scheme by the Grand Trunk Railway Company as yet. Would it not be wise for the government to take into their serious consideration the proposed extension of the Intercolonial Railway. It is not for the government to say that they will not accept the scheme of the opposition when they know, as many hon. members on the other side fully realize, that as far as the opposition scheme is concerned, it is the most beneficial to the country. The government have an opportunity to unite the provinces such as they never had before. The government have an opportunity to control rates from ocean to ocean. The government have an oportunity to immortalize their names on the page of history as men, who, in a great crisis, were not afraid to change their course for the benefit of the whole country. The nation will respect the government fou having done so. Foreign lands will say:	' Progressive Canada, Canada that controls a railway from ocean to ocean, Canada that owns a railway from ocean to ocean.' They will say that Canadian statesmen are abreast of the times, that they have confidence in the future resources of their country and the names of hon. gentlemen will be heralded throughout this country and throughout foreign lands as those of men who had the best interests of their country at heart. But, what will the nations of the world think of statesmen of this or any other country who, having within their grasp the opportunity of building a railway from ocean to ocean by the spending of from $13,000,000 to $15,000,000 of money, will not accept that proposition and undertake the construction of that road for the benefit of the people ? I am afraid, Sir, that the nations will be justified in calling these statesmen followers of the man who sold his heritage for a mess of pottage. I therefore beg of hon. gentlemen opposite as men having the responsibility for six millions of people in their hands, and having hundreds of millions of industrial and commercial wealth at their disposal, that they will not throw away the greatest opportunity this nation has ever bad, that of building a railway from ocean to ocean under the full control of the government and the people of our country. If the government accept the proposal of hon. members on this side of the House the annals of the future will ring with the praises of the men, who, when a great scheme of national importance presented itself, soared above party feeling and party prejudice and accepted a plan because of its lasting benefit to our race.
At six o'clock, House took recess.

After Recess.
House resumed at eight o'clock.



PRIVATE BILLS.


[Stage Direction]
Bill (No. 47) respecting the Kootenay Central Railway Company.-Mr. Galliher.
Bill (No. G4) respecting the Strait of Canso Bridge Company.-Mr. Wade.
Bill (No. 28) respecting the Temiscouata Railway Company.-Mr. Malouin.
Bili (No. 49) respecting the James Bay Railway Company.-Mr. McCool.
Bill (No. G3) respecting the Edmonton and Slave Lake Railway Company.-Mr. Costi-gan.

[Stage Direction]
House resumed adjourned debate on the proposed motion of Sir Wilfrid Laurier for the second reading of Bill (No. 72) to amend the National Transcontinental Railway Act.
Mr. HAUGHTON LENNOX (South Sim-coe).: Mr. Speaker, I am not vain enough to imagine, after all the speeches that have been made on this question this session, and all that was said upon it in the previous session, when it was first presented to the House, that I can say anything very new. Neither do I intend to occupy a great deal of time in discussing it. In the course of a debate such as this there will develop certain characteristics, certain features, that are particularly noticeable. One of these features on this occasion is the attitude of silence adopted by the government. The government have, I presume, a perfect right to hedge themselves about, in this somewhat difficult matter, so far as they can, in their effort to retain themselves in office, which is after all a very large element in their consideration of it. A man is not hound to criminate himself ; and if for hon. gentlemen opposite to open their mouths and declare themselves is to get themselves into greater difficulty than they were in before, it is perhaps wise on their part to adopt the policy of silence. Whatever objections I may have felt previously to this policy, when I was home the other day, I felt rather grateful to the government for not speaking. A number of people, both among my own constituents and among those whom I met on the train, said to me that they believed they had got more accurate information during the course of this debate from our side of the House in one day than they had got during the whole of last session from the members of the government. So that there is some compensation in this state of affairs, after all.	.
I do not perhaps need to say that I am opposed to the amended scheme. I endeavoured as far as I could to express my disapprobation of it as it was propounded in 1903 ; but bad as that scheme was, so far as the interests of the country are concerned, the present scheme is infinitely worse ; so that it is not perhaps necessary for any one to rise for the mere purpose of declaring his hostility to this scheme, if he was opposed to it when it was first introduced into this House. A year ago certain statements were taken from a pamphlet entitled ' Facts ' which had been issued by the Grand Trunk Railway Company, at a time when this question had not assumed the position it occupied in 1903 or the position it occupies to-day ; and taking that as a fair basis, 1 made a calculation of the cost of the project, and arrived at a result somewhat higher even than the estimates made during last session. I have had time to reflect since then, and, having regard to the additional burdens which are placed on the people by the present amendments, I venture to predict that when all is said and done, it will not cost less than $200,000,000 to carry this scheme through.
But I do not think you can quite swamp Canada by a matter of $200,000,000. I do not think that you would ruin this country altogether, even though you cast upon it a burden of $200,000,000, but X do feel that you are going to retard the prosperity of the country to a large extent. Worse than that, we are-putting ourselves under the control of the Grand Trunk Pacific and Grand Trunk Railway, and are exacting no safeguards. We are enabling them to carry our trade, if they choose, to foreign ports, which is much more serious than even the expenditure involved in this scheme. We are entering upon a contract ill manner similar, but in consequences infinitely worse than the scheme to which the government committed us in the matter of the Mackenzie & Mann railway in the Yukon. The same result is bound to happen. The government was asked to submit this matter to the people. It was urged to take this course last session, and gave us as an excuse that time would not allow of an appeal, that the contract would brook no delay. And although they could not pretend that they had a mandate from the people, still they refused to ask for a popular verdict on the question, on the excuse that delay would be fatal. Yet to-day we are in this position, that the government have done nothing since last session. They have not taken any steps to hasten the construction of this line, and there can be no doubt that the submitting of the question to the people would not retard the work to any extent, should the people declare themselves in its favour. The people are entitled to have this matter discussed upon the hustings, and considered and voted upon by them before they are involved in so huge an undertaking ; and if. after the policy has been fully discussed, they should sustain the government, I for one would willingly withdraw

all opposition to it. But as the matter now stands, should the government be defeated as I apprehend it will at the next elections, we will be in the same position as we were with reference to the Mackenzie & Mann deal. Should the government be defeated, we will have to pay, owing to the obstinacy and folly of the present administration, a large amount in order to buy back for the people the control of their own carrying trade.
Let me say that the one thing which impressed itself upon the people last year was the fact that the Minister of Railways, who. above all others, should have been consulted, was not consulted, but absolutely shut out from the consideration of the government scheme. That was very significant, and we find the same line being pursued on this occasion with regard to the present incumbent of that department (Mr. Emmerson). But what is much more serious than shutting out the Minister of Railways perhaps was the shutting out of the people of Canada from the consideration of the measure, by the government not introducing its cast iron agreement to this House until it was formally completed and signed. We had this measure introduced to this House on the 30th of July, 1903, and we find that on the 29th of July of the same year the government and the other parties to the contract signed the agreement. That resulted in this attitude being taken by the government, that when the representatives of the people wanted to discuss the matter they were told that no amendment whatever could be considered, because the contract had been completed and could not be changed. What would have been the honest course for the government to adopt during last session ? The honest and frank course would have been to inform the Grand Trunk Pacific or the Grand Trunk Railway that the terms upon which they were willing to build the road must first be submitted to parliament before the government could agree to them. Then we would have had a free discussion of the whole matter, the railway company would have been aware of the tone of the discussion, the negotiations would have been continued during the session, and by the time the House was ready to vote upon the measure, we would have had an agreement consented to by both sides. We would have had upon the one side what the company were willing to accept, and on the other what the government were willing to give, and consequently could have had a completed agreement, and thus dispensed with the necessity for calling this extra session for the sole benefit of the Grand Trunk Railway people. That course was not adopted. But another opportunity offered itself which the government could have taken advantage of to put themselves right before the people, and that was when the Grand Trunk Pacific declared that they were not prepared to carry out the terms of the agreement they previously entered into.


Haughton Lennox: That was the time for the government to have put itself right, and have got from the company some fair concessions in return for those they were asking. Again, the government should not have committed itself to the supplemental agreement before getting the opinion of this House ; and I venture to say that when we are discussing this contract in committee, we will be met with just the same difficulty as confronted us a yea* ago. We will be told, here is an agreement signed by the company, these are the terms we have secured from the Grand Trunk Railway, and these terms cannot be modified in any manner. What I submit is that the government had then another chance of obtaining an absolute guarantee as to rates, and let it go. They had a chance to bind, not only the Grand Trunk Pacific, but the Grand Trunk Railway, but failed to take advantage of their opportunity. They could have obtained an absolute undertaking from the Grand Trunk Railway not merely to acquire but to purchase and pay for [DOT]$25,000,000 of stock and hold it according to the terms of the original bargain ; and, what is more important than anything else, they could have obtained an absolute guarantee that this road would be in fact, as well as in theory, an all-Canadian road, a national highway, and that the hostile interests of the Grand Trunk would not be allowed to prevail, and prevent the carrying of the products of the west to Canadian ports. Time and again have the government been asked to point to one concession to the people of Canada which has been obtained as the price of giving the additional advantages given by the supplemental contract to the Grand Trunk Railway. Not one can there be found. Who is responsible for this ? The present Minister of Railways (Mr. Emmerson) does not seem inclined to shoulder the responsibility. He either will not toe the mark, or they will not let him.
I am inclined to think that hon. gentleman would face the music to-day if the government would allow him to do so, and that as they endeavoured to muzzle the exMinister of Railways (Mr. Blair) they are to-day preventing the Minister of Railways (Mr. Emmerson) from opening his mouth upon this question. Could there be a more humiliating position for a Minister of Railways or any other cabinet minister than to be prevented from dealing with a question which especially and peculiarly pertains to his department. Some one said to-day that he was labelled ' Minister of Railways ' in order that he might sign the contract and that seems to be about the position. The present Minister of Railways has the sympathy to some extent of members on this side of the House, and although the right hon. gentleman who leads the House has not treated us on this side with the consideration we might expect from him, and which we have received from him on some

former occasions, I think that he too is entitled to our sympathy. How far the | events of last night indicate that there was a difficulty in the camp and that there was danger of the rank and file deserting the right hon. gentleman I do not know. But we have this fact that a year ago the right hon. gentleman was able to introduce this .measure in a speech which although it was lacking in cogent reasons, at all events had a happy ring about it as if the hon. gentleman had, to a large extent the support of his following in the House, and the manner in which they applauded his utterances must have been some satisfaction to him on that occasion. But contrast his manner then with the manner in which he spoke in this debate and contrast that applause with his almost total desertion by his cabinet now. In extending that sympathy we of course cannot altogether forget how that right hon. gentleman treated his colleague the exMinister of Railways (Mr. Blair) only a year ago, nor can we forget the attitude of the right hon. gentleman when at the council board, knowing that the ex-Minister of Railways (Mr. Blair) was opposed to this scheme, and yet concurred in asking that gentleman to attempt to carry it through the House or at least, if he would not give it his open countenance, at all events not to condemn it. I venture to say that it will be a long time before any other Minister of the Crown will occupy such a humiliating position as that occupied by the right hon. the premier in this regard. 1 am aware that the ex-Minister of Railways (Mr. Blair) on a subsequent occasioq pointed out that it was not the right hon. gentleman himself who urged what I cannot characterize as other than an infamous proposition, but it remains that when that infamous proposal was made, the right hon. gentleman was there and did not condemn it. and as leader of the government he stands committed to it as thoroughly and as deeply as any member of the cabinet. And, Sir, although all of the colleagues of the right * hon. gentleman were present in the House when that matter was first made public, not one of them rose in his seat and said it was he and not the right hon. gentleman who leads the House who had made the proposal. They were content to allow him to be condemned. Therefore am I not right in saying that there must be a feeling of sympathy for the right hon. gentleman by reason of what has been shown by Mr. Blair and of the desertion of the right hon. gentleman by his colleagues ? We have nice distinctions in this House. I recall the declamation, the indignation and the horror of the right hon. gentleman and the Minister of Finance the other day, at the action of the hon. the leader of the opposition (Mr. R. L. Borden). They were so solicitous of the honour of parliament which had as they alleged been tarnished by the
act of the hon. the leader of the opposition (Mr. R. L. Borden). It reminds me of the story told of a French nobleman who, by eaves-dropping discovered where a large treasure was hidden. He had no scruples about possessing himself of the treasure, and in the dark hours of night he went to the place where it was buried in the earth. When he arrived there he remembered that he had neither pick nor shovel with which to exhume the treasure, and it caused him the most abject sorrow and misery to think that he, a gentleman of such high estate, should have to descend to the meanness of stealing a pick and shovel ; but he had no qualms of conscience as to stealing the treasure hidden in the earth. The hon. gentleman's anxiety is something of that class. He has -in the political sense-robbed the people of this country of millions, he has pledged the credit of this country and got no proper value in return; he has formed a partnership with the Grand Trunk Railway Company and stands as a partner with that company to-day, although that partnership is not in the interests of Canada but is in the interests of the Grand Trunk Railway Company. This does not affect the rignt hon. gentleman's sense of honour in the slightest degree, but if we on this side, fighting for the rights of the people, get possession of a document that throws a vast amount of light on this question, that shows the true inwardness of the transaction, if we use that in the interests of the people of this country, he is shocked. I for one would have no hesitation in using such a document. Many copies of it had been printed and distributed to members of the government and I would have no hesitation in using it to safe-guard the interests of the people.
There was great urgenry in 1903, according to the right hon. gentleman. There were two grounds for this urgency. One of these was congestion in the west. It was pointed out again and again last year that the only difficulty there arose from the want of rolling stock on the Canadian Pacific Railway, and that if that road was as well equipped as the Grand Trunk and Intercolonial there would be no congestion in the west. But) there is not such urgency now. and an extension of time, of three years, has been granted in the case of the western division. The eastern division is evidently not going to be completed at any rapid rate, or we would not find the provision in the amended contract giving the commissioners the right to lease a portion of the road before the rest is completed.
Let me say just at this point that, not only is that an indication that probably the government are beginning to realize the peculiar difficulties which confront them in the matter of constructing the eastern section, and do not, perhaps, contemplate the construction of the eastern section at

2160'
any time, east of North Bay, but it also affords an indication of just what the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company actually intend to do. What is evidently contemplated at the present time is that the necessary part of what is called the eastern section, the portion between North Bay and Winnipeg, is the only portion that the government contemplates completing and the only portion that the railway company are willing to operate, and that when that is completed, the government will lease that portion to the railway company and that is the last we will hear of a transcontinental railway for many years to come But, the great mater of urgency, that the right hon. gentleman referred to with so much earnestness and in regard to which be concluded with a prayer last year, was the fear of the abrogation of the bonding j rivilege. He was afraid it was already too late. He made that the turning point upon which he based his argument. That, above all other reasons was the reason upon which he himself had decided immediately to put into execution this great transcontinental scheme. * Heaven grant ' he said ' that already it may not be too late.' He pointed out in very graceful sentences, in very eloquent terms, that it was not a question of tomorrow, or to-morrow, or to-morrow, that it was an immediate questiou, a question of this day, of this hour and of this moment. Well, what happened? We have the fact that when the right hon. gentleman produced his amended measure, every clause of which he prefaced by an ample apology, he said not one word about the bonding privilege, because he knew the question of the bonding privilege was repudiated not only by the good sense of his own followers, but by the country at large the moment he gave expression to his fears at the last session of parliament. He dare not upon this occasion rest his case in the remotest degree upon the question of the bonding privilege. The right hon. gentleman must have known then, as every man in public life in Canada must know, that the retention of the bonding privilege is as important to the people of ihe United States as it is to the people of Canada. Go into the library and bring here the books that were read to my right hon. friend last session and you will find the statements of the most distinguished and influential men in the United States, backing up those who formed a committee to inquire into these trade relations, one and all agreeing, making no secret about it, but publishing it to the world at large, that the people of the United States are just as dependent upon Canada as Canada is dependent on the United States for the maintenance of the bonding privilege. I want to say just here and now, that, whether in the matter of the bonding privilege or in regard to any other matters, Canada must take her stand. In the matter of trade relations, the country has shown Mr. LENNOX.
that it is when Canada holds her own, and determines to take a manly attitude in regard to the United States, the people of the United States begin to respect us, to come and ask us for fair terms and to offer us fair terms in return. Take the question of reciprocity, as it presents itself to-day, and contrast that with a few years ago, and it will be admitted that there is abundant vindication of what I say. We have only to stand by our rights to teach the people of the United States that whilst we wish to have friendly relations in all matters with them, yet, we are a self-respecting people, a people quite capable of maintaining our rights, aye, and a people who are determined to maintain our rights us against all comers. Now, I said some moments ago that the right hon. gentleman in introducing his measure containing these amendments, introduced it with a good deal of apology, and in that I think he has only done what he ought to do. A year ago the right hon. gentleman assured this House, I think, perhaps, without due consideration, that this scheme was vastly beneficial to the interests of the people of this country, and that it would cost just thirteen millions of money, not twelve and a half millions nor thirteen and a quarter millions, but exactly thirteen millions of dollars. The right hon. gentleman had got it down to a fraction. The hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) followed him shortly afterwards. He had secured the services of an actuary, he had gone closely into the calculation and he had got it down to a much finer point. He did not round it out in the fine bold millions of the right hon. leader of the government, but he got it down to fractions, just so many millions, so many thousands, so many dollars and so many cents. But, his estimate was some $6,000,000 higher than that of the right hon. leader of the government. To-day we have the right hon. leader of the government telling us that certain minor concessions are asked for by the Grand Trunk Railway Company. Let me say just here that I do not understand exactly upon what basis the Grand Trunk Railway Company ask for anything. The Grand Trunk Railway Company have entered into no contract with Canada. They make no promises. They will submit to no obligation. They are no part of the company with which we are dealing. We have to rely- let the hon. gentlemen take back their words of last session as they will-upon the covenant of the contract of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company and of that company alone.
How comes the Grand Trunk Railway Company to ask for terms at all ; whence comes their right to hold a meeting iff London, England, to dictate the policy which Canada shall follow; whence comes the right of the Grand Trunk directors to say to their shareholders, that they have driven the government of Canada into a partner-

ship with them ? Taking it all in all, it is a. most extraordinary proceeding. Aside from technicalities, any person who views this as a common sense business transaction, must come to the conclusion that there cannot be a more unfortunate thing than that it is the Grand Trunk Railway which is ostensibly dealing with the government, while it is the Grand Trunk Pacific with whom we are actually dealing, and from which we are getting security-if we are getting any security at all. I believe that the consensus of opinion in Canada is, that if the government had looked over all this Dominion for a company with which to contract, they could not have found a company whose interests were more antagonistic and diametrically opposed to the interests of the people of Canada, than this same Grand Trunk Railway. I have not a word to say against the Grand Trunk Railway Company ; I am free to render them praise for anything they have done in the way of developing this country ; but I am also here to say that Canada has given the Grand Trunk Railway a full and complete equivalent in the past for anything they may have done. I say that no more dangerous thing could have been done than for the government of Canada to enter into a contract with a company which has its termini in the United States ; a company having its interests centred in the United States ; a company which has built up at vast expense terminals on the one side at Chicago and on the other side at Portland, and a company which must necessarily for its own welfare, endeavour to divert trade from Canadian to United States channels. This government may today think that they can force this measure through and ignore our warnings, but I venture to say deliberately, that it will not be very many years before the people of this Dominion will have realized that we are giving the Grand Trunk Railway a most dangerous control over the destinies of Canada, and that that control will have to be brought back at a huge price paid by our people. There was a time when we used to jocularly refer to the late Minister of Public Works (Mr. Tarte) as the master of the administration, but a change has come, and a perusal to-day of the speeches of Mr. Hays and Sir Rivers-Wilson, forces the people of Canada to the conclusion, that we have now new masters of the administration, and that in fact the Grand Trunk Railway Company is dictating the policy of this country in the matter of the Transcontinental Railway. There have been vast concessions made to the Grand Trunk Railway. A study of the correspondence between the company and the government leads to the belief that the only reason why the government have not given more to the Grand Trunk Railway is because the Grand Trunk Railway did 09
not ask for more. There is nothing for Canada, but everything for the Grand Trunk Railway Company. The right hon. gentleman may think that it is all right at present to give this enormously rich contract to the Grand Trunk Railway, but the people of this country realize, that it is an extravagant and wasteful dissipation of their resources, and that there are men in the cabinet who if they dared speak, would condemn the scheme as strenuously as I do. That being so, the right hon. gentleman will not be so jaunty over this scheme when he comes before the electorate of Canada. When the right hon. gentleman introduced the Bill a year ago, he introduced it with a great flourish of trumpets and in a speech of words, and only words, but I can tell him that the verdict of the people of Canada is, that this measure was conceived and designed largely for the purpose of placing the right hon. gentleman, if that could be possible, side by side wfith the greatest man that ever occupied a position in Canadian public life:	the right


Right Hon.   S@: Macdonald. The people of Canada believe that this scheme was devised, more for the purpose of aggrandizing the importance of the Prime Minister himself, than for the purpose of advancing the true interests of ''this country.
But, Sir, this railway company not content with obtaining such signal advantages from the Dominion government sought others from the government of Ontario. Have we two great Liberal parties in this country ; the one which condemns grants of lands to subsidize railways ; the other which gives away -wholesale the lands of that people to these corporations. The Ontario government have forgotten the pledges that have been made by this government in that regard and in addition to granting this company $400,000 cash for a branch line from Port Arthur to connect with the Transcontinental Railway east of Winnipeg, they have also given away 6,400 acres per mile for 200 miles, or in all 1,280,000 acres of the heritage of the people of the province to this company ; and all to divert our Canadian trade to American ports.
Where are the boasted professions of the great Liberal party of Canada, when we find these gentlemen in Ottawa making one profession and their friends and supporters in Ontario making another ? Mr. Speaker, it is very much of a piece with the way in which these gentlemen all through are assisting one another. Whenever one party is handicapped, relief comes from the other. For instance, take the case of Mr. Jackson. He became so notorious that, although I would not like to use the offensive language used by the right hon. gentleman the other night in reference to the Conservative party, and say that Mr. Jackson stunk in the nostrils of anybody, yet I say he has been guilty of such corrupt and nefarious practices that
11EVISED EDITION

the judges of the courts have spoken of him in a way that could not be harsher or more extreme if applied to any criminal in the land. The Ontario government, finding themselves tottering on the brink of ruin, try to maintain themselves in office by fraudulent devices. They dared not brave public opinion and appoint this criminal Jackson to a public position ; but they counted on their friends in this House, who were so shocked over the reading of the memorandum of the late Minister of Railways and Canals, and they compromised with these hon. gentlemen and got them to appoint Mr. Jackson to a good position of emolument under the Crown and send him to Great Britain. A sweet and beautiful example Mr. Jackson is, a nice object lesson of what the people of this country are to the people of Great Britain-Mr. Jackson, the criminal, sending immigrants to this country and paid by the present administration.
Speaking of this memorandum of Mr. Blair, it is not much wonder that the government got pretty indignant at the fact that it had been delivered to the leader of the opposition. The right hon. gentleman who leads the government made the statement time and again-out of the whole cloth, I think, because he jrtis not able to back it up, and it turns out to be not in accordance with the fact-that Mr. Blair was as hostile to the scheme propounded by the hon. leader of the opposition as he was to the scheme propounded by the government. What does Mr. Blair's memorandum say 7 It was opened and delivered to the members of the cabinet on the 10th or 12th of December, 1902. It advocates in the most distinct words the limited adoption of government ownership of railways, that is, the extension of the Intercolonial Railway to the Georgian Bay and ultimately to the Pacific coast. What distinction is there between that scheme and the scheme propounded by the hon. leader of the opposition 7 When the right hon. gentleman is driven from pillar to post, not knowing how to defend himself, what does he do ? Why, he finds an item in the Halifax ' Chronicle ' or some other newspaper in the maritime provinces, quoting a statement of Mr. Blair ; and what does Mr. Blair say ? He says this, and no more, that he is opposed to the immediate construction of the railway. To that extent he is not quite in harmony with the hon. leader of the opposition. Now, we are not prepared to take a second place to Mr. Blair or any Reformer in this country in regard to the development of the country. The Conservatives of Canada have always been the pioneers in the development of this great country. They have always had hopes for the country, and believed in its magnificent possibilities. It was the Conservative party that first started this country on the march of prosperity, and I believe they will soon again be in control of the helm of Mr. RENNOX.
state, bringing to it a still greater degree of prosperity.
I want to point out one significant sentence in this memorandum of Mr. Blair which should have been a warning to this government ; that is, the sentence in 'which Mr. Blair expressly and emphatically urges the government-having a premonition evidently of what they were about to do-not to enter into a contract with any railway company whose interests are at variance with -those of the people of Canada. That is exactly what the government have done. That is exactly what they have done, therefore, in face of the warning of Mr. Blair; and when this whole matter is known more fully than it is to-day, I think there will be such sidelights thrown upon the dismissal of Mr. Blair, upon the hostility of the cabinet to him, upon the treatment which he was accorded to the government as have not yet manifested themselves.
One word more, and that is in reference to government ownership. Probably the people of Canada have not come to the conclusion that all railways in Canada should be owned and controlled by the government. But I do believe that there is a universal feeling to-day that one great trunk line, sufficient to control rates, to afford adequate competition with the Canadian Pacific Railway or any other competing line, should be owned and controlled by the government. Whether that is a sound principle in itself or not, nobody who approaches this matter without prejudice, as it presents itself today in the light of the amendments that have been made to the contract, in the light of the statements which have been made by Sir Charles Rivers-Wilson and Mr. Hays at the meeting of their shareholders, and in the light of the fact that the utmost dollar which the Grand Trunk Pacific or the Grand Trunk are putting into this scheme is $14,500,000, while we are putting in probably $160,000,000-no one who considers this matter, however he may feel on the general question of the government ownership of railways, can avoid feeling that it is an unwise move on the part of the government to commit Canada to this scheme in which they will have no control over rates or over the routing of freights. When these two points are admitted, and when we are putting into the scheme such a large amount of money, why not go a little further and pay $14,500,000 or $15,000,000 more, and have this road controlled and used by the people of Canada as a great and truly transcontinental line ? I do not propose to follow this matter further. The government have the power to carry the scheme through. They can, as they did on the last occasion, force the measure through without amendment. What amendments will be proposed I do not know. But where all should have the same interests at heart, namely, the best interests of Canada, in a matter of such far-

reaching importance, I urge the government, even at this late date, to consider whether it would not be well for them to assert a little independence of the Grand Trunk Railway Company, and say to them: ' We are not entirely dependent upon you ; we represent a great people ; you represent a great company ; we will stand by the people, you can stand for the rights of your company ; and before we will submit to the exactions which you now demand, we will nationalize this scheme ; having to build the eastern end, the difficult end, and you only undertaking to, construct a small section on the prairie and ip the mountains, we will expend a few dollars more, and will build the whole line and own and control it for the advantage of the people.'


Mr. E. B. OSLER (West Toronto).: This is the first opportunity I have had, Mr. Speaker, of thanking the right hon. the First Minister for the kindly and courteous words he used in referring to me the other night; and did I not feel it my duty to return him the compliment, I would not on this occasion venture to address the House. In my absence the right hon. gentleman referred to me in terms rather of sorrow than of anger. He said : ' My hon. friend from West Toronto, who, I regret to see, is not in his place-' I am quite free to admit, Sir, that I am not here as often as I should be, but 1 think I can claim, with some degree of justice, that I am here oftener and longer than any minister of the Crown, except the right hoii. gentleman, and surely if there ever was an occasion on -which it was the duty cf ministers to be present, it is when this Bill is being discussed. As I have said, referring to me rather in sorrow than in anger, the right hon. gentleman said :
My hon. friend from West Toronto, who, I regret to see, is not in his place, thought that he would improve the matter by having the report-
That is the report of the meeting of the Grand Trunk shareholders to consider this agreement.

printed and circulated in the House, but I am sure that the hon. member for West Toronto himself would be the first to acknowledge that in this he was wrong.
I do not acknowledge anything of, the kind.
The hon. member for West Toronto is one of these monied men and owned men of whom Sir Walter Scott speaks in a famous passage.
I would like to ask the First Minister if he would give me a reference to the famous passage. I am fairly familiar with Sir Walter Scott's works, and, while I do not pretend to be an authority, I failed to find Sir Walter Scott's passage.


An hon. MEMBER.: Which Walter Scott ">


Edmund Boyd Osler: Please do not accuse me of referring to the Walter Scott who supports the right hon. gentleman.
69}
Sir WILFRID LAURI3R. The hon. gentleman asks me my reference, and I shall give it to him at once. If he will look at the work which has been published recently by Mr. Hutcheson, if I remember right, a new series of letters addressed by Sir Walter Scott, he will find a letter written about 1808 or 1809, in which Sir Walter Scott speaks of having been made a director of an insurance company and of having been called to take part in the proceedings of the company. Some of the members of the board asked to have the proceedings published, to which Sir Walter Scott objected, and in this letter lie speaks of ' monied men and ownied men,' and by ' ownied ' he meant in the sense of their being landed proprietors.


Edmund Boyd Osler: I thought I would draw the right hon. gentleman. He spoke of a famous passage by Sir Walter Scott, and the famous passage to which he referred is one that has only just been published. It is to be found in Sir Walter Scott's letters, which were published in the 'Century Magazine,' in 1903 for the first time, and has not yet been published in book form. The reference is not famous, it was dug out no doubt by the Prime Minister in his delight in reading Sir Walter Scott's letters, which are delightful to read, but if I may be permitted to remark, the passage has not yet become famous, because it has not been before the world more than one year, few people have ever seen it, and the right hon. gentleman no doubt stumbled upon it by chance.
With reference to the charge which he makes against me that, as a director of a public company, I will be ashamed of having brought out the stenographic report of the meeting of the Grand Trunk Railway, of course, we do not expect business knowledge from the right hon. gentleman. I suppose he would he the last man in this House to claim business experience and knowledge. He is respected for other ability and for his work in other branches, but certainly not for his business ability. Let me say that the meetings of the Grand Trunk Railway shareholders are absolutely public. At such meetings there are, as a rule, probably from ten to twenty shorthand writers sent by the leading financial papers in London. That is the case at any meeting of any important corporation. The newspapers send their shorthand writers, and there are certain stenographers who make it their business to report in full such meetings, and their reports are of great advantage and convenience. So far from being private, any newspaper in England is entitled to publish a report of the Grand Trunk general meetings in full, if they think it will interest their readers; and if you will take the trouble to look over the files of English newspapers. you will find that in every one of them there is a more or less full report of every such meeting, according as it may interest the community in which the news-

paper circulates. There was only one paper in England, so far as I know, which published practically a full report of the Grand Trunk meeting, hut had it been known that the public interest in that meeting was so great as it is in Canada, every financial newspaper would have published every word said. The right hon. gentleman states that I, as a director in public companies, ought to know that it is practically a breach ot faith to publish such reports, and that, as a director of the Canadian Pacific Railway, I would consider it a breach of faith to publish a report in full of any meeting of that comjjany. Sir, at the meetings of the Canadian Pacific Railway at Montreal, the reporters of the ' Star,' * Herald,' 1 Gazette,' and every newspaper in the city are present taking down everything that is said. Any one can go to any one of those meetings and make a full report, and, so far from such report being an improper thing, it is the ordinary part of the business life of every corporation. The Prime Minister has evidently gone back some thirty or forty years, to that period when the Hudson Bay Company and the old chartered companies considered that they were privileged bodies, and refused to admit reporters or have any report of their proceedings given to the public, except what the directors themselves chose to issue. What was the result ? Every leading newspaper in London bought, in the name of one of its reporters, a share in the company that tried to keep itself a close corporation, and a shareholder, even of one share, is entitled to go to a meeting and report whatever may he said. There is no breach of business or any other etiquette in obtaining a full report of a meeting of any public company in Canada, Great Britain or the United States. So far from my deserving censure, I am entitled to the gratitude of the House for having produced this verbatim report, so that the country may know in what light the Grand Trunk shareholders had presented to them the bargain which they compelled this government to accept. Now, Sir, the right hon. the Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) states that the meaning which Sir Walter Scott attached to the words of the quotation is not the meaning which I and every man in the House attached to the words as quoted.
I consider that in quoting these words the Prime Minister insulted me as I could be insulted in no other way. He insinuated, Sir, that I was a bought man, an owned man. By whom ? By the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. Sir, all my life I have been playing off my own bat.


Mr. NORTHRUP.: And you made a good score too.


Edmund Boyd Osler: And I defy any man in this House or elsewhere, to say that I have ever subserved my personal feelings or personal principles to any company,, any individual or any transaction in this world.


Edmund Boyd Osler: 


Wilfrid Laurier: Will my hon. friend allow me one word ? I would be very sorry to have the hou. gentleman (Mr. Osier) or any one else get from my words the impression which he now takes. The reporter, not being familiar with the word, spelt it ' owned.' In the revised 'Hansard ' I took the opportunity to spell the word exactly as Sir Walter Scott has spelled it, * ownied,' just as ' monied.'


An hon. MEMBER,: What is the difference ?	_


Wilfrid Laurier: I can only give the explanation of Sir Walter Scotl* that it meant a landed proprietor.


Edmund Boyd Osler: In that case the explanation would not apply to me, because there is no such thing in this country as a landed proprietor, there is no meaning in words that will call a man a landed proprietor in this country and make that a sneer, or that would cause any gentleman to think that in using it he was saying something that was a reflection on a man. That is what the words as quoted by the Prime Minister mean to me. I deny the insinuation absolutely. The accusation has been made against mo in this House that I am owned by <hc- Canadian Pacific Railway Company. Mr. Speaker, if there is one thing more than another of which the Canadian Pacific Railway should be proud, it is that they have among their directors men of all political creeds and leanings. They have tried to secure and they have men who are independent in thought, and not one man in the Canadian Pacific directorate has been an owned man. Do you think, Sir, that I am advancing the interests of the Canadian Pacific Railway, by taking the stand I am taking in this House, in regard to this Eili ? If the Canadian Pacific Railway, a year ago had taken such a stand as manv of the great universities of the United States have taken, I would have been asked to resign from the directorate. In many of the universities of the United States which have been subsidized by wealthy men, the professors might be called by the term that ihe right hon. Prime Minister has applied l.) me. The professors in these universities have on many occasions been dismissed, deprived of their positions, because, forsooth, they were independent enough to teach their students theories and doctrines that were not in accord with views of the monied men who owned and subsidized these universities. The Canadian Pacific Railway has in its directorate men who are on both sides of this House, let me say men who are very strongly partisan, on both sides of this House, but I have been singled out as the one man. If the Canadian Pacific Railway acted as many of these universities nave done, they would have asked me to resign my position as director of the company immediately, because, Sir, you

can see, any man here can see, that the position I have taken on this contract, and the words I have used in this House, are not in the interests of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Do you mean to say that the position I have taken is making the right bon. the Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laur-ier), the hon. the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Sifton), the hon. the Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Emmerson), more favourable to the Canadian Pacific Railway, than if I had been subservient and had backed up this scheme which these gentlemen are presenting to the country ? If I had endorsed the scheme I have nb doubt the Canadian Pacific Railway would bo treated, both now and later on, in a very much more gentle way than it is at present being treated-although I am not for one moment complaining of the treatment of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Since I have been connected with the railway they have never to my knowledge, asked what they did not think to be just and what they did not think to be their rights, and if these were refused them, they never whined. I think I have now made plain my feeling as regards the terms the Prime Minister saw fit to apply to me in a quotation which he has tried to explain away. If I were to judge from what is being done in connection with this Bill, I claim that I -would be more right to apply to the Prime Minister the words ' an owned man ' than he has to apply them to me. I do not, Mr. Speaker, for one moment apply these words to him, because I know that he is not an owned man, and I know that what he is doing in connection with this Bill is what he thinks is right and I would not for a moment suggest anything to the contrary. But, look at it, Mr. Speaker, from the point of view of hon. gentlemen on this side of the House. A proposition is put before this country involving an amount of money greater than has ever been put before this parliament at one time. The Prime Minister originally makes an appeal to patriotism, to the fear that our friends to the south would abrogate the bonding privilege. A very short time elapses before that plea falls to the ground and it has not a supporter now, it is never mentioned. Ii reminds me of the old romantic song of 30 years ago.
Oh, no, we never mention her,
Her name is never heard ;
My lips are now forbid to speak
The once familiar word.
Now, Sir, the Prime Minister and the Grand Trunk Railway Company proclaim aloud that they are partners in this transaction ; this is admitted on all hands. In ordinary busiuess transactions we know that there is a partner called the dominant partner. In this case if we go back to the introduction of this Bill, we find the Prime Minister and his colleagues endorsing this
scheme and saying that it was perfect, that it was so absolutely final, that even small amendments could not be admitted for fear of the Grand Trunk Company backing out of it. Within 30 days after the House rose, after the passage of the Bill, these men who had been so lauded as men of such repute, such position aud such condition that it was heresy to suggest that their word was not as good as their bODd, that anything they had said in the committee would be carried out without any question at all, broke their agreement. ATithin thirty days these men repudiated their solemn agreement. This agreement was signed by the president, the general manager and the leading directors of the Grand Trunk Railway Company. Within thirty days these men defaulted upon their agreement.
Mr. Speaker, on the occasion on which I addressed this House a short time ago I applied to these men the word ' fakirs.' Let me say in all earnestness and to avoid any question-I think I will not be misunderstood-that I did not apply that word, or I did not mean to apply that word to these men as individuals. I applied that word to these men as corporators of the company, and to-day, in the light of events and in the face of the lecture that I have had from the right hon. Prime Minister and others- I would expect it from the others, but did not expect it from the right hon. Prime Minister-I apply to them this word ' fakirs!' The Grand Trunk president, hi his speech, acknowledges it because he simply says : We have caused a company to be incorporated to carry out this arrangement to relieve the Grand Trunk Railway Company of responsibility. Now, as to the question of the money deposit, I think it is admitted that that was not in any shape or way the reason why the Grand Trunk Railway Company did not implement their bargain because just a week, I think, after the supplementary arrangement had been made there was no difficulty at all and the $5,000,000 was deposited. The Grand Trunk Railway Company can always command $5,000,000. The Grand Trunk Railway president and directors, like shrewd, hard-headed business men as they are, the picked business men of London and, perhaps, if that is so, we may say the picked business men of the world, because they are equal to the picked business men of the world, led this government on until they were committed body and bones to a partnership. Documents were signed, sealed and delivered on both sides. The government having responsibility to the nation, having a responsibility far beyond the responsibility attached to the directors of any private company, were bound under the agreement which they entered into. The directors of the Grand

Trunk Pacific Company having no responsibility in their corporate capacity, having put up no forfeit, proceeded immediately to repudiate their conduct, why ? They had led this government into a contract which was absolutely indefensible from the business point of view. The government had defended it. They had committed their political reputation and life to the carrying out of this contract. Mr. Hays, Sir Charles Rivers-Wilson and the other directors of the Grand Trunk Railway Compapy simply sat down. They allowed the day of the deposit of the $5,000,000 to pass without saying a word. The government getting restless, as the Grand Trunk knew they would get restless, began to apply to the Grand Trunk Railway Company. What is this ? We are in a mess. The Grand Trunk Railway Company came to the government and said : we cannot carry out this agreement as it has been entered into. We must have modifications. They knew that the government were so committed that the government had practically to take the whole arrangement into their own hands and build the road or accept any terms that the Grand Trunk Railway choose to impose. They, the G.T.R. .directors, were shrewd, hard-headed business men doing their duty to their shareholders. They were making a bargain with the government and it was their duty to make the best bargain they could. They sized up the gentlemen they were dealing with. They had no hesitation in bluffing as it is done in the American game of poker which some of the great railway men of the United States, of the older generation, have said has taught them more business than all the business in the world. The directors of the Grand Trunk Railway Company, if they are not poker players-I do not say they are-certainly knew the first rules of the game. The gentleman who held the best hand got frightened and laid down. These men came to the government with modifications of this scheme and every solitary modification that was suggested has been swallowed whole by the government. Take the first contract that this government entered into and compare it with the amendments, and you will see that there is not one single word in the amendments which is to the benefit of Canada. There is not one single word or line in the amendments which is not for the benefit of the Grand Trunk Railway Company-not one. Who got the better of that deal ? .The Grand Trunk Railway Company got the better of the deal and they deserved to get the better of the deal. They were the better negotiators and as far as the Grand Trunk Railway Company are concerned, I must congratulate them upon having at the head of that company the able men who are not afraid to enter into negotiations with the business govern-Mr. OSLER.
ment of this country and are not afraid that in these negotiations they will come out second best or play second fiddle. As I said' a short time ago, no one expected business from the right hon. Prime Minister. But we did expect business from some of his lieutenants. What have we seen '! We have a spectacle that I will be bound to say has not been seen in the chamber of any body like this in the world. We have seen the right hon. Prime Minister, whom his best friends will not accuse of being a business man, getting up and introducing this measure not as a business proposition, but as the proposition of a poet attempting to carry out a high ideal. As my hon. friend (Mr. Clarke) has pointed out, perhaps, to provide feather beds for the Indians, because, when we were looking into the narrative of one of the explorers who is quoted as an authority in favour of this scheme, we find that he says that feathers are so thick in places that the Indians and wild beasts run a risk of being smothered if they come too close to a pile of them. We all expected that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding), when the matter of an expenditure of $150,000,000 or $170,000,000 was before ihisriiOUSe'TiM when the conditions under which this Bill was passed last year have been changed to such a degree that the vital control which the hon. minister quoted last year as a safeguard, namely that the stock of this company should be held by the Grand Trunk Railway Company and not given to the public, this, as he said, being the foundation of the contract, would have taken part in this discussion. But the hon. Minister of Finance is out of the House while this discussion goes on. I do not like to use any word to which objection may be taken and yet I scarcely know how to find a word which will adequately describe the situation. The hon. Minister of Finance should have been in this House during the [DOT]whole of this discussion, and he should have replied to the charges which have been made. This country is committed to an expenditure of $170,000,000. Who, on that side of the House has backed it up ? -the right hon. Prime Minister in a poetical, enthusiastic, patriotic speech and the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Sifton) who entirely ignores the whole crux of this agreement, because he absolutely ignores the whole eastern part of the road. He does not say one word in his speech as to the road from North Bay to Quebec. Now, Mr. Speaker, that certainly does require some explanation. The hon. Minister of Finance and the hon. Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Emmerson) ought surely to be able to give some intelligent explanation tb this House as to the reason for and the meaning of the alterations which have been made in this contract.

Tlie government evidently Intended, when they brought in this amended, contract to parliament, to have it go through without any discussion at all. 1 believe myself that neither the Prime Minister nor any of his colleagues had any knowledge of what the amendments to the contract meant ; they could not have had that knowledge or they would have risen in their places to try to explain the amendments. The fact is, that during this debate the ministers have either been absent from this House, or they have sat in their seats dumb as the oyster. The Minister of Finance last session, made a very strong statement, as strong as any man could make, to the effect that by forcing the Grand Trunk Railway Company to hold the common stock and to put $20,000,000 of rolling stock on the road, the Grand Trunk Railway Company would be contributing a large sum of money-which though on our side we thought was insufficient still gave some excuse to the ministers and their supporters for believing that they had a substantial guarantee that the Grand Trunk Railway would carry out their obligations- and that this would bind them to carry out their obligations. But. Sir, every vestige of responsibility which the Grand Trunk had under the contract of last year-which 1 admit was almost infinitesimal-has been wiped away and under this amended contract they have now neither monetary nor moral obligation to carry out any part of this work. I think, Mr. Speaker, that I may take credit to myself, that when 1 spoke a few days ago, I so pierced the hides of some of these gentlemen on the other side that they were forced to get up and answer me ; that they found it would not do to let that thing go without an answer. But the answer they gave, was not an answer to the arguments that,had been advanced from this side of the House as to the weakness of the contract; it was the answer that is often given when a man has a bad case ; namely mere personal abuse. For my part, I am quite willing to take my share of any further personal abuse that may come, but so long as I am in this House representing a constituency and responsible to my people for my actions, I shall maintain my independence, and despite what may be said by any gentleman on the other side I shall sav what I think on any question of policy that is put before this parliament. It is my duty to do so, and I would be absolutely unworthy to hold the position I do, if X did not take that stand.
Now, Mr. Speaker, it has been said as part of the abuse that has been heaped upon me, that as a director of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, I object to this scheme ; the inference being, because it might be an injury to the Canadian Pacific Railway. Well, Mr. Speaker, I say that this scheme, if it goes through in its entirety as the government proposes, will be of enormous advantage to the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. The Canadian Pacific Railway will, out of the money that is expended by the government, reap at least from $5,000,000 to $10,000,000 of the country's money ; which I consider is thrown away under this scheme ; but that money will come to the Canadian Pacific Railway Company- If this road is built, the Canadian Pacific Railway will not suffer in any shape or way. I have not been through the Northwest dozens and dozens of times for the last twenty-five years, without knowing that the Northwest is able to maintain not one railway or two railways, but ten railways, and probably in time twenty railways. Go, Mr. Speaker, from Minneapolis through the country traversed by the Northern Pacific, the Great Northern, the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie roads, and I do not believe that you can travel five miles on any of these railways, without finding an opposition road crossing you or alongside of you ; and all these roads are making money and are profitable. The building of the Grand Trunk Railway in the Canadian Northwest will be of great advantage to this country ; of great advantage to the Grand Trunk Railway, and above all it will be of advantage to the Canadian Pacific Railway. Even from a selfish point of view,
I would vote for the Grand Trunk Railway getting in there every time. 1 have always advocated the entrance of the Grand Trunk Railway into the Northwest ; I do so now ; and although from my place here I have denounced the principle of bonusiug railways, at the samel time if the Grand Trunk Railway Company, or any railway company, proposes to build say from North Bay through that inhospitable and in the meantime barren region, and thence to the prairie, I would advocate a very liberal bonus towards that part of the road. When I denounced the bonusing of railways. I thought that I would have the support of the Liberals in this House. Before 1896, when I had the honour of being elected to this House, one plank in the Liberal platform was that the time had come when the bonusing of railways should cease. That is one of the planks of the Liberal platform that I approved of and adopted. It is one of the planks of the Liberal platform that I now approve of. Speaking in Torouto, long before I was a member of this House or had any idea of offering myself as a candidate, I announced that as one of the planks in my platform, and I still believe in it. even though the Liberals have discarded it with many others of the planks in their platform. Last year or the year before, I quoted in this House from the reports of the railways in the American west, to show that for twenty years no railway bonuses had been granted,' and that state after state made it the first of the amendments to their constitution that there should be no bonusing of

railways. I approved of that, but at the same time I repeat, that I would be in favour of bonusing the Grand Trunk Railway or any other railway to build from North Bay through that inhospitable region until it reaches the prairie country. I assert that there is no need to-day to give a bonus to any road running through the prairies of the Northwest. South of the boundary line you will find thousands of miles of railway built without bonuses, and you will find competition among them as to which shall first reach a section of country which promises settlement and agricultural development. We have the same conditions in our Northwest, and if this Bill should be thrown- out I believe that while the Grand Trunk Railway may regret it, yet, they would not delay for one moment to start building into that country, as they proposed to do when they first made their application tot this parliament. They will build that line I say, and they will receive from this parliament a proper, a reasonable, perhaps a generous aid for the part of their line which goes through that country and which in the meantime will not give them any return. They will do that, and they will do it just as rapidly as they would with this government giving them the enormous bonuses which it is proposed to grant.
When the Bill gets into committee I will discuss its various clauses in detail, but I assert here now, that there is not one clause in this Grand Trunk Pacific agreement which will even morally force the Grand Trunk Railway Company to send one pound of freight over Canadian lines east of the Georgian Bay. You cannot point out to me, Mr. Speaker, one single line in that agreement that will compel the Grand Trunk Railway Company to divert one bushel of grain or one pound of freight, from their lines to Portland. If I could see that in this agreement, there was provision that even at an extra cost the Grand Trunk should build up our owni eastern ports ; that they should force for a time-artificially we will say-the trade to Halifax and St. John in winter, and to Quebec and Montreal in summer it would go a long way towards making me believe that we could afford to sacrifice a lot and pay a lot to attain that object.
But, Mr. Speaker, there is not one line in all that agreement that makes the Grand Trunk Railway Company divert one pound of their freight from their great terminals in Portland. I make that charge ; it has not been refuted, aud it cannot be refuted. We on this side of the House have, I think, brought forward quietly and earnestly, very sound reasons against the contract as the government submit it to us. We believe the Grand Trunk Railway Company have the better of that agreement to such an extent that the government are in their power. The government, not knowing what they are doing, are driven into


Edmund Boyd Osler: a condition of affairs that will be disastrous to this country. Instead of trying to meet tlis condition, the government intend to force this scheme through by a policy of silence. Mr. Speaker, that surely is not dignified. The man who sits down quietly, with the strength of his majority behind him, and refuses to answer the arguments of his opponents, but says, we will beat you because we have more men, will do it, but he has not the respect of his followers, and he has not the respect of his opponents.


Charles Edwin Kaulbach: Mr. Speaker, it was not my intention at the commencement of this debate this session, to have offered a word of comment as respects the agreement between the government of Canada and the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company, as to its merits if it has any, or its demerits, for the reason that I had spoken at some length, on the subject last session, and had given no less than fifteen reasons for opposing the contract. But considering the changed condition of the agreement between the government and the company, and the concessions that have been accorded the company to the detriment of Canada, I feel I would not be doing justice to the honest electorate of the county whom I /have the honour to represent, were I not to express my views here aud tiow, on a project such as this, to my mind so suicidal to the best interests .of Canada as a whole, and to Nova Scotia, the province whence I come, more particularly Nova Scotia, which is entitled to some benefit at least, by the construction of this proposed road, but will she get it if the government intend cnly carrying the road as far as Moncton, 180 miles short of Halifax? Certainly not. Jr will not be an ocean to ocean road, and Halifax will be handicapped by being deprived of the traffic and as a result left in the cold. Halifax with its magnificent harbour, well lighted, easy of approach, well fortified, geographically offering the nearest approach to the old world, with its terminal facilities, its advantages as a coaling station, is the most important point and station on the western Atlantic.
I may ask, why should Halifax be then overlooked and, Nova Scotia's rights be ignored ?
I may be told that Nova Scotia still has the Intercolonial Railway for all her purposes, which may be true so far as it goes; but what earthly benefit would it be to Nova Scotia if it is to be handicapped, paralleled and paralyzed by the Grand Trunk Pacific ? The chief traffic it had hitherto been receiving, will be diverted by means of the arteries or branches of the Grand Trunk Company to its well equipped terminal points, Portland, in particular, in the United States, upon which it is said that company has spent upwards of $20,000,000 in improving facilities ; or if
2m

not sent to Portland, it can reach Boston ; or by the Erie Canal, upon which $100,-
000.000 are about being expended to meet anticipated trade, it would be taken to New York.
When I consider the unfortunate position Canada will be placed in by such an agreement or contract, and the baneful effect upon Canada, if carried into execution, of the building, for a foreign corporation, a railway, fully equipped, at a cost of upwards of $150,000,000, and when completed to be handed over to a company of aliens for a term of fifty years, during ten of which they will not have to pay interest, and by which time all the rolling stock, and probably the rails, will be worn out and worthless, I feel the whole transaction is sad to contemplate. But considering that the Intercolonial is to be paralleled and paralyzed by this proposed Grand Trunk Pacific, and left in the cold, and Nova Scotia as well, without one solitary benefit, I feel constrained to use words strongly emphasized to express my feeling of indignation. But kind words, we are taught, are more effective and productive of better and more satisfactory results, they being the music of the world. Consequently I will use them instead. It is said that kind words have a power which seems to be beyond natural causes, as if they were some angel's song, which had lost its way and come to earth. I feel that words like these may touch a tender chord-a key-note-in the heart of my right hon. friend the leader of the government, and his supporters opposite as respects the effect of their conduct, and if such words will strike him like an angel's voice bringing good tidings, it is to be hoped he may still change his mind, and so modify the character of the agreement with such safeguards as to make it acceptable to all, or, better still, accept the alternative proposition of extending the Intercolonial from Montreal to the grain fields of the west, which would cause the Intercolonial to be at once a good paying property, and prevent the exports of our Canadian Northwest being diverted over American railways to American seaports.
I feel that this Grand Trunk Pacific road, if built, will be a millstone about our necks, depriving us of other public works of a more important nature, as the immense interest on the capital we will have to borrow will exhaust our revenue and deprive us of other public works more greatly needed. I applied for a railway in my county-Lunenburg-to exteud from the junction of the Caledonia Railway at New Germany station, making it a prolongation of that road to Foster Settlement and New Ross ; and from New Ross to extend down the valley of the Gold river till it intersects the Halifax and Southwestern at or near Chester Basin. I have also applied for another railway from Lunenburg, the terminus of the Central Railway, to Park's Creek, on the east side of the La
Have river and places adjacent thereto, such as Riteey's Cove or Riverport, with a steam ferry to cross the river to connect with Dublin shore, important points, where an immense trade is being carried on. but which, up to the present, have been completely overlooked so far as railway accommodation is concerned. I hope for appropriations for other public works, such as the dredging of Lunenburg harbour, La Have river and Ma-hone bay, the completion of the breakwater at Petite RiviSre, repairs of the breakwater at the narrows of Martinis river, a bell buoy to be placed at or near Eastern Point reef, a public building for customs, post office, &c., at Bridgewater, now becoming a railway centre and an important place, and last, but not least, a breakwater at Mill Cove, St. Margaret's Bay, for protection of boats and other property of the fishermen of that place ; all which can be brought about in one year without any difficulty, for the county is entitled to these works.
But I may be told the Grand Trunk Pacific is our first consideration. Why not adopt the alternative proposition of the leader of the opposition (Mr. R. L. Borden), that is to extend, as I have stated, the Intercolonial west from Montreal by acquiring the Canada Atlantic Railway 342 miles to Depot Harbour, on the east shore of Georgian Bay, and utilize the water stretches of said bay, Sault Ste. Marie canal and Lake Superior to Fort William or Port Arthur, and by the Canadian Pacific Railway to Winnipeg ; acquire or construct boats such as are now in use doing excellent work, and profitable, with capacity to carry 275, 000 bushels of wheat, equal to 275 carloads at a time, which would make transportation to the east complete in the summer season or when navigation is open ; appropriate the railway from Scotia Junction to Sudbury, and nationalize it; appropriate the railway from Sudbury to Port Arthur, improving the gradients and curvatures, and also nationalize it : also appropriate and nationalize the railway from Port Arthur to Winnipeg, and double track it By this method we can have a splendid system of transportation from west to east, over an all-Canadian route, to Canadian seaports, and with no diversion to American ports.
This would assure us success, and government ownership, and government regulation of tariff rates, the Intercolonial can be made a good paying property, and exceedingly beneficial to the general trade and interests of Canada. The Intercolonial will then be, in all verity, the people's road, owned and operated by them. By this means Halifax and St. Joint will became the.entrepot of trade and traffic from the vest, and the chief depots for all imports from the east across the Atlantic, making each city to grow and prosper, and giving employment to thousands of

hands, now struggling for a living. Farmers, by this means will find an improved market for their products, having the ad ditional mouths to supply and by which they can have improved prices, as the im-pi oved amount of shipping visiting these ports and wanting supplies will improve the demand. Farmers, mechanics, artisans and fishermen, all will be benefited, particularly the fishermen, as we by this means will have our own Intercolonial Railway direct from Halifax to the west, by which we can ship our fish in cold storage to the west and obtain our supply of flour from the east.	There will thus be no
empty cars running to the west from the east, for by the increased imports, together with our fish transportation to the west, we can have a continuous trade either way, and counteract the trade to and from Portland, Boston and New York channels hitherto supplying our Canadian west to our great discomfort and injury.
I am the more greatly impressed with the desirability of extending the Intercolonial from Montreal to Winnipeg, for by it, as compared with the government scheme, we save 461 miles, the distance from Moncton, N.B., to Winnipeg being 1,875 miles, whilst from Montreal to Winnipeg it is .only 1414, making a saving in cost to the country in construction of about $20,000,000 in the eastern section alone. As to the western section, that is west of Winnipeg. I say extend it, but certainly not to Fort Simpson, as it is only a gunshot from the Alaskan boundary, which means considerable and more than I at present desire to express.
The original agreement between the government and the Grand Trunk Pacific, introduced last session, were to my mind very objectionable, and one on which I expressed my views in a speech to the House ; but the concession accorded to the company since, giving time for the completion of the road till December 1, 1911, without a clause requiring work of construction to commence simultaneously at both ends, till all is completed, and without a restiie-tive clause requiring Canadian traffic to be routed to Canadian seaports over this line, and Canadian labour to be employed instead of alien, on construction when obtainable, is certainly not in the interest of Canada. What is to prevent this company-the Grand Trunk with all its facilities for shipment at Portland, costing it for such improvements upwards of $20,000 j00, and with all its railway connections with Portland-what is there to prevent it diverting every portion of its traffic, on reaching Winnipeg, via Pembina branch to Emerson, or St. Vincent. and thence to Duluth. St. Paul. Minneapolis. Chicago, or other cities in the United States ? Or. when reaching North Bay, diverting the traffic over its system of railways to Buffalo and thence to the seaports Mr. KAULBACH.
of Portland and Boston, or by the Erie canal upon which has been expended some $100,000,000, to the port of New York ? Is there anything in the way to prerent this diversion of traffic ? Not any. Then I ask is it fair for us as Canadians to spend a mint of money in this project to build up American cities, seaports and towns to the sacrifice of Canada ? I for one protest against it.
It was said by some of the members of the government that the cost to Canada for this project would only be $13,000,000, and some of the supporters on the other side went so far as to state to this House that it would not cost to the people of Canada one cent, whilst the president of the Grand Trunk, Sir Charles Rivers-Wilson, to his shareholders made the statement, that the liability of the company was only $15,000,000. Now I will not ask you, the members of this House, and the honest electorate of the country which is correct, but I will place the facts and figures before you and allow you to judge for yourselves. The length of this railway is supposed to be in the neighbourhood of 3,400 miles. Under this agreement the government is to build 1,900 miles-I am putting it in round figures-and guarantees three-fourths of the cost of the remainder, 1.500 miles, the Grand Trunk being liable for only one-fourth. This problem is a simple one which' any one can solve. The hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Borden) very modestly placed the cost of this road to the people of Canada at from $150,000,000 to $175,000,000 and a reasonable mind will view it as correct.
I approve of government ownership of railways, to control rates, and avoid combines, and in this case I feel I am voicing not only our honoured and respected leader (Mr. Borden) but the voice and sentiment of the people of Canada, who are free from party bias and willing to decide in the best interests of Canada. I say this is a view which all should accept as being feasible and patriotic, and have the Intercolonial- Canada's highway-built for and by the people of Canada, extended from Montreal into the grain fields of the west, and owned and operated as Canada's national highway, used by and in the interest of the people of Canada for the transmission of passengers and freight between the rich grain fields of the west, and the Canadian seapnrts in the cast, over Canadian railways.
The Intercolonial Railway has cost the people of Canada $70,000,000, and when extended into Montreal, the Grand Trunk Railway Company, from whom the government purchased a portion of the road between Devis and Montreal, agreed that the Intercolonial was to have a portion of the traffic routed to the Grand Trunk Railway in Montreal.
If they failed to keep faith with the government and people of Canada in the instance referred to, have we any better reason to believe they will keep faith with

Canada, as regards the contract, in routing ft eight over Canadian territory to Canadian seaports ? I say they will simply do as they please, and so will suit lEeir best interest, which will be to carry all to their own seaport-Portland.	it certainly is a humiliating position for Canadians to be placed in, and I certainly must request that the government drop all negotiations with the Grand Trunk and Grand Trunk Pacific, and extend the Intercolonial to the grain fields of the west, and thereby retain the interest and future welfare of Canada in our own hands. I say we should stand pledged to the prolongation of our own national highway-the Intercolonial, and not allow ourselves to ha taxed for building a railway, and then hand it over to a foreign company. We should emulate and in every possible way encourage transportation within our own domains, which we cannot accomplisn in any better manner than by extending our own national highway-the Intercolonial-not only by sending it to the gateway of the Dominion, Winnipeg, but beyond it, and right into the golden grain fields or garden, where we may gather the fruit, and transfer it direct to our own eastern seaports for transportation across the Atlantic to our parent home, England. Better still that we may gather the wheat into our granaries at H ali-fax and other Canadian seaports for manufacture into flour, to keep the labour in our own country, and transmit the finished articles across the Atlantic to the markets of the east. We could there see Canada bloom and blossom as a rose. Proud and de lighted should we be, occupying a country such as this Canada of ours, stretching from ocean to ocean, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, abounding in natural resources, the prospective home for millions of people.
Our climate is such as to produce and stimulate the strongest type of ripe young manhood and womanhood, physically, mentally, intellectually and morally. Our resources invite the highest inventive skill, and the very best and most earnest effort to develop them. Canada has attained a prominent place among the nations of the earth, morally and socially, in science, in arts, in literature, in commerce, in fisheries, in farming, in manufacturing, in minerals and many other matters pertaining to the interest of Canada. Her sons are the bravest of the brave, a proof of which, their bravery and their skill in the arts and tactics of war, was clearly manifest in the late war in South Africa but a short time ago, where they as volunteers offered their services, and as valiant soldiers, stood shoulder to shoulder, side by side, with the veteran soldiers of old England, and fought and bled and won on the gory fields of battles, not only fought, but died on the blood-stained soil of that country. But this is not all. We find Canadians in every portion of the world to the fore in all the struggles of life, filling prominent positions of trust, and generally prominent in every good work. Our young men, as Canadians, have attained a prominence in the solution of scientific and mechanical problems, and are distinguished for their quick recognition of that which tends to facilitate the progress of our country-Canada, and the empire as well, and the world's advancement.
With materials such as this, we on this side of the House earnestly request that the right hon. the leader will withdraw this agreement, and encourage thereby the growth of Canada by a system of transportation having plainly Canada for Canadians.
House divided on the motion of Sir Wilfrid Laurier
YEAS :
Messieurs
Laurier (Sir Wilfrid), Laurier (L.Assomption)
Lavergne _____	-
(Drum'd & Arth.),
Law,
LeBlane,	[DOT]
Lewis,
Loy,
Macdonald,
Mackie,
MacKinnon,
MacLaren (Huntingdon), Macpherson,
McColl,
McEwen.
MeGugan,
Mclsaac,
McLennan,
Malouin,
Marcil (Bagot),
Marcil
(Bonaventure), Matheson,
Mayrand,
Meigs,
Mignault,
Morrison,
Mulock (Sir William), Murray,
Oliver,
Parmelee.
Paterson,
Power,
Prefontaine,
Reid (Restigouche), Riley,
Rivet,
Ross (Victoria, N.S.),
' Ross (Yukon),
Schell,
Scott,
Sifton,
*Sinclair,
Smith (Vancouver), Stephens,
Stewart.
Thompson
(Haldim'd & Monckb Tolmie,
Turgeon,
Wade,
Wallace.-99.
Lapointe.
Angers,
Archambault,
Bazinet,
Bickerdike,
Blanchet,
Borden
(Sir Frederick), Bourassa. Bourbonnais, Brodeur,
Brown,
Bruneau,
Bureau,
Calvert, Oarbonneau, -Champagne, Christie,
Copp,
Costigan,
Cowan,
Davis,
Delisle,
Demers (St. John). Desjardins, Douglas, Emmerson,
Erb,
Ethier,
Fielding,
Fisher,
Fitzpatrick,
Fortier,
Gallery,
Gauvreau,
Gervais,
Gibson.
Girard,
Gould,
Grant,
Harty,
Harwood,
Haszard,
Heyd,
Holmes,
Hughes
(King's, P.E.I.), Hyman,
Johnston
(Cape Breton), Johnston
(Lambton),
Kendall,
Lang,

NAYS : Messieurs
Alcorn,
Armstrong,
Avery,
Ball,
Barker,
Bell,
Bennett,
Birkett,
Blain,
Borden (Halifax), Boyd,
Brodpr.
Bruce,
Carscallen,
Casgrain,
Clancy,
Clare,
Clarke,
Cochrane,
Culbert,
Daniel,
Donnelly,
Earle,
Gilmour,
Hackett,
Henderson,
Hughes (Victoria) Ingram,
Kaulbach,
Kemp,
Kidd,
Lancaster,
LaRiviOre,
Lavell,
Lennox,
MacLaren (Perth), McGowan,
Morin,
Northrup,
Osier,
Pope,
Pringle, .
Puttee,
Reid (Grenville). Richardson, Robinson (Elgin), Roche (Marquette), Sherritt,
Taylor,
Thomson (Grey), Tolton,
Vrooman,
Ward,
Wilmot,
Wilson.-55.
PAIRS :
Ministerial.
Beith,
Cartwright,
Dugas,
Galliher,
Guthrie,
Lemieux,
Lovell,
MeCool,
Proulx,
Ross (Ontario), Sutherland (Essex), Talbot,
Tucker,
Campbell,
Charlton,
Dyme^it,
German,
Lavergne
(Montmagny),
Logan,
McCarthy,
McCreary,
Roche (Halifax), Russell,
Sutherland
(Oxford),
Tobin,
Wright.
Opposition.
Johnston
(Cardwell),
Tupper,
Tarte,
Halliday,
Kendry,
Monk,
Ganong,
Brock,
Seagram,
Hale,
Smith
(Wentworth),
Leonard,
Fowler,
Calvin,
Tisdale,
McCormick,
Maclean,
McIntosh,
Let'urgey,
Porter,
Sproule,
Gourley,
Robinson
(Northumberland),
Haggart,
Roddick,
Rosamond.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the second time, and House went into committee thereon.
Wilfrid Laurier: I do not intend at this stage of the evening to take up such an important Bill in the committee stage, and therefore I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.


Charles Edwin Kaulbach: 


Robert Laird Borden: Before the committee rises I would like to ask the right hon. gentleman (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) as to the mortgages to which I referred last night ?


Wilfrid Laurier: I am sorry to say that I cannot give any answer to my hon. friend to-night; I shall endeavour to do so to-morrow.


Robert Laird Borden: My hon. friend will see, if he looks up the ' Hansard,' a distinct promise by the then Minister of Railways and Canals that the documents would be laid on the table of the House within ten days after the beginning of the session.
Progress reported.
On motion of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the House adjourned at 11.10 o'clock p.m.

Thursday, April 28, 1904.