1905-03-16

Mr. H. GERVAIS moved :: That 111 accordance with the recommendation contained in the 12th report of the Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders that portion of the 49th rule which limits the time for receiving petitions for private Bills be suspended ' in reference to the petition of H. D. Garland and others presented this day, for an Act of incorporation under the name of the Crown Casualty Company of Canada, and that the said petition be read and received forthwith.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Mr. GERVAIS moved for leave to Introduce a Bill respecting the Crown Casualty Company.
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first time.

[Stage Direction]
Annual report of the Marine and Fisheries Department for 1904, Fisheries-Hon. Raymond Prefontaine.


Mr. BENNETT asked :: 1.	Has a contract been let for the mail service between Coldwater and Lovering, from the 31st of March, 1905 ?
2.	If let, were tenders asked for ?
3.	If let, who was the contractor ?
4.	If let, what is the consideration per year agreed upon ?


Hon.   S@: A contract for this service was let by tender in 1897 and awarded to the lowest tenderer, W. H. Lovering, at $130 a year. On its expiring it was, in 1901, renewed with the same contractor at the same price for four years ending on the 31st March, 1905, and it has been agreed to renew this contract for another term of four years from its expiring with the same contractor at $156 a year.



SUPPLY-INQUIRY FOR RETURNS.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. WILLIAM PATERSON (Minister of Customs) moved that the House go into Committee of Supply.
['We will continue in supply, with the estimates of the Marine and Fisheries.']
Mr. F. R. LALOR.: On the 13th February I asked concerning the purchase of certain supplies for the Department of Marine and Fisheries. I also, on February 20th, inquired concerning orders given in the department without public tender.


Hon. RAYMOND PREFONTAINE (Minister of Marine and Fisheries).: I am having the papers copied and will lay them on the table as soon as possible.


Mr. M. S. MCCARTHY.: An order of the House was granted on the 3rd February for the enumerators' list in use at the last elections in the Northwest Territories. This matter was also referred to on the 21st February, and no return has come down.


Mr. R. L. BORDEN.: I might add to what my hon. friend has said that I mentioned several returns at the time when the Bill was introduced. I also, in the concluding portion of my remarks on that occasion, pointed out certain other information which I thought would be extremely useful in the discussion of the measure. If the information is to be of any practicable service, it should be brought down reasonably early, so that it may be before tbe House when the question is being discussed.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER.: There are some returns which were asked by my hon. friend and I hoped they will be brought down on Monday. There is also some information which he asked, and which requires a good deal of compilation ; I am not sure whether we will have it but we are working at it.


Mr. MONK.: I wish to remind my right hon. friend that the copies of correspond-euce with the imperial authorities in regard to the Royal Mint were ordered some time ago and, if it is possible, we would like to get them down at the earliest possible date.


Wilfrid Laurier: I shall try.


Mr. DANIEL.: Something over a month ago the Prime Minister promised that he would bring down shortly the interim report of the Transportation Commission, more especially with regard to the port and harbour of St. John. I have been waiting for that report and I notice that in a discussion a few days ago the Minister of Railways and Canals referred to it as having been before the notice of the government so long ago as May last year. I do not myself, of course, know any reason why it should not be laid on the table of the House. These commissioners I presume, are appointed not alone for the information of the government but for the information of parliament and of the country and as the right hon. gentleman, when I spoke to him and spoke In the House about it, intimated that there was no objection, I would be glad if he would bring the report down.


Wilfrid Laurier: I must apologize to my hon. friend. The fault is altogether mine. I am under the impression that this report was brought down last session, but I shall inquire and if it has not been brought down it will certainly be brought down on Monday.


Mr. FOSTER.: At this period of reminders, 1 beg leave to remind the Prime Minister to remind his Minister of Railways that the first part of that cargo of hay intelligence has not yet come down.


Wilfrid Laurier: Is my hon. friend quite sure of that ?	[DOT]


George Eulas Foster: Yes.


Wilfrid Laurier: I shall try to satisfy him.


George Eulas Foster: The load is not complete.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and House went into Committee of Supply.
Ocean and river service-maintenance and repairs to government steamers and ice-breakers, $400,000.
['The load is not complete.']
Robert Laird Borden: 


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: As regards this service, as will be seen, there is an increase of $75,000. Last year the amount was $325,000 and this year we are asking $400,000. The expenditure on government steamers for 1903 was $300,171. For the six mouths ending 31st December, 1904, $219,615.19, and up to the first of January, 1905, $264,653. During the current year two new steamers built in Scotland have been added to the fleet, the 'Champlain' and ' Montcalm.' The * Champlain ' arrived at Quebec about the 14th November. This vessel is intended to keep the passage open in winter between Murray Bay and River Ouelle. She will be engaged in the same service in the summer and will connect with the Intercolonial Railway, thus giving communication to the people on the north shore of the St. Lawrence. The ' Montcalm ' has also reached Quebec from Scotland. This ship is of large. dimensions, about 245 feet in length and 40 feet in breadth a'nd will carry a crew of forty. This ship besides tending the lighthouse service during navigation is intended to keep the St. Lawrence clear of ice between Quebec and Montreal and is expected to keep the channel open and allow vessels to leave Quebec two weeks later in the fall and to reach Quebec two weeks earlier in the spring. This experiment is considered by the shipping interests of Montreal to be of great service to the Dominion.


Mr. AMES.: How many vessels are there in tlie service at the present time ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: There are nine ; the flames are :	The ' Aberdeen.' the
' Druid,' the ' Lansdowne,' the ' Quadra.' the 1 Stanley,' the ' Minto,' the ' Lady Laurier,' the ' Montcalm ' and the ' Champlain.'


Herbert Brown Ames: How many vessels were there in 1900 ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Six.


Herbert Brown Ames: In 1900 there were six and the cost to the country was $200,000 a year. In 1905 there are nine and you propose to ask for $400,000 ? Can you explain the apparently disproportionate difference ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: There is at once an increase in expenditure last year of $73,000 for the ' Montcalm ' and the ' Champlain.' Of course I have not the figures for 1902.


Herbert Brown Ames: The minister probably has an estimate as to what the several vessels will cost for the coining year 1


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: The estimate is as follows :

259S
Estimated
Vessel.	Expenditure.
Aberdeen	$48,000
Druid	 [DOT] [DOT]. .. . [DOT]	 3b,000
Lansdowne	   34,000
Quadra	 34,000
Stanley	 45,000
Minto	 50,000
Lady Laurier	 50,000
Montcalm	 53,000
Champlain	 40,000
Miscellaneous expenditure	10,000
The ' Lady Laurier ' last year cost $80,000 on aeount of an accident.


Herbert Brown Ames: How much was spent on the * Lady Laurier ' during the last fiscal year ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: The 'Lady Laurier' met with an accident when going into Lock-port. N.S. Owing to a misplaced buoy she struck a ledge and was badly damaged, and the ' Lansdowne ' and ' Tyrian ' were detailed for service in Nova Scotia.


Herbert Brown Ames: How much did the ' Lady Laurier' cost last year ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: $80.049.3S. This year we ask for $50,000.


Herbert Brown Ames: Then the difference between the $80,000 and the $50,000 represents what?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Repairs.


Herbert Brown Ames: Last year the department was given $30,107 for repairs on the ' Lady Laurier.' How were those repairs made, and when, and by whom ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: They were made by day labour. Sometimes it is very difficult to ascertain what damages actually are suffered by a steamer in striking on a rock, or suffering other injury under water. The repairs were made at Halifax under the supervision of one of our best men.


Herbert Brown Ames: Were they made under the supervision of an officer of the department who remained with the vessel during the entire construction work ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Yes, under the supervision of a steamboat inspector who remained all the time at the works.


Herbert Brown Ames: By how much did it exceed the estimate that was made ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: There was no estimate made at the time.


Herbert Brown Ames: How long was the vessel laid up on account of this ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: About three months.


Herbert Brown Ames: And during that time were the salaries of all those engaged on the vessel going on as before ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Yes. the salaries were paid, but not of the full crew.


Mr. A. A. McLEAN.: How many trips did the ' Minto ' and ' Stanley ' make since they commenced work the beginning of the winter ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I have a statement giving, from the 12th of December, each day that the ' Stanley ' made a trip. From the 12th of December up to the 24th of January she made a trip nearly every day, and the [DOT] Minto ' about the same. After that date they were frequently interrupted by tempestuous weather.


Herbert Brown Ames: The ' Lady Laurier,' I understand, is a new vessel only built about two years ago, well built by Fleming & Ferguson. of Paislev. What did she cost originally ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: $200,000. The repairs became necessary by reason of the accident I have just mentioned. The accident was a serious one. I do not know if it makes much difference whether a vessel is new or old when it meets with an accident, but I should think that if a new vessel were damaged in the hull, or by grounding, it would cost more to repair her than an old vessel because of everything being brand new.


Herbert Brown Ames: Has the hon. gentleman caused his department to make any inquiry as to the causes of this accident ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Certainly I have.


Herbert Brown Ames: Will the hon. gentleman give the committee the benefit of the result of his inquiry ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: The result of the inquiry was very much like that in the case of the '.T. Israel Tarte '; it was very difficult to place the responsibility. We might have placed it on the captain as the result of going too fast at a dangerous point, and we might have placed it also on those who were responsible for the buoy at that place.


Herbert Brown Ames: The hon. minister said that one cause of the accident was a misplaced buoy. I understand the department are responsible -for placing the buoys ; that those they do not place themselves are placed by contract.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: This is one of the buoys that had been placed by the department in' a proper position but it had been removed or displaced by some cause or other, by the tides and currents which are very strong there, or by another steamer.


Mr. A. JOHNSTON.: I would like to know whether the hon. minister has had a report made to him as to the full causes of the accident and if there is such a report in the department ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: There is a report on file in the department, but I am inform-

ed by my officer that it is not quiet satisfactory. That it the reason why we should not put the blame on one or other of these officers. We could hare placed it on both and dismissed both, but we did not think it proper to do so.


Herbert Brown Ames: The hon. minister has a department for the investigation of wrecks, and casualties that he brings to bear on private shipping. Was that same kind of investigation proposed by him when an accident occurred in his own marine ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: No, there was no necessity for it. We had a report from the crew of the ' Lady Laurier ' and a report on the misplaced buoy.


Herbert Brown Ames: Was anybody held responsible for the misplaced buoy ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: It is just as I have described it. We might have, as an example, dismissed both the captain and the agent, but for one reason or another it was not done. Mr. Parsons is the agent at Halifax, but we thought it was more an accident than a matter for which he should be held responsible and we did not act.


Alexander Johnston: As a matter of fact were not reports made to the agents as to this buoy being out of place and was it not permitted to remain out of place for some time after it was reported to the agent that if was out of place ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: The report we received at the department on the complaint made was that the agent had been advised of the buoy beiug out of place, but that the paper containing that advice had been mislaid for some reason or another. It appears that it was left about the office of the agent at Halifax and got mixed up with some other papers when he was moving from one room or one office to another. The agent gave that explanation to me when 1 was in Halifax. Whether tire facts are exactly as he represented them to be I cannot say. Until the present moment I 1 ave not taken the responsibility of dismissing tlie captain or the agent at Halifax.


Herbert Brown Ames: I certainly think that in a matter of such serious moment as this is, a most searching inquiry should have been made. The government at considerable effort secured a vote of .$200,000 to buy a steamer for service on the Nova Scotia coast. This steamer was bought two years ago. She had not been much more than a year in the service before she met with a serious accident that laid her up for three months and put her out of service for that length of time. It cost $36,000 to make the damage good and we do not know to-day if the vessel is as good as she originally was. With such a serious fault on the shoulders of somebody it seems to me that the hon. minister should have made a full investi-Mr. PREFONTAINE.
gallon to ascertain whether the navigators of the vessel were responsible or whether the proper precautions had been taken or whether the buoy service had been properly looked after. It is not enough that the buoys should be placed in the spring. The hon. minister knows that from time to time buoys become misplaced and it would certainly seem that this buoy had been misplaced. According to the "hon. member for Cape Breton (Mr. Johnston) to-day a notification had been served on the department that this buoy was out of place.
' Mr. A. JOHNSTON. The notice was served on the agent.


Herbert Brown Ames: Yes, and the agent carelessly neglected to have the necessary steps taken to have the buoy put in the right place, the consequence of which is that we have this serious damage. In the first place, if the buoy service was defective it might have happened to the merchant marine and in that case we would have heard a great deal more about it than we did when it happened to one of the ships of the country. Apparently the public interest demands that there should be the fullest investigation and this House is entitled to have laid before it the papers showing the evidence taken and that the blame has been put on the shoulders of some one. I would like to ask if it is the hon. minister's intention to have a further investigation in order to be able to place the fullest explanation before the House on this important matter.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I could not make any further investigation into the matter. We have all the facts and they are simply as I have stated. Notice was served on the agent. He admits it himself, but there are many notices served on him that buoys are displaced. Sometimes he gets as many as ifour or five notices a day. I understand the seriousness of the accident and if I had found the agent really responsible for the accident by reason of his negligence I would have taken action, but I could not consider that there was such negligence as would justify me in dismissing him. He gave his explanation in a very frank way. He said : I remember receiving that notice. 1 was moving from one office to another and the paper was mislaid. He is a man advanced in years and he forgot all about it. It is unfortunate, of course, that such an accident should have happened, but on considering the whole case, I did not feel that I was justified in putting under oath an old officer of the department who had been there for the last 25 or 30 years, and the matter has remained since in the same condition. The accident was unfortunate, but we could rot hold any one in particular responsible.


Robert Laird Borden: I do not, of course, know anything of the circumstances of this particular case, but I do not only know Mr. Parsons in his service of the government in

the position which he now holds, hut I knew lum intimately as a member of the bar years ago, and he has always been a very capable, painstaking and diligent man. I feel that it he has been guilty of any seeming negligence in this case there has been some very strong controlling reason for it, because the whole course of his life is absolutely foreign to any lack of diligence, industry and painstaking care in anything that he undertakes.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: That is exactly the way I looked on the affair. If I had thought that Mr. Parsons had been really negligent I would have suspended him, but I did not think so at the time and so the matter has remained.


Alexander Johnston: Before we pass away from it, I desire to impress upon the hon, minister the importance of the question raised by my hon. friend from Montreal (Mr. Ames). The question he brings so forcibly to the attention of the hon. minister is indeed a very important one. I reiterate the demand of my hon. friend from Montreal that the minister should inquire into this matter and ascertain who is to blame. For my part I do not think there is much question as to who is to blame, but the department should take steps to place it beyond all doubt as to who is responsible for this accident to the ' Lady Laurier.'


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I cannot refuse to open the case if it is insisted upon, but as regards the evidence we have it all.


Herbert Brown Ames: 
Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: That work was done by contract at Pictou after a detailed report from her officer as to what repairs were necessary.


Herbert Brown Ames: You say it was done by public contract at Pictou ; how many persons were asked for tenders in that case.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: It was published in the papers and I think there were three tenders received.


Herbert Brown Ames: Did the lowest tender get the contract?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Yes. The price was about the estimate made by the officers.


Angus Alexander McLean: Were any of these repairs done at Charlottetown ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: The engines were repaired at Charlottetown.


Angus Alexander McLean: AVhat amount was expended in repairs there ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: The repairs cost $13,000 and out of that $9,000 was spent at Charlottetown.


Herbert Brown Ames: Were the repairs to the ' Stanley ' done under one contract ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: There were two contracts, one at Pictou and the other at Charlottetown. The engines cost $9,000 at Charlottetown and the balance of $4,000 was spent at Pictou.


Angus Alexander McLean: I am informed that no tenders were called for the work done on the * Stanley ' in the year 1904, while tenders were called for the year 1903. I am told that in 1904 three people were waited upon and asked to do the work, but no tenders were called for by publication of a notice or in any other public way. These repairs were given to the friends of the minister alone, and no other person was asked to tender for the work. The repairs were done by the Matthewson Foundry of New Glasgow at Pictou and the Stewart Foundry at Charlottetown.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I am informed by the accountant of the department that during the year 1903-4 there were $13,000 worth of repairs done on the ' Stanley,' and they were made by public tenders called through the newspapers.


Angus Alexander McLean: The minister says he ' thinks,' but his officers are in the House and he ought to be able to give definite information.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I did not say that I thought. I have to rely on the information given by my officers and they tell me that public tenders were called for. If the hon. gentleman desires to have these tenders placed on the table of the House I will produce them with the greatest pleasure.


Angus Alexander McLean: I think that should he done.


Air.   E.@: Al. MACDONALD. I happen to know that in regard to the work under consideration, tenders were called for publicly in the newspapers of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, and that the work done at Pictou was awarded to the lowest tender. I may say further, as the hon. gentleman (Air. A. A. AIcLean) knows very well, that owing to the situation of the * Stanley,' the parties who would be likely to tender for work of that kind would be confined to these particular localities.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I am informed by my officer that the notices were not only published in the Halifax paper and the Charlottetown paper, but also in Quebec.


Angus Alexander McLean: Was that for 1904 ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: It was a couple of months previous to the time that the repairs were to be made.


Herbert Brown Ames: The minister has not yet answered my question as to what is the custom in the department when it is found necessary to make extensive repairs amounting say to $5,000 or $10,000 on one of these steamers. Are specifications prepared and public tenders called for in all cases ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I thought I had given the information to the hon. gentleman, but I will repeat it. The officers of each steamer make a list of the repairs necessary which is handed to the agent of the department at the port where the steamer is, and the agent sends a hull inspector, or boiler inspector, or steamboat inspector as the case may be to look into the details of the requisition. If he deems it necessary to ask for public tenders advertisements are issued and tenders asked for. If he thinks the different items of the repairs can be done by day's work, with the help of the crew, he does it in that way. If he thinks that the repairs, although not done by the crew, are not of such importance as to justify asking for tenders, he is authorized to engage men to do the work or to distribute the work to others who are best able to do it. He has to certify to the correctness of the work that has been done according to the estimate which he has made beforehand.


Herbert Brown Ames: A considerable portion of the cost of these steamers is incurred for supplies, including coal, and I find from the Auditor General's Repbrt that coal is bought at prices all the way from $3.50 to S4.75 per ton according to the place where the steamers get it. Will the minister kindly explain how the coal purchase, for his department are made ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: All the coal is bought by tender. Public notice is given or circulars are sent to the different coal dealers, especially those at the coaling places; but sometimes a steamer may be out of coal, and is obliged to supply itself at a small port at the market price at that port. This explains why more has been paid at certain places than at others. All the accounts for the supply of coal are certified by the officer in charge of the steamer, and pass through the hands of the agent, who has to see that they are right.


Angus Alexander McLean: I would like to bring to the attention of the minister the manner in which the coal is loaded on the steamers ' Minto ' and ' Stanley.' These vessels land at the end of the wharfs at Pictou, and instead of using a chute for conveying the coal to the steamer, per-Mr. PREFONTAINE.
haps twenty or thirty or forty men are employed to carry it on in small baskets. I think this is an improper expenditure of public money. A vast quantity of coal is used on these vessels during the season, and proper appliances should be used for putting it on the vessels. I saw with my own eyes men carrying the coal in baskets. I think it is a scandal to have the business conducted in this manner. There would not be two shovelfuls of coal in each basket. The money spent in employing these men is squandered. The coal could easily and at a small expense be carried to the vessel on a trolley and put into it by a chute; but in order, as I believe, to pay some of the supporters of the hon. gentleman who represnts Pictou in this House, a large number of men are employed to carry the coal in spoonfuls.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I am informed that the ' Stanley ' was so constructed that the bunkers cannot be filled otherwise than in the way specified. We have a couple of other steamers in the same condition. So that it is .impossible to use a chute.


Mr. MACDONALD.: My hon. friend has pointed out that when the friends of the hon. member for Queen's, Prince Edward Island, constructed the first steamer that provided winter navigation with Prince Edward Island, they took care to see that the steamer should be so constructed that it would be necessary to carry the coal on board, and saw to it that only the friends of their party should carry it. When the government came into power, they took care that the steamer which they constructed should be so constructed that the coal could be put on by a more up-to-date method. My hon. friend knows that it is impossible for these vessels to reach the coal piers so as to receive the coal from the chutes on the wharf, as they have to come in the midst of heavy ice. My hon. friend will see, therefore, on reflection, that he is disposed to be hypercritical when he undertakes to say that nature should be so kind as to enable these steamers to reach the coal piers.


Angus Alexander McLean: The present government built the ' Minto,' and I notice that the same means are adopted for supplying that steamer with coal as are adopted for the ' Stanley.' Perhaps the hon. member for Pictou ' would explain why, if the ' Minto ' is provided with the modern means of receiving coal, those means were not employed. This large sum of $400,000 might be greatly decreased if proper means were adopted for putting the coal on board. I would ask the hon. minister how much it costs this country to put coal and other supplies on board those steamers which are constructed in that way.
f


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: The men are paid 20 cents an Iiour. I do not know the amount.


Herbert Brown Ames: It seems to me that the method employed for coaling the steamers of this fleet is antiquated and expensive. It is time that the government, with its rapidly-growing fleet, and with the large quantities of coal it has to purchase, should take steps to secure that coal at wholesale prices delivered, and save money by doing so. Any up-to-date railway would have been doing that long ago; but the Canadian government, in its Marine and Fisheries Department and in its Railway Department, prefers to keep to the antiquated method. If the minister would publicly advertise for 20,000 tons of coal to be delivered at Halifax, St. John, Charlottetown, Guspe and other stipulated points throughout the Dominion of Canada in the quantities set forth, required for the fiscal year 1905-6. I am satisfied that he would save $20,000 on his coal bill.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I am sure that the House would be better pleased with the criticism of the hon. gentleman if he would come to the maritime provinces and learn something of the conditions down there before he undertakes to propound a policy for the Department of Marine and Fisheries. My hon. friend undertakes to say that the methods of the department in dealing with the coal supply are antiquated. As has already been pointed out, some of the larger steamers are so constructed that it is impossible to put the coal on board otherwise than by carrying it. Others are so constructed that it can be received oft the coal piers. I happen to know something of this matter, because the coal company that has supplied the department during the last year or so happens to be one of the large companies of my county. That company received the contract for supplying the coal after public competition. There was no favouritism there. My hon. friend says that this company delivers its coal by antiquated methods, but as I pointed out there are certain steamers which can only receive their coal by hand. Those that are fitted up so as to receive the coal through chutes are loaded the same as every other steamer properly fitted. My hon. friend's proposition that coal depots should be constructed at these various points would involve considerable extra cost. I submit that, speaking from the standpoint of Nova Scotia people and those who do know something about these matters, that the department has been receiving coal as cheap as it can be obtained for commercial purposes anywhere in the maritime provinces. So that I am at a loss to see what advantages there would be in carrying out the suggestion of my
hon. friend that this department should go to the expense of building storage wharfs and sheds and keeping men at their various points for the purpose of storing that coal and again delivering it. The scheme is an impracticable one. I am sure that if my hon. friend would come to the maritime provinces, he would see that so far as the coal supply is concerned, the results are not deserving of adverse criticism.


Herbert Brown Ames: I am not speaking altogether without having given this matter some consideration or having had the opportunity of visiting the maritime provinces, and being in every one of the places I have mentioned. Further than that. I have not made the proposition without having consulted persons in the coal business who have had the largest experience in the handling of coal. I am assured bv persons who have handled more coal than the port of Pictou has handled in the last ten years that the scheme I suggest is perfectly feasible and would save considerable money, if worked as a business concern would work it. My hon. friend spoke of the coal having been bought at Pictou at the lowest market price. Fossibly it was, but has the department ever bought more than a few thousand tons at any one time ? My proposition is that the 20,000 or 25,000 tons needed should be let in one contract and the various coal companies be invited to bid for it. They would then, no doubt, furnish the coal at lower figures than the government can buy it at under the present system.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Would my hon. friend indicate what coal company in Nova Scotia would be prepared to do all these things he speaks of ?


Herbert Brown Ames: The suggestion I make is this, that if the government will advertise for tenders in a bona fide manner, it will very soon get the information as to which coal company will supply the coal.


Alexander Johnston: Will the hon. gentleman say that the government is not doing the very thing he indicates ought to be done ?


Herbert Brown Ames: Certainly I will. The government from time to time advertises at certain places for a comparatively small amount of coal, which they get at the lowest price at that one particular place for that quantity. They possibly get the regular bunker price that ordinary ships seeking to have their bunkers filled have to pay ; but my contention is that if you were to bulk your coal order for the ocean and river service and offer a contract for 20,000 tons to be delivered during the space of twelve months, you would make a very considerable saving. As to the contention that it would be necessary to make great expenditures at all these different ports, at nearly every one of them there is at present coal I storage capacity for the vessels of the de-

260S
I
partment. There is at Quebec, and at every one of these points the'government have at present wharfs where they can store the coal, so that if it be necessary to spend some initial money in order to equip the department to handle this wholesale coal business, the money would be well invested.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I understood my hon. friend to indicate that he had information from the coal men in the maritime provinces that they would be prepared to supply coal cheaper than it is now supplied. Does he say so ? And if he does, would he be good enough to give the name of the company ?


Herbert Brown Ames: I have already answered that question by saying that if the government will adopt a businesslike method and advertise for the entire quantity of coal which they require for the next season, they will very soon find out the name of the company that will supply it.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My hon. friend ought not to make a statement which he is unwilling to back up. Is he in a position to state that any coal company in Nova Scotia has intimated to him that it will be in a position to supply coal cheaper than it is now being supplied ; and if so, will he give the name of that company ?


Herbert Brown Ames: My hon. friend is endeavouring to put words into my mouth that I did not use. The statement I made was this, that I had consulted experts in the coal business.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: We expect the government to buy as cheap as it can, irrespective of what the commercial people pay. If the government could get cheaper rates, it should do so.


Herbert Brown Ames: The hon. member for Pictou has again misunderstood me. I said that any tramp steamer can put into the port of Pictou and buy coal just as cheaply as the government can. But what I claim is that if the government, which has nine boats engaged in the ocean and river service, would bulk its contract for a single season, it could buy the coal at a considerable reduction.


Alexander Johnston: There are people in this country who buy very much more coal than the Dominion government does and are larger consumers of it, and they are not getting their coal any cheaper. The price which the government is paying is a reasonable one. Are we to understand from the member from Montreal (Mr. Ames) that he desires the government to purchase the coal at a price which would not be reasonable, and which would be considered by people in the trade as unreasonable ?


Mr. INGRAM.: I would like to ask the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald) if he says that on the ' Stanley ' which is 207 feet long, 32 feet beam and 19 feet deep, with a gross tonnage of 914 tons, the only means they have for loading that vessel is by 20 or 30 men carrying coal in baskets containing two shovels apiece.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Where ?


Herbert Brown Ames: That is not pertinent to the question. I have consulted experts who have handled immense quantities of coal, and they told me most unequivocally that if this method were adopted the government could save considerable money. If there is any doubt about that, let the government try the experiment.


Sir.  E. M.@: S1ACDONALD. Then the hon. gentleman admits that the government is now receiving coal as cheap as it can be bought for commercial purposes. He wants it, however, to enter on an experiment, but is unwilling to give the information as to where that experiment will land the country.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: What objection has the hon. gentleman to the government trying the experiment ?


Mr.  E. SI@: S1ACDONALD. Because my hon. friend has admitted that the government is now receiving coal at the same rate as is paid for coal commercially in the maritime provinces. I do not know that my hon. friend from Haldimand expects the government to pay less than an ordinary business man would pay. If the government are receiving coal at that figure, why make an experiment which might prove more costly ?


Herbert Brown Ames: Sir. S1ACDONALD. I do not know if my hon. friend was in the House when the minister made the announcement that the ' Stanley ' which * was constructed by the government in power previous to 1896 was so constructed that it was impossible for her to receive coal through a coal chute, and that the only way in which coal could be supplied was by carrying it in baskets.
Sir. INGRAS1. The hon. gentleman leads us to believe that he endorses that. The 'Minto ' is of 225 feet, 13 feet depth, &c., and the same principle is involved in loading her. Are they loaded by baskets in all ports of the maritime provinces ?


Sir.   SIACDONALD@: I might point out to my hon. friend-apparently he was not here when the matter was discussed


Andrew B. Ingram: I would like to point out to my hon. friend that I am always here.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My hon. friend, if he was here, must be very obtuse at times. Sly hon. friend also should visit the maritime provinces, particularly at winter time. If he went down there he would find that these two steamers to which he refers have been engaged in the winter service between Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. With the greatest possible difficulty they are able to reach, in these harbours to which they run,

some wharf where their passengers and supplies may be landed. It is impossible for them to' get to the coal piers in Pictou harbour where the coal is supplied in the summer. My hon. friend will see that in winter it is not a question of construction at all, but it is a matter of necessity that coal if it is to be put on board these boats must be put on board by hand as it is impossible to get to the wharf where the coal chutes are on account of the ice.


Robert Laird Borden: Is it the practice in winter to load all steamers in this way ?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: There is no other
way to do it.


Robert Laird Borden: Are there not coal chutes ?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: It is impossible for steamers in Pictou to go to the wharfs where the regular coal chutes are.


Angus Alexander McLean: I understand the situation in Pictou very well, and I think that, if this coal was elevated, as there are side hatches on both of these vessels, there is no doubt that with a very small expense chutes could be erected so that the coal could be put on board at comparatively small expense. The coal could be elevated by two or three men instead of 30 or 40, and from that elevation it could be put in chutes and placed on the vessels at small expense. I think the minister should see to this. I would like to ask the minister what the expense of loading these vessels is ? The minister should be in a position to state the expense of loading. The men who were engaged in this business are engaged in it exclusively, and the cost should be at the minister's command.


Mr. BLAIN.: Are we to understand that the minister keeps a staff of men for the purpose of carrying coal on vessels at these different points.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: No.
Mr. BLAIN- My hon friend says ' no.' Then how is it ? Do you let a contract to a certain man to carry the coal ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: We engage the men when we want them, when the steamer is coaling and we pay them 20 cents an hour.


Richard Blain: How frequent is that, say
at Pictou ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Whenever they want coal.


Richard Blain: I asked how often that would be.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Once or twice a month; perhaps four times a month; it depends on tile quantity.


Andrew B. Ingram: I am unable to find out how these vessels are constructed so that
they can only use the basket method of loading.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Any one who has a mechanical mind at all could understand this. The bunkers are covered and therefore as has been explained already by the hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald) the vessels being unable to come near the place at the wharf where the coal chutes are, it stands to reason that the coal has to be carried from the pile which lies further on, and be brought to the steamer and put in the bunkers if the chutes cannot be used.


Andrew B. Ingram: Is that on account of the ice ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: The ice has nothing to do with it. It is because they cannot get near the wharf where the chutes are.


Andrew B. Ingram: After all the thousands of dollars we have been spending in Nova Scotia to dredge harbours, you cannot get a vessel near the coal chutes to load it in the usual way.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: It is somewhat novel to find large vessels of this kind loading coal with baskets. I have seen a good many boats of various kinds, but I have yet to see a boat that you could not load by some other means than by carrying with baskets, and I would like to ask the minister to explain it.
f Mr. PREFONTAINE. If the hon. gen-'tleman will allow me-he is under a completely wrong impression. We do not load these boats with coal ; they are not colliers, we load the bunkers.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: I understand that they are not boats which you load with coal, but you put a large quantity on board for their use.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: The quantity necessary.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: And there are men employed in these particular counties to fill these bunkers with baskets. I never heard of such a thing before, nor do I think anyone else did either. I am informed there is one place where they do it, but I have had no experience there. They say that they do that in China.


Andrew B. Ingram: And yet the hon. member from Pictou says that he is quite up to date.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: My friends from Haldimand and Elgin will have to come to the maritime provinces to get up to date.


Andrew B. Ingram: If that is what he means by being up to date, we will not go there.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I am sorry for you.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: My bon. friend from Pic-tou invites members to go to tbe maritime provinces to see tbe conditions there. I wonder if be means the political conditions.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: Take them all together.


Mr. COCHRANE.: They are all in a basket.


Mr. PERLEY.: I notice a large sum of money for wharfs in Nova Scotia, some of which X understand, are of very little use. I suggest that some of this money might be spent for wharfs in places where the steamers could go and coal.


Herbert Brown Ames: A statement was made a few moments ago that the Dominion government purchased coal as cheaply as possible, but if you turn to the Auditor General's Report at page P-12 you will find Jos. Gin-gras, Que., coal at $5.10 per ton ; Geo. E. Boak & Co., Halifax, coal at $5, $4.25, and $3. and if you turn to page P-21 you will find Clarkin Bros., Charlottetown, coal at $4.35 per ton, and at page P-22, A. Pickard & Co., coal at $4.35, $4.25 and $4 a ton. Now I do not think those are prices that this government would have to pay for about 20,000 tons of coal.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I think some coal has been bought at $9, some at $8.75 and some at $8.


Herbert Brown Ames: Where ?


Mr. PREFONT  AINE@: At different places where it was wanted, and all by tender. There is nothing extraordinary about it. But the ordinary coal that has been bought for the service of the steamers in large quantities has been bought at the lowest market price after tenders being asked for.


George Eulas Foster: How much ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: At Sydney at $3 per ton, from Mr. Hackett; at Pictou, from the Intercolonial Coal Company, at $3.75 ; from Halifax, at $4.25 ; from the Reserve Mine, at $3, and so on. All these different quantities of coal were purchased in the regular manner after tenders being asked for. There may be fifty different points where coal is to be delivered, and it varies in price according to the cost of transportation.


Herbert Brown Ames: I want to point out how the minister has verified the statement I have made. He shows how that in some cases the Dominion government halve actually bought coal at the Reserve Mine for $3 a ton, and at other places for $3.75, and $4.25. The minister has spoken of some out of the way places ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Is Sydney an out of the way place ?


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: 


Herbert Brown Ames: The places mentioned in the Auditor General's Report for 1904-5 have been places such as St. John, Halifax, Pictou and Charlottetown. Now if the Reserve Mine-which we all know produces about as good coal as can be found-if the Reserve Mine coal can be bought at $3 a ton, do you not suppose the Reserve Mine would be willing to give a contract for 20,000 tons ? *


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: To be delivered all along the coast at different points ?


Herbert Brown Ames: Certainly.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: In lots of 5 tons, 10 tons, 20 tons, and send a special steamer to make delivery ?


Herbert Brown Ames: You would not have the slightest difficulty in getting men to charter a steamer and load it with 2,000 or 3,000 tons, and deliver it at St. John, Halifax, Pictou, Charlottetown, Gaspe and Quebec ; and if you could get it at $3 a ton plus the freight, you would save a lot of money to tbe government.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I suppose the coal dealers know their own business, they have to compete with each other, five or six large companies dealing in coal, and tenders are asked for coal to be delivered at points mentioned. Surely they must know their own business.


Herbert Brown Ames: The minister knows that the tenders asked for are for small quantities to be delivered at a number of diffierent points.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: At points where it is wanted.


Herbert Brown Ames: No company of any size is going to tender for 1,000 or 2,000 tons.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I do not know what the hon. gentleman's object is in wasting so much time. Does he mean to say that we should ask for tenders for the whole quantity of coal to be delivered at different points, no matter what the quantity ? Then he would ask the mine owners or the dealers in coal to distribute it in quantities of from 5 tons to 100 tons at perhaps four hundred different places.


Herbert Brown Ames: I would call for tenders inviting the large coal companies who have vessels of their own by which they can deliver, or who are in a position to make contracts for delivery, and I would ask them to tender for 20,000 tons of coal to be delivered at these points.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: And you would ask them to deliver at four hundred points ?


Herbert Brown Ames: The minister does not get coal at four hundred points. Unless a steamer happens to be stranded and runs out of coal at some particular place where she has to be supplied, 95 per cent of his
261 3

coal is bought either at St. John, Halifax, Charlottetown, Pictou or Quebec.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: No.


Herbert Brown Ames: Well look through the Auditor General's Report. Show me $10,000 worth of coal bought outside of those places.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I know the points where it has to be delivered.


Herbert Brown Ames: Show me in the Auditor General's Report where $10,000 worth of coal is bought and delivered outside of those places, and that will put another phase on the question. The hon. gentleman says we are wasting the afternoon on this matter. It seems to me that if a system can be inaugurated whereby $15,000 or $20,000 can be saved to the country in a single year, this parliament might be well engaged In devising such a system.


Mr. D. D. McKENZIE.: a good deal of misapprehension exists in the mind of the hon. member for Montreal (Mr. Ames) as to the way we handle coal in Nova Scotia. I would invite him to visit the harbours of Sydney and North Sydney, where they can load a steamer at the rate of 1.000 tons an hour. The cases where coal is loaded aboard small steamers by the shovelful are so few, and the quantities are so trifling, that the coal kings of Nova Scotia hardly think it worth while to provide any other method. In the harbour of Sydney some of the finest warships in the world are loaded with baskets. Some of the magnificent French steamers come into the harbour of Sydney and load their bunkers with baskets, and English steamers in the same way. The steamers are so constructed, and have to be kept so clean and in such good condition, that the masters don't care to put them under chutes where the coal comes tumbling down from a height of 30 to 50 feet. If the hon. gentleman had a valuable property such as these steamers he would hesitate before putting them under these chutes. That being the case, and as it is only a trifling quantity of coal that has to be handled in this way, there is no trouble about it. I think it is small business to waste the afternoon upon a few tons of coal put upon these steamers in the way that I have mentioned. The hon. member for Montreal (Mr. Ames) is, I think, struggling to cut down the price of coal in the provinces I com? from. We do not want to see the price of coal cut down. We have thousands of people in the province of Nova Scotia whose bread and butter depend upon the price of coal, and I do not think it is true Canadianism for us to ask this government to cut down the price of an article of such great importance to our people.


Herbert Brown Ames: May I make just one more suggestion in answer to my hon. f fiend from Cape Breton and Victoria (Mr. D. D. Mc-S4
Kenzie). Some years ago I had the pleasure of going to Japan on one of the handsome boats of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which are, as you know, some of the finest steamers in the world, and which are painted perfectly white from stem to stern, everything as clean as new paint. At the Canadian end they loaded coal from chutes, and at the Japanese and Chinese end they loaded it with baskets. I do not like to see the Chinese system in vogue on the Atlantic coast.


George Eulas Foster: I think the minister, by his explanations, has rather clouded the whole matter concerning coal. It is a fact, I suppose, that coal is used at four hundred different points.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Say three hundred and ninety-nine.


George Eulas Foster: I mean to say that it is delivered at a very large number of places. Wherever you have a lighthouse, I suppose you have to have some coal, unless it is in a wooded country. Well, how does the minister deliver his coal at those places ? It is delivered, as I understand, by supply steamers, there is a very large number of these small places which take a few tons only. Therefore, it is unfair to say that you could not adopt the plan of my hon. friend from Montreal (St. 'Antoine), because you would have to have this coal delivered at 400 different places. That is not it at all. The hon. gentleman has supply steamers and with these supply steamers and in other ways he delivers the little driblets of coal that are required, a few tons at each place. That is not what my hon. friend has been talking about at all. It is true, on the other hand, that a large portion of the coal which is being used by the department is bought and is deliverable at half a dozen, or eight or ten points at the most, and that is a part of the coal which hon. gentlemen on this side of the House think might be got at a smaller price and a large saving made. An hon. gentleman in speaking in favour of keeping up the price of coal has the laudable view that the workmen shall not be defrauded of their wages, but we are not dealing, in asking for tenders and getting it as cheaply as possible, with the workmen. We are dealing with the mine owners and if they furnish 20,000 or 30,000 tons of coal at a less price than is being paid now, and make their profit by it, as undoubtedly they can, the miners' wages are not affected thereby in the least and their bread and butter are just as secure. The point is as to whether the hon. minister can by changing his method get his coal at a cheaper rate, and I certainly think he can do so. The Grand Trunk Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway Companies, who are large consumers of coal-although they are in



some respects different-receive their coal at a very much cheaper rate than the hon. gentleman is receiving his, because he does not buy it in large quanties. He gets local men to deliver the coal at local points and in comparatively small quantities.


Mr. MACPHERSON.: I would like to ask the hon. member for Montreal, St. Antoine (Mr. Ames) if I understood him rightly as saying that the Canadian Pacific Railway boats, the description of which I quite agree with, load at the Pacific end by chutes.


Herbert Brown Ames: I understood it. I know that on the other end they load by baskets, and I thought that on this end they could not load with baskets.


Robert George Macpherson: Well, I can tell my hon. friend that they load entirely by baskets on this end.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: To satisfy hon. gentlemen opposite I will try the experiment suggested and ask for tenders in an alternative way. WTe will ask for them under the old plan and the new, and we will see what difference there is in the price of our coal.


Mr.   POSTER@: That is a good idea.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I would not think for an instant of trying the other plan alone because I am sure that we would pay 25 or 30 per cent more for our coal.


Richard Blain: Has the hon. minister installed the Marconi wireless system of telegraphy on the boats yet ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Yes, on the * Minto ' and 'Stanley' but there is a special item for that.


John Waterhouse Daniel: I notice in looking over the hon. minister's report that there is no mention made except in one case as to the number of crews on these various steamers. In the case of the ' Canada ' which is, I understand, really a third-class cruiser and the foundation of the navy of Canada-


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Those vessels are included in the Fisheries estimates. They are in the Fisheries protection service.


John Waterhouse Daniel: Will the hon. minister tell us then what are the legitimate crews of the vessels which are now under discussion, such, for instance, as the ' Lady Laurier ' and these other steamers ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: The crews, exclusive of officers, are as follows : ' Druid,' 23: 'Aberdeen,' 31; 'Stanley,' 34; 'Minto,' 37; ' Lady Laurier,' 36; * Lansdowne,' 26 ;
' Quadra.' 20; ' Brant,' 8; ' Champlain,' 28 ; 'Montcalm,' 35; * Maisonneuve,' 3; 'Con-Mr. FOSTER.
stance,' 18; ' Shamrock,' 14 ; ' Scout,' 11, and ' Reserve,' 9. The ' Canada ' has a crew of 48 exclusive of officers.


John Waterhouse Daniel: The ' Canada ' has 75 including officers in this report.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Oh, well, on the cruise she is making at the present moment she has 75. But the regular crew of the ' Canada ' is 48.


John Waterhouse Daniel: Is the hon. minister aware of the number of the crew on board the ' Lady Laurier ' in Halifax about the 3rd November last ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: The figures I have given are those of the regular crew, I do not know that the crew was increased in any shape or form.


John Waterhouse Daniel: I ask the question because I understood that there was a considerably larger number on the ' Lady Laurier ' at that time than are usually appointed to that vessel.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: They were colonizing, I suppose.


Mr. HENDERSON.: I think full information has not been obtained in regard to the question of my hon. friend (Mr. Daniel). The hon. minister tells us that they were colonizing. What does that mean ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I suppose that was what the hon. gentleman had in his mind and I told him that was not so, that the crew was the same as it always was.


David Henderson: It is said that there were some 95 of a crew. Is that number necessary to sail this vessel ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: No, there never were 95 on the vessel.


David Henderson: That is what the record at Halifax proves, I believe.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: What record ?


David Henderson: There were some 95 domiciled there.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: What record ?


David Henderson: The voters' list; that is the record. There were some 95 people domiciled on that vessel.


Alexander Johnston: Have you the list ?


David Henderson: It is not necessary to have the list. It is a matter of record. Tt is not a question of dispute.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Quite the contrary. It is disputed. It is not so.
Mr. HENDERSON Well, you dispute your own records


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: 
David Henderson: That is what we honestly believe; we believe that there was no such number as 95, but under different names they were put there.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: AVhere ?


David Henderson: On the list.
Mr. PRE-FONTAINE. The Department of Marine and Fisheries has nothing to do with the preparation of the list. Anybody can claim to be employed on the ' Lady Laurier ' but we cannot help that. The crew is sworn in and articled in the regular way.


David Henderson: Then there were
not 95 ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: No.


David Henderson: Well, we thought not.


Mr.  D. D.@: McIvENZIE. There had been an attempt made to show that there was some wrong doing in connection with this business, and as a Nova Scotian, I court the fullest possible inquiry. I know that the allegation is absolutely unfounded and false and it should be threshed out here. I do not want any insinuation ; I want the whole truth about the matter.
Mr, FOSTER. What is the minister's plan for buying supplies for these steamers at different points ? What does he do in attempting to get provisions at the most reasonable price as I suppose he does ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: When I came to the department I found a system established for thirty years and I followed it. The hon. gentleman (Mr. Foster) was Minister of Marine and he knows what it is. It is to ask the prices by circulars from the different traders. These prices are given to the agent who verifies whether it is the regular market price, and then the order is given to the captains of the different steamers to buy supplies at the different places.


George Eulas Foster: To whom are these circulars sent ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: To the different merchants.


Herbert Brown Ames: To all the merchants ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Nothing of the kind, I followed the custom of the department in vogue for 25 years.


Herbert Brown Ames: And the same merchants ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I do not think so. It may be that some of them are the same but I do not know.
Mr, BARR. Is it not a fact that the minister has a list of reformers whom he thinks have done good work for the party 1


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: What harm is there in that. If we buy at proper jarices I suppose we have a right to buy where we like.


Mr. BARR.: But that is not advertising for tenders.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I never said we advertised ; I said I followed a method that had been followed for 25 years.


John Barr: But you do not use the same list.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Oh, that is too clever.


John Barr: In days gone by we used to hear the Liberals declare, that this very system was bad and corrupt, but now it seems that the Liberals in power have adopted it. Two wrongs do not make a right. If the old government was wrong the present government should not have followed their example. It is a well known fact that the department sends round a list, and that it is only sent to men who support the government, so that there is no guarantee we are getting the goods at the market price.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: The prices are there and can be verified.


John Barr: And some of them are pretty high prices.


George Eulas Foster: For instance, in the city
of Quebec the minister would send one to a number of grocers-


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Nearly every grocer in Quebec, because they are all Liberals.


George Eulas Foster: I am not speaking about that at the present time. When the supplies are furnished according to this list, who checks the goods supplied and sees that they are up to the standard and of the proper quality ? /


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Mr. Gregory, the agent at Quebec, an old employee, has to verify ns to whether the prices are the market prices.


George Eulas Foster: He does not verify that they are market, prices as I understand it. because the prices are fixed according to the list he receives.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: The master fills out a regular requisition for the articles he needs ; he sends that to the agent who orders the goods at the prices which were tendered for. The articles are sent on board the steamer and checked by the steward and verified by the captain. Then the

account is sent back to the agent who verifies it and sends it to the department here, where it is verified again.


George Eulas Foster: That is how I thought it might be done. Who makes sure that the goods delivered are according to sample ? for instance there are various kinds of tea.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: The steward and the captain do that and they will complain very quickly if the articles are not according to quality.	,


George Eulas Foster: This system leaves a very wide hole open.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I have obtained special information on this question, because I knew from previous experience in passing these estimates, that I would be asked concerning it. I have here a statement which I will read and which is as follows :
With reference to the purchase of supplies by the different transportation companies, the department has been in communication with the Canadian Pacific Railway Steamship Company, the Richelieu and Ontario Navigation Company, and the Charlottetown Steam Navigation Company, and I find that these corporations do not purchase by tender, but purchase in the market as they find that they can get better value and quality than by inviting tenders and getting their supplies by contract.
The Charlottetown Steam Navigation Company purchase nothing but coal by tender, and they obtain their supplies from dealers in the trade.
The Department of Marine and Fisheries purchase their staple articles, such as flour, pilot bread, pork and 'beef in barrels, salt fish, butter, sugar by the barrel, and tea by the chest, from provision dealers, circulars having been previously sent to them for prices. Fresh meat is purchased from butchers as required. No tenders are asked for the smaller articles of groceries, or canned goods, dried fruit or fruit of any kind, and such like articles. The agents are always instructed to invite tenders for staple articles from provision dealers and the smaller articles of groceries are purchased without inviting tenders. Provision dealers often say that they tender for the staple articles at low prices in order that they may secure the orders for the smaller articles of groceries. This would be all right provided we had only one firm or grocer to purchase from, hut it is impossible for the department to purchase at one port, as the ships are continually going from one port to another and require supplies at the port they are in at the time. No tenders are asked for these supplies, as in such cases the ships would be delayed. ^Samples of supplies are always furnished with tenders. Poor articles are expensive at any price, and therefore, the department buys the best quality of provisions and supplies generally. In some instances it happens that steamers calling at out of the way places, make purchases of butter, condensed milk, and such articles at higher prices than they could be obtained for at any large business centre. The quantities thus purchased may not be very large, but the high price paid appears in the Auditor General's Report, and the department has been subjected to critl-Mr. PREFONTAINE.
cism in parliament on account of the prices of these few articles, and has been blamed for purchasing at extravagant prices. The agents at ail times are instructed to purchase the best quality of supplies at a fair market value.
I may add that I have consulted the Messrs. Allan in regard to their method of purchasing, and 1 find that it is the same as that of the other navigation companies; hut they do not take all of the precautions that we are taking in the department.


George Eulas Foster: Do not these companies have a purchasing agent ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: They have a purchasing agent, which explains why they do not need to ask for tenders. Mr. 'Smith, the manager of the Richelieu and Ontario Navigation Company, gives a list of the merchants to whom the purchasing agent goes.


Herbert Brown Ames: Do I understand the minister to say that his method of purchasing by circular is exactly the same as that of the Allans, the Richelieu and Ontario, and the other large navigation companies ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: The drafting of the circular. might be different, but the principle is the same.
' Mr. AMES. I suppose the list the hon. member uses is not similar to the list these companies use, for instance, in the city of Montreal ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: We buy very little in Montreal, but when we do want something, we go to the best wholesale dealers.


Herbert Brown Ames: I would like the minister to tell me a little more clearly how he prepares this list of favoured people to whom the circulars are to he sent ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I have nothing to do with the preparation of the list. Very often in the course of the year people apply, asking :	Are we not entitled to get
part of the patronage ? I give instructions to the agent at the place to which the applicant belongs, to get prices from that gentleman.


Herbert Brown Ames: And whom does the hon. minister consider entitled to have a part of the patronage which he speaks of ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: It is the best men who are entitled to get the patronage ; and I may say-there is no use mincing matters - that when the prices are equal, we consider it only fair and reasonable that the government should favour their friends. I suppose that if hon. gentlemen opposite were in power, they would do the same.


Herbert Brown Ames: I want to draw the hon. minister's attention to what is probably an oversight, so far as he is. concerned. I undertook to communicate with Halifax. Quebec, 'St. John and other places submitting

", list of the persons from whom the hon. minister obtains his supplies. Last year, for example, the ' Lady Laurier ' secured its supplies mostly at Halifax. There were fifty-eight persons on the list from whom the supplies were obtained, and I am sorry to have to inform the hon. gentleman that among those fifty-eight there is one Conservative.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: (If the hon. gentleman will give me the name, we shall have the list corrected.


Herbert Brown Ames: The steamer ' Neptune ' buys its supplies at Halifax. According to my Halifax friend, there are eighty-four names on the list, of whom three are Conservatives. The steamer ' Stanley ' obtains part of its supplies at Charlottetown and part at Pic-tou. and in this case the minister succeeded tetter, because I am informed that all the people at Pictou from whom the supplies are obtained are, to use my informant's expression, * hot grits.' In Quebec the steamer ' Druid ' obtains its supplies from sixteen persons, all red-hot Liberals, but one only liable to be independent. The steamer * Aberdeen ' buys its supplies at Quebec from thirty-four people, all strong Liberals. Thus, out of about two hundred people -who supply the department about half a dozen me Conservatives. This calls for immediate attention.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I will look up the list, and, if the hon. gentleman complains, I will inform these Conservatives that they are not to sell any more goods to the vessels.


Andrew B. Ingram: I can assure the hon. minister that, so far as the county I represent is concerned, it is not necessary to look up the list, because only good Grits there get the patronage.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: If my hon. friend finds fault with that, we will endeavour to correct it.


Andrew B. Ingram: If I found fault from now ! till doomsday, I am afraid that I should unake very little impression on the hon. gentleman.


David Henderson: The hon. gentleman says that prices being equal, he would give the preference to his own friends; but how does he know that the prices *would not bo more favourable if competition existed among all the merchants of the place ? How does he know that there are not Conservatives in Halifax, Quebec or Montreal who would supply these goods at lower prices ? They never have au opportunity to compete, (they are not asked to do so, though it is quite possible that if they were, very much better prices might be obtained. The minister has no knowledge of that, for the simple reason that he takes his supplies from his own political friends, who knowing that he will not go outside of that circle, doubtless take care to get good prices. If he is determined to obtain goods at fair prices, he must open the door to all parties, ana allow all to have an opportunity of competing. Then, if his own friends are the lowest tenderers, I have no objection to his giving them the contract in preference to political opponents.


Angus Alexander McLean: I notice that in I'rince Edward Island forty-eight who have supplied goods to the department are all Liberals. I do not raise any objection to the list at all, but I would ask the minister to reconsider this matter, and see if he cannot give the Conservatives some little show.


Mr. PREFONT  AINE@: I will make an exception of Prince Edward Island, as the hon. gentleman does not object to purchases being made from Conservatives.


Herbert Brown Ames: There is an item on page P-29 of the Auditor General's Report of which I would ask the minister to give an explanation. It is an item of $1,978.81 for buttons, gold lace, &e. I am sure we are al) very anxious that the Canadian navy should present a creditable appearance, but it certainly appears to me that the amount of money which is to be spent in gold braid and trimmings is rather large for a young country just beginning to have a service and vwhich as yet has not many vessels which appear on parade. I notice for instance, the following charges :
1. 33 gross coat buttons..? 9 10 ?: 300 30
2.	4 gross jacket buttons.. ..	6	10	24	403.	20 gross vest buttons.. ..	5	10	102	004.	2 jap. uniform cases_____ 10	00	20	005.	24 sword belts	
3	80	91	206.	4051 yards gold lace ....	0	85	344	467.	20 yards gold lace.. ..	2	90	58	008.	24 dozen sold cap badges	20	00	480	009.	200 pairs shoulder straps	0	45	90	0010.	48	gold naval sword	knots	2	75	132	0011.	24	swords	
11	50	276	0012.	24	sword bags	
0	75	18	0013.	18	dozen hat	ribbons..	2	00	36	00Cases and tins	
6 45
1.978 81
Possibly the hon. gentleman will tell us whether this was for some special festive occasion, or what use has been made of the amount of trimmipgs mentioned here ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Certainly I have not been wearing them. They were bought in the regular way for the different crews, just as was done under the late government. As regards the changes we have made, they are to the advantage of Canadians. We used to buy these articles through the High Commissioner in London at the Army and Navy stores, but we found a firm in Montreal and another in Toronto ready to furnish these articles at the same prices, and we give each year an order to one of these firms. One year we buy from the firm in

Montreal and the other year from the firm in Toronto.
. Mr. A. A. McLEAN. With regard to this item of $1,500 for the Marconi system which is installed on the ' Stanley ' and ' Minto,' I understand that those steamers have been in the harbour all winter, and that this system has not been used in the winter at all, because they have not sufficient power to communicate between the wharfs at Pictou and Georgetown. They can only communicate within a radius of thirty miles.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: They will not remain there.


Angus Alexander McLean: I was told by the man who operates one of the machines that he could not communicate from the wharf at Pictou with the steamer at the wharf at Georgetown. If that is so, it is a mistake. At any rate, the installing of this machinery on board those steamers is of very little use unless it is also installed on the shores, because both those steamers might be out in the gulf and there might be great necessity for the erection of two stations, one on the Pictou side and one on the Prince Edward Island side, so as to enable the steamers to communicate with the shore. So far as the system now installed on the steamers is concerned, I can say that it will be of very little use.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: There is a special item for the Marconi station, and when that comes up I will give all the explanations required.


George Eulas Foster: There is an item here for damages allowed to merchants and shippers in Prince Edward Island for losses sustained on perishable goods owing to the ' Minto ' and ' Stanley ' being ice-bound. The amount is $9,356.66.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: That was fully discussed last year. It was a vote by parliament after an investigation was held.


George Eulas Foster: Has it affirmed a principle ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: No ; without affirming a principle in any way. All the reasons and conditions were given at the time.


George Eulas Foster: If it is a matter past and gone, it is outside of the question now. But the minister informs me that it does not create a precedent or affirm a principle.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: No.
Examination of master and mates, $7,000.
was recommended as an assistant to Captain Salmon.


Mr. LEFURGEY.: Who has been appointed examiner at Charlottetown 1


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Captain Cavanagh.


Alfred Alexander Lefurgey: Was he appointed last year ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: It is being made now.


Alfred Alexander Lefurgey: At what salary ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Rewards for saving life, including life saving stations. $12,000.


Mr. ALCORN.: I would like to ask what is the [DOT] nature and extent of the life-saving service on the Lake Ontario front, in the county of Prince Edward, Ontario. Some years ago we had a very efficient, well equipped and manned life-saving station at Point Traverse ; but owing, I presume to the fact that the people of that vicinity did not support this government as well as was desired, that station was removed. The boat was taken to Wellington, in the same county, and stored there in some person's barn. I recollect that a year or two ago a claim was made against the department for storage in respect of that boat, but whether that ciaim was settled before the last elections or not, I do not know. The boat, however, seems to have gone out of service. It has no crew and no use is made of it. There was also a boat on Consecon beach, in Prince Edward, but I do not know how that is now. I would like full information as to the nature and extent of the service in that region. The coast is one which absolutely requires a life service, because a number of wrecks occur there yearly, and a good many lives are lost.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I shall be very glad to look into the question. According to the information given me by my deputy minister, the station was abolished five or six years ago as not being necessary.


George Oscar Alcorn: Will the hon. minister have the information put in writing, and give the places where the boats are now located in that county, in whose charge, who are the crew, whether such crews are practised or only crews on paper ; and what is the expense of each station, to whom paid, and on what account ?


Andrew B. Ingram: What wrecks were inves-igated last year ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: The following wrecks were investigated last year :


Herbert Brown Ames: Who now fills the position of examiner ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Captain Demers. Mr. AMES. What are his qualifications ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: He has a certificate from the English Board of Trade, and Mr. PREFONTAINE.
SS. ' Vancouver.
SS. ' Kensington ' Barquantine ' Kodan SS. ' Athenia '
SS. ' Verax '
SS. ' Vancouver.'
SS. 1 Turret Cape. SS. ' Turret Chief
, collision.
collision.

SS. * Catalone.'
SS. ' Louisburg.'


Andrew B. Ingram: Has it been necessary to engage any wrecking plant in connection with these accidents ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Yes, in the case of the 'Vancouver.' The Davie Company helped to pull the ' Vancouver ' out of the mud in which she had stuck outside of the channel. Most of the work was done by the Department of Marine, the ship channel department. We really dug out the steamer which was 11 feet in the mud. A channel was dug along each side of her and when it was thought sufficiently deep she was pulled out by the Davie boats and other boats that we had furnished through the Department of Marine and Fisheries so as to reduce the damages as much as possible.


Andrew B. Ingram: In what section of the river was the accident ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Just outside Sore], near the entrance of Lake St. Peter. She sheered right out of the channel and went about 200 feet into the mud.


Herbert Brown Ames: The minister mentioned the * Canada ' but I do not find in the minister's report pages 99 to 108, any reference at all to the ' Canada.' Why is no report of the investigation as tq the ' Canada '-' Cape Breton ' affair published here ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: We did not think it was a formal inquiry and therefore we did not publish it. This question was entirely threshed out in the House. We did not publish this report because we thought the proceedings were all defective.


Herbert Brown Ames: But you have no report of it at all here.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Whatever papers were collected were put before the House but we never considered that that report was legal and therefore did not publish it.


Herbert Brown Ames: Was it an investigation that differed from the others here ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: It differed greatly; it was not according to the instructions at all.


Herbert Brown Ames: Did I understand the minister to say that this was simply a preliminary inquiry ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: That is what I (said.


Herbert Brown Ames: It was not an investigation at all ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: It was some kind of an investigation preliminary to a formal investigation.	^


Herbert Brown Ames: I would like to refresh the memory of the minister, because I think
that the documents of the case contain proof that it was not a preliminary inquiry as alleged.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: There are not even written instructions.


Herbert Brown Ames: The minister knows that the papers have just been brought down and laid before the House. The minister will find among the papers a report dated June 13, 1904, which report says :
I beg to refer you to the attached newspaper report of the loss of the above vessel, and to recommend that an investigation be held as soon as possible. From inquiry by telephone this morning I learned that the ss. 'Cape Breton' has proceeded on her voyage to Sydney, and will probably return about next Saturday, so that if the minister approves of my recommendation for investigation it must be postponed until this vessel's return. I -would suggest that if possible the minister might hasten the passage, of the amendment to the Shipping Casualties Act through the Senate, otherwise the pilot will have to be tried before Mr. Guerin.
This is signed by Capt. R. Salmon, wreck commissioner, and is initialled across the base ' R. P.,' which I believe to be the initials of the miiiister. It would therefore seem that this was a recommendation on the part of Capt. Salmon asking for an investigation and that recommendation has been initialled by the minister showing that the minister concurred in the demand of Capt. Salmon for ah investigation. If we look at the other reports we find that with all other casualties the investigation was recommended in almost identical terms. When the ' Vancouver ' was wrecked, Capt. Salmon writes :
I learn that the above named steamer is ashore in Lake St. Peter, about sixteen miles east of Sorel, and in the event of her being detained I recommend that an investigation into the casualty be held.
In the case of the 'Kensington' the same terms exactly were used. In Capt. Salmon's report he says he does not consider an investigation necessary.
In the case of the ' Athenia ' and * Verax ' lie says :
I beg to recommend that an investigation be held. -
And an investigation was held. Again in the matter of the ' Athenia' and ' Verax ' he speaks of having ordered an Investigation.
Again in the matter of the ' Vancouver ':
I recommend that I proceed to Montreal tomorrow in order to make arrangements for this investigation.
Again in the case of the * Carolina ' he speaks of investigations and so in all cases where an investigation was held the form of the report used exactly the same terms as in this. Consequently it will be seen that in the Canada-Cape Breton case the usual recommendation was made and the minister having initialled the usual recommendation ordered the usual investigation.

In this case, which we have been discussing, the minister telegraphs to Mr. Gregory, agent of the Department of Marine and Fisheries at Quebec and he says :
Minister wishes to know if Paul Lachance, St. Lawrence Point, St. John, Island of Orleans, would make a good assessor to sit on ' Canada-Cape Breton ' investigation. If you do not know, will you please make inquiries ?
(Sgd.) R. SALMON.
Wreck Commissioner.
Mr. Gregory replies :
If no objection to a pilot acting as assessor on a case where a pilot is concerned, Paul Lachance, who is a pilot and master mariner, might make a good assessor.
Assessors are only used in regular investigations and Mr. Gregory has acknow-eldged in this case


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Where is the authority from the minister there ?
' Mr. AMES. The authority of the minister is found in the initials of the minister written across the report of R. Salmon, wreck commissioner.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Do you imagine it gave him the power to choose a commissioner in that way without consulting the minister V


Herbert Brown Ames: And the subsequent telegrams in the department show that in seeking an assessor that was his intention. Now this matter came up in the House and the hon. minister made this statement himself in the House on the 17th day of June, 1904.
I can promise the House that there will he a thorough and complete investigation into this casualty, which I repeat is not due to the river channel.
The minister himself states that there should be a thorough jmd complete investigation.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: It was not a thorough and complete investigation that was held.


Herbert Brown Ames: The hon. gentleman knows that the first six clauses of the law refer only to preliminary inquiry, but from clause 7 onward it is a formal investigation. The latter is what was held, and Captain Salmon during the entire time he was engaged in the matter never once held a preliminary inquiry. That proves that this investigation was not a preliminary enquete.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Because there was none before it.


Herbert Brown Ames: The report of Captain Salmon begins in the same way :
In the matter of a formal investigation held at the Harbour Commissioners' office, Montreal, Mr. AMES.
Quebec, on the Sth, 9th, 10th and 11th of August, 1901

Now I am citing these documents rapidly, simply because they prove the point that every reference that was made by* the correspondence of the department, by the letters of the wreck commission, and by the ' Hansard ' containing the minister's remarks-every reference speaks of it as an investigation, there is not one word calling it a preliminary inquiry. It was a formal investigation, and an interference with it was not legitimate. I would like to ask the minister whether any investigation was held when the ' Carolina ' got into trouble ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: It was not thought necessary.


Herbert Brown Ames: Was there any report from an official of the department asking that the affair be investigated ?
. Mr. PREFONTAINE. Nobody asked for an investigation.


Herbert Brown Ames: Was there any report on the part of an official of the department asking that there should be an investigation ? I must refresh the memory of the minister on that point.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Perhaps Mr. Salmon did.


Herbert Brown Ames: I want to call the minister's attention to some correspondence in reference to the * Carolina,' which might bear explanation. Here is the letter of Captain Salmon to the department:
Attached hereto is a newspaper clipping giving an account of the stranding of the above mentioned vessel near St. Alplione, on July 15th. I beg to recommend that an investigation be held.
The Wreck Commissioner, on the 18th of July, writes begging to recommend that an investigation be held. Here is the reply which I think the minister will find in the records of the department :
July 26th, 1904.
With regard to the instructions, the minister


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: What document is the hon. gentleman reading ?


Herbert Brown Ames: I am reading the report of Captain Salmon to the department, and I will ask the minister if he has a copy of this in his department ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: If the hon. gentleman will ask for it in the usual manner, I will look it up and produce it, if it is there.


Herbert Brown Ames: With regard to the instructions the minister has written on my previous memorandum, I beg to suggest that perhaps our action in consulting the_authorities of the Richelieu and Ontario Steftn Navigation Company as to whether they desire an investigation into the above or not, might possibly be misconstrued, and

with deference to the minister's opinion, I venture to think that the company will ask for an investigation if they desire it.
Apparently the company did not want an investigation, and they did not have one. Does the minister remember anything about that ? Has he the original in the department ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I will look it up.


Herbert Brown Ames: The point I make is this : I want to know, after the experience of the department in the case of Captain Salmon, whether the method is now adopted that when a wreck commissioner sits upon a case and comes to a decision, he submits it in advance to the minister in order that the minister may read and approve of it before the commissioner sitting as a court gives his decision to the public. Does the minister come first and the public afterwards ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: No matter what investigation he holds, he is obliged to submit his report to the minister before he submits it to the public. That is the clear meaning of the law.


Herbert Brown Ames: That is the point I wanted to make. The hon. gentleman tells us now that his wreck commissioner who sits and takes evidence and comes to a decision, dare not give that decision to the public until he has first submitted it to the minister. Now if it happens to be a friend of the minister who is concerned, 1 suppose that report may never come to light.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: The hon. gentleman has a queer way of making insinuations that he has no right to make. I have explained the law already, when this question came before the House on a previous occasion. If I have not explained the law correctly, then I am ready to be corrected. But the law as I interpret it says clearly that the commissioner must first submit his report to the minister, and there is no way of getting round it. This commissioner thought he was not only the law but the public, that he was a judge, a judge of the Supreme Court or of the Privy Council ; he had a swelled head and nothing less. The hon. member from Montreal can have his own opinion and can keep it. I have my opinion also, and that is what I follow.


Herbert Brown Ames: Then we are clearly to understand, and the country may as well understand it too, that there is supposed to exist a wreck commissioner, and that commissioner, when sitting upon a case of casualty, hears the evidence and is supposed to come to a finding. But before that finding can be given to the public, before the commissioner can declare what he may have in his heart, he must first make a report to the minister, the minister must read it over, and approve of it before the report can be made public. What is the use of having a wreck commissioner at all ? Why not let the minister do the whole thing in the first place 1


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Then repeal the law.


Herbert Brown Ames: The point I make is this, and it is a point of principle. If the various decisions of our courts had to be reviewed by the minister before they could be given out, where would justice be Now here is a court, in a certain sense of the word. It is of course a necessity on our St. Lawrence route that when a casualty occurs the blame should be placed in an unprejudiced manner upon the proper shoulders, and that the right people should be punished for it. Here was a ease where there was a loss of life, and similar cases may occur. What we need is a wreck commissioner who is absolutely independent of fear or favour, and who feels that when he sitting as a court, and takes evidence, he may come. to a decision according to his own conscience. But the minister claims that he has a right to override this decision, and so he may decide that the penalties shall be remitted or that the finding is irregular. But until the finding is handed down, as I read the law, the minister has no right to interfere. But n the minister's interpretation of the law is to hold good,' then the public will be able to place a right estimate upon the value ot this wreck commission ; and if every finding of the wreck commissioner must first be submitted to the minister and have his approval, and if no decision can be given until that approval is had, the estimate of that wreck commissioner for absolute fairness and freedom from political interference will not rank high in the country.	.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I would like to differ from my hon. friend's opinion. There are cases in the department where the minister has greater responsibility than the responsibility involved in this case. When he sends his officer to make a preliminary investigation, which was done in the case of the ' Canada ' and the ' Cape Breton,' the least that can be exacted is that the investigation shall be legally conducted. In this case it was not legally conducted. It was conducted contimy to law and, as I have already stated, contrary to the usage of the Board of Trade in England. We proceed exactly as they are proceeding in England where the wreck commissioner acts under the jurisdiction of the Board of Trade. Nobody can reasonably have any doubt of the guarantee that is offered by such proceedings The hon. gentleman may have the opinion which he has expressed if he thinks fit. but all I can say is that I have a different opinion. He may, if he chooses, ask us to believe that the responsibility of a minister is not as great as that of his clerk whom he sends out to make an in-Tiiftl is his own way of look-
2G31

ing at the question. He thinks that an officer who is paid $2,000 a year, who is sent out to make an investigation and who does not do it legally will inspire more confidence than the minister. Well, he may have that opinion, but I am sure that outside and inside of this House people will have a different view.


George Eulas Foster: I never had that idea of the functions of a wreck commissioner. The hon. minister may be right. He says he has looked into the law and that is his interpretation of the law, but it comes as a sort of surprise to me. Of course, 1 never probably very carefully looked into the matter, but I know what the practice was when I was Minister of Marine and Fisheries, and while I cannot recollect exact cases of anything of that kind, my impression of the office was that it was meant to have an independent investigation whenever a wreck occurred and it was deemed of sufficient importance that either a preliminary examination or a regular examination should be had, that, if it were a regular examination, then, by means of assessors and the taking of evidence the wreck commissioner who constituted a quasi court would with the evidence and with the aid of the judgment of his assessors, make up his mind as to the rights of the case and give his decision. Now, of course, that decision is subordinate to the ministerial authority in the end. But, the idea I had was that the minister then could exercise his superior power over it just according as the law directs. Well now, the hon. minister says that it is not that kind of an investigation at all, that there is simply a man sent out Ijy the minister to report to him and that before he gives his decision, and consequently at any time during his examination, he is entirely subject to the minister, subject to the suggestions of the minister, subject to the interference of the minister and that his report or decision cannot be given until it has been approved by	the minister.	Well, that
takes away all idea of an independent and unpartisan investigation. The minister may be a superior man intellectually and otherwise to the wreck commissioner, but there are certain things that an independent mail even of a less high calibre can do that even a minister cannot do and one of these things is to hold an independent investigation.	The minister's power remains. He has the power of revision but in so far as the investigation is made it is done by a man appointed for that purpose who has expert and technical knowledge, who has the advantage of taking the evidence himself, who has the advantage of assessors and being a man without patronage and the like of that and having these aids he is apt to give a decision more nearly representing the rights of the case.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: If that is not so it seems to me we are open to two things. In the first place the people of this country, in so far as they are concerned in matters that come before the wreck commissioner, cannot have the idea that they are ajjpealing to an unpartisan and independent tribunal. If they have not that idea then they care nothing for that tribunal or very little. It is not their interest to get the proper evidence before the tribunal. It is their interest to button hole the minister, to bring partisan influence to bear, to carry their story to the minister himself and by ways that are well known try to influence him on one side or the other. Is that the best method to pursue? Is it better for the public who are damaged and whose rights are in question ? Is it better for the minister or the department itself? I should think the minister would rather have an independent investigator- who would take evidence with the proper aid of nautical information and would come to a conclusion upon the matter, subject of course, to a higher revision. I should think he would rather have that and I am quite certain it would be the best practice and it would best meet the wants of the country. Now, if the law turns out to be what the hon. minister says and if this commissioner is not an independent commissioner it seems to me that the law can be beneficially changed, I should think beneficially to the interests of the people and I should think beneficially to the minister himself, who, I should think, would rather be rid of that kind of an investigation than have it saddled upon him. Has the hon. minister had the benefit of the advice of the hon. Minister of Justice upon that? Has he had the opinion of the Minister of Justice that this is the intention of the law as it is on the statute-book at the present time?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Of course, I have consulted many times the Minister of Justice on the matter and especially on this case.


George Eulas Foster: And the Minister of Justice is of the opinion that the wreck commissioner is not an independent investigator, but that he is on all occasions to be subject to the interference and direction of the minister.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I never put that question because it never came up.


George Eulas Foster: Well, that is the whole question involved here.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: That has not come up.


George Eulas Foster: The whole question involved is whether while an investigation is going on it is open to the minister and his deputy to interfere with it and to make demands upon the court.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: It is not a court at all.


George Eulas Foster: And that court, considering itself to be independent simply had to vacate its position in the end in order to resent the interference of the minister. Yet the hon. minister says he has not presented that phase of the case to the Minister of Justice.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: It never came up.


George Eulas Foster: I should think it would be well that he should give us the advice of the Department of Justice in a case of this kind which I am sure quite reverses the general practice of the department. If I were owner of a vessel and that vessel came in contact with another and there was an investigation to be held, I Would not want to go to any deputy minister or minister. I would want to go to an independent court which is not subject to patronage and party ends, and I would want to put my evidence before that court and get a decision. There may be higher courts of appeal somewhere, but I would want to get the decision of the first court and I am sure the shipping interests want that.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Although this case was known to all the shipping interests they never complained. They quite approved of my conduct in the matter.


George Eulas Foster: There were other things that went to the public ; one was that it was not an inquiry but simply a preliminary inquiry. Has the public yet learned that there is no place for a wreck inquiry except before the minister ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: When I think it is required-I am the judge in the matter.


George Eulas Foster: Does the minister think he can sit in his office, and in view of the multiplicity of his other duties, be in a position to do justice, without knowing any of the local colouring and not having heard the evidence and the facts as a judge would hear them ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: That supposition is not correct. You cannot imagine that the minister, without having information, would set himself out against the wreck commissioner and prevent him from doing his work.


George Eulas Foster: The minister seems to have done that in this case.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Not at all. I deny that in the most formal way, because I never interfered in this ease except to render regular the proceedings that were being held by this officer, and he declined to follow my instructions.


George Eulas Foster: Does the minister mean to say that if a wreck taken place on the
Nova Scotian coast he goes down there and hears the evidence, or does he mean that he can know all about the case when it incidentally conies before him ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: You canuot suppose that anything of the kind would occur unless the minister would be unfit for his position. In this case I knew of witnesses that the wreck commissioner refused to examine ; I knew that the case was taken before another court and that the invariable rule in England is to suspend proceedings under such circumstances. I asked him to suspend proceedings and he refused. He threw himself before the public and rendered a ridiculous and illegal judgment. Does the hon. gentleman imagine that a minister who understands his position would interfere in an investigation without a reason that could be explained ? The minister has to take the responsibility, and he should be able to advise his officer how to conduct the investigation so that justice may be rendered impartially to the parties.


Herbert Brown Ames: Allow me to point out the essential difference between the two methods of doing the same thing. As Captain Salmon understood his duty, it was that during the progress of the investigation he was not to have his findings reviewed by the minister, but when the investigation was over and the finding had been given then the minister had a right to reverse it if he desired.	\


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: The hon. gentleman misrepresents the case. In this case the interference of the minister began after the proceedings had been taken before the Admiralty Court in Quebec. I produced the letter before the House showing it was the duty of the officer then to stop the investigation, He disregarded my instructions which I had a right to give him under the law.


Herbert Brown Ames: The minister does not exactly understand the point I make.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I understand you are trying to make a case outside of the real case.	*


Herbert Brown Ames: I can make clear what I mean to sny if the minister will allow me. I wish to demonstrate the difference between the old method and the new. As Captain Salmon understood it. the old method was ; that while he was a wreck commissioner holding an investigation he was a law unto himself, and that until he delivered his decision it could not be altered by the minister. That is the way Captain Salmon understood the law. The present understanding of the law is that the wreck commissioner, after he has made his investigation, shall submit his finding to the minister and it shall be revised or altered or approved by the minister, and then it shall be made public and have the force of a decision.


Mr. PREFONT AIN  E.@: But lie did not
finish the case.


Herbert Brown Ames: The difference between the two methods is very plain. Under the old method, if the minister wanted to overthrow the decision of the wreck commissioner he had to do it openly and publicly ; but under the new method if he wants to alter the decision of the wreck commissioner lie can do ii privately, and the wreck commissioner has to take all the blame for it. The result of the new method is that the finding is not the judgment of the wreck commissioner but the revised finding of the wreck commissioner by the minister, and the public must judge as to whether the old or the new method is the better.
At six o'clock, the committee took recess. After Recess.
Committee resumed at eight o'clock.


Andrew B. Ingram: The hon. minister spoke of an accident to the steamship 'Vancouver' at Sorel. Was there not another accident further down the river ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Yes; but there was no investigation.


Andrew B. Ingram: Surely there was an investigation. The one the hon. minister spoke of was on July 2, 1904. The other was at Matane on May 22, 1904, and the court recommended that the fog signal and the buoy should be changed. If those changes had been made previous to the accident, the chances are that it would not have occurred. Have these changes yet been made ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I could not answer that question off-hand. When the item of aids to navigation is reached. I shall be able to give the hon. gentleman the information. I know that these reports are taken cognizance of by the department ; but I do not know whether we have yet acted on that report or not.


Richard Blain: What course does the de-.partment pursue with reference to wrecks that take place ? Who is , to determine whether fin investigation takes place or not ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: The facts are reported to the minister, and if he thinks an investigation should be held, he orders it, whether formal or preliminary. That is according to law.


Richard Blain: How many wrecks took place last year ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Ten.


Richard Blain: At a total cost of liow much ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: 



Richard Blain: Were there any applications to investigate wrecks that were refused by the minister ?


Herbert Brown Ames: 


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I understand that there was only one, the one pointed out by the hon. member from Montreal.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Before dinner I had intended to give a little attention to the question of the wreck which the bon. member for St. Antoine, Montreal (Mr. Ames), was discussing. The observations made by that hon. gentleman and by the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) would perhaps create the impression that there was some laxity about these investigations. I am sure that, as a lawyer, I voice the sentiments of every other lawyer in this House, and every fair-minded man, when I say that it would be a very sad thing indeed to have the impression go abroad that investigations of this kind were conducted in a loose or lax manner, or that favouritism or politics was considered in connection with them. These hon. gentlemen seem to discuss the law from their own ideas of what the law ought to be. It so happens that when we are dealing with courts and in courts, we have to deal with the law, not as we might suppose it ought to be. but as it is ; and there happens to be a clear-cut statute governing every step in connection with investigations of this kind. It would be well for hon. gentlemen, before they undertake to' put their views on record and give them to the country as to what the law of this country is and how it is being administered, to look a little carefully into the statutes governing those particular cases. The steps to be taken in connection with this matter, as the minister has over and over again explained, are of two kinds. One of them is a preliminary investigation, an informal investigation ; the other is a formal investigation. The first one has no particular consequences, except that evidence is taken, facts are submitted to a certain officer, and he, after taking or collecting the evidence, has nothing whatever to say as to the effect it will have in the shape of a decision ; he simply reports to the minister. A great deal of fault was found this afternoon because he did report to the minister, and did not declare to the world his decision. It so happens that the statute clearly and distinctly governs his conduct, and he would be doing a wrong, and the minister would be doing a wrong, to allow his conclusions to go broadcast throughout the country. Section 7 of the Act says :
Upon the conclusion of any such inquiry the officer or person who made it shall send to the minister a report containing a full statement of the case and of his opinion thereon.
That is all.
Accompanied by such report of or extracts from the evidence and such observations as he thinks fit.	*
That is the whole of his duty, and now the minister says that this man who made the inquiry that was under consideration

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had no authority to make a formal investigation at all. I would like this House to consider whether or not an officer can be mistaken as to whether he has the authority to act as performing a preliminary investigation or a formal investigation. Gentlemen of the legal profession will understand that this formal investigation has consequences, that under this formal investigation a captain's certificate may be cancelled, he may be suspended, he may be subjecteddo a great many punishments, and so may every officer on board, including the engineer, and when he is put in that position, as in any other court, to answer which be has to answer are placed in the captain's hands and he is placed in a position, as any other court, to answer these charges either by himself or by counsel in his behalf. There was nothing of this kind in this case, but this man, proceeding entirely improperly to inquire into this matter, 1 understand undertook to cancel the certificate of an officer who had a certificate of very high character. He cancelled that certificate without the slightest ground for doing so. The section under which he acted says after setting forth his duties in respect to an informal investigationprovided, however, that no formal investigation of any case shall be held until it has been ordered by the minister.
There can be no mistake about the language. The investigation had to be ordered by the minister before it could be held and if this gentleman went on to hold an investigation without being told to do so, I think it was clearly the duty of the minister, as soon as it came to his notice that an illegal and improper investigation was being proceeded with in his department, to stop it. particularly because his officer was proposing to cancel the certificates held by the officers without giving them the protection and rights which they enjoyed under the law. Fault was found here to-day because, forsooth, the report of this formal investigation was submitted to the minister. The statute distinctly says that that report and that decision shall be submitted to the minister. There are no two ways about it ; they have no say in the matter at all, they must submit it. Section 25 says :
In any case where a formal investigation has been held the minister may order

After he gets the report

may order the investigation to be re-heard,
either generally or as to any part thereof ; and he shall do so (a) if new and important evidence which could not be produced at the investigation has been discovered, or (b) if for any other reason there has, in his opinion, been ground for suspecting that a miscarriage of justice has occurred.
The minister may then order the case to be reheard by the court by whom the case was heard in the first Instance. And be has power, without a rehearing under this
statute, to overrule the finding of the court, to restore the certificates which have been cancelled or to give a different kind of certificate in place of the one which was cancelled, and this statute puts the whole business absolutely under the control of the minister. Gentlemen stand up in this House and say that this is a lax political inquiry without ever looking at this law as to what the powers of the minister in respect to this inquiry are, and what must be done in order to comply with the law. I submit that if there is anything wrong about this law-, if it is lax, and not a proper system of inquiry, then hon. gentlemen should come here with amendments to the law. If the law is not perfect let us amend it. but do not let us be publishing abroad in the newspapers and iu the proceedings of this House, reports that lax, improper and illegal inquiries are being conducted in reference to properties and rights of this kind when in fact every step is being taken in compliance with the law of the country as it stands to-day. Although the minister has made the situation very plain, I thought it was my duty, having something to do with matters of this kind and coming from a part of the country where there is a great deal done about matters of this kind to point out as clearly as I can. that everything possible is being done to show fair play and to show that the rights of every individual, whether the right of property or a certificate or whatever it may be, are fully protected. This is certainly my purpose in bringing deafly before the committee the condition of the law today and the steps that were taken In connection with it.


Andrew B. Ingram: My hon. friend (Mr. D. D. McKenzie) must not run away with the idea that hon. gentlemen in this House who have discussed this question here to-day do not fully understand the law. They understand the law probably quite as well as the hon. gentleman did.


Mr. PREFONT  AINE@: They did not seem to.


Andrew B. Ingram: Some hon. gentlemen say that they did not seem to. I do not think it lies in the mouth of the hon. member for Cape Breton to criticise in that way, because there are men just as capable as my bon. friend. What they were finding fault with was certain interference on the part of the minister and they recommended that the law should be changed, that the minister had too much power in the matter, that he interfered with investigations under the law as it was, and they were recommending lliat certain changes be made in the law. If this is not the proper place to recommend changes in the law, I would like to know where to go to suggest these changes. Surely the proper place is in the House of Commons where the law is made. In the matter of formal investigations, I have the report in my hand here where investigations

have taken place, and on every page of this report on which the court reports what does it say ? It says ' in the matter of a formal investigation.' In every instance ' in the matter of a formal investigation.' Does the hon. gentleman mean to say that members in this House will take up this report and say-


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Does my hou. friend say that reports take the place of or overrule the statute ?


Andrew B. Ingram: My hon. friend may he accustomed to the practice of law, but not to the practice of parliament or he would not ask that question.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: I do not think I will take my practice from the hon. gentleman.


Andrew B. Ingram: I would not like to hold myself up as a model of the practice of parliament, and I have no fault to find with my hou. friend. He has always conducted himself very courteously since he has been in this House, and I would not desire for a .moment to be uncourteous to him. But I am simply pointing out that this is not a new subject, but one which has been fully discussed, and discussed by men just as fully competent to deal with the law as my hon. friend.
Expense of schools of navigation, $7,500.


George Eulas Foster: What is being done in those schools ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: There are four
government marine schools-one at Halifax, one at Yarmouth, one at St. John and one at Victoria, B.C.,-and they are presided over by the examiners of masters and mates. The result has been pretty good, but no doubt there is a good deal of room for improvement. However, the department has not thought proper to ask a large amount until this naval reserve scheme is in a position to be put before the House.


George Eulas Foster: What is being done at those schools ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: The pupils are put in a position to pass examinations in order to qualify as masters and mates. All the details will be found in my report at page 311. Lectures are given on the rudiments of navigation, the launching of vessels, the mechanical appliances on board ship, the management of the compass and so on.


George Eulas Foster: How are the pupils obtained and how many are there ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: At Montreal, Capt. Demers is the head of the school. The minimum attendance is five, the maximum 35 and the average attendance 32. The total number of pupils was five hundred, and twenty-five lectures were given. In Halifax the number of lectures given was 21, Mr. INGRAM.
the minimum attendance eight, the maximum eight, the average attendance twelve, and the total number of pupils .38. The professor was Commander E. B. Tinling. At St. John the professor is Gapt. R. C. Cole. Number of lectures 23, minimum attendance 2, maximum 21, average 9, total pupils 229. At Yarmouth, Capt. J. E. Murphy is the professor. Number of lectures 23, minimum attendance 3, maximum attendance 16, average 9, total number of pupils 203. At Victoria, Capt. James Gaudin is professor. . Number of lectures 20, minimum attendance 2, maximum 10, average 6, total pupils 110. I would like to have more of these schools, because we lack marine officers for our shipping. In the inland water we have sufficient mariners, but for sea-going vessels we have not the number of qualified officers we should have, and it was to induce our young men to embrace this profession that these schools were established.


John Barr: Are these schools free for all ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Yes.


Robert Laird Borden: Are the lectures given weekly or daily ? For instance, I notice in one place that there is a total attendance of twenty-eight and an average attendance of nine.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: An announcement is published in the papers that lectures will be given, for instance, weekly in Montreal, at a certain time and place, and calling upon those to attend who wish to do so.


Robert Laird Borden: Do the pupils go on and take out certificates ? Are these preparatory schools ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Those who attend these lectures are supposed to be preparing themselves by acquiring a knowledge of these matters.


Robert Laird Borden: Are these courses supposed to be followed up by pupils who eventually will take out certificates ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Eventually they will.


George Eulas Foster: Is no care taken to select.
the people "who attend these lectures, and to see that they come consecutively ? Are there any examinations ? Is it class work, or is it simply a public lecture ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: It is more of a public lecture than a regular course. We have not yet reached the point of making these schools a regular course of study. They are a preparatory course to encourage young men who desire to learn the first principles of the profession that they intend to embrace. Then when they get a chance they take positions on board steamers or saiiing vessels, which positions they are

able to fill with the knowledge they have gathered in these schools. .


George Eulas Foster: If we are spending money and call them schools, surely all is not being done that should be done if you simply advertise that lectures will be given and anybody who choose may come in, and may not come again perhaps. I do not think that is the system that was intended. It seems to me they were meant to be schools, and that some method was to be taken to find out who were qualified to become members of the class. The idea was that the lectures should be followed up by questions and examinations, that there should be a regular course, and that some sort of certificate should be given. Otherwise you are dispersing your efforts entirely. You had better give ten people a consecutive course and fit them, than to lecture to 200 or 300 people, gathering in some now and some others at another time. It is not a proper school where you simply advertise lectures, and let Tom, Dick and Harry come in and listen one night, and another set come in on another night.
Mr, PREFONTAINE. They are established oil the same principle as the night schools for the labouring classes. The men who attend these lectures do the best they can, of course, because they have a disposition to come and listen. After following the course, if they are found by the professors to be good scholars and have talents for navigation, the professors aid them to get places on vessels. Of course if we were endeavouring to establish naval reserves we would organize a school more efficiently. But these are only preparatory lectures in order to give these young men some naval 1 ideas.


George Eulas Foster: But is no care taken to assemble the right kind of people ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Certainly. There is a curriculum, and everybody who presents himself can come in and follow the lectures. If some only come once or twice, we cannot help that. But those who follow the course get a certificate which shows they have attained some efficiency.


George Eulas Foster: Does the minister know whether any effort is made to keep tally of those who attend consecutively, and to encourage consecutive attendance ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Yes.


George Eulas Foster: Is the object to make what you call common sailors, or is it the idea to turn out men who are fit to be officers ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Their intention is to be sailors. A great number of sailors and mariners have been taken from these schools.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: Has there been a report made by the professor ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Yes, it is published on page 111 of my report.


Andrew B. Ingram: There are five professors, one each at Montreal, Halifax, St. John, Yarmouth and Victoria. What are then-salaries ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: 


George Eulas Foster: I have not had the pleasure of reading over the report, the minister read only the bare figures. Does each one of these give a report of the results of the schools during the past year ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: No. They keep their notes. What is published in the departmental report is a short synopsis of what has been done, and that is signed by the superintendent of the schools.


George Eulas Foster: Does the minister have a report from each one of these teachers of the general results of the teaching ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I cannot give results except what I have read just now. There were so many lectures, and so many attending. That comes from the superintendent of the schools. Of course the superintendent of the schools would not publish over his signature the information which he gets from the professors in these different places without getting reports from them.


George Eulas Foster: What I mean is that while you may give the number of persons attending you do not give any idea as to what has resulted from the professor's work. He has given a certain number of lectures. He may form an idea as to how his work has resulted. He may think that the year's business may teach him that it is foolish to go on in that way or he may see a tangible result- which has given the worth of the money spent upon it.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: The hon. gentleman is rather exacting. These schools were established only two years ago. The results cannot be very great as yet. The professor is paid for his services, $250. It is a beginning and I have good reason just now for not thinking it proper to ask for a larger amount to establish a regular system of schools.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: My hon. friend has referred me to this report. Of course, I am perfectly favourable to the establishment of such a school, but my hon. friend must admit that this is not a satisfactory report.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I cannot give more than I have got.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: My hon. friend has been a
school commissioner himself.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Not at this kind of school. We paid our professors better than this.
2G43


Frederick Debartzch Monk: The report from the instructor should give some information as to the progress of the pupils. I am entirely in accord with my hon. friend as to the usefulness of the teaching, but we have now had two years of it and surely there have been some results to the pupils to report. For the city of Montreal we have the statement that Captain Demers delivered thirty-five lectures, that there was a minimum attendance of five, a maximum of thirty-five, that the average was twenty-two, and that the total number of pupils was 500. Then, we have the curriculum, which, as far as I could judge, is a good one, but we have no results.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I have explained to the committee why there are no results? There can be no results. We have only one professor there. He has 500 attending his school. What do you want him to do? To give certificates of capacity ? The schools are not established for that at all. They are established to enable men to acquire such a knowledge of navigation as will fit them to earn their livelihood upon the sea either as masters or in some other capacity.


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I am quite of the opinion that these schools serve a useful purpose. There was an average attendance at Montreal of twenty-two.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: What can I do ? I have no more money. Do you want the schools to be abolished ?


Frederick Debartzch Monk: I would give Captain Demers instructions that we want the results which have been achieved by that average attendance of twenty-two pupils. We must know at the end of the year how the pupils have profited by the lectures given and what the results have been to them. If as my hon. friend says he has succeeded in finding pupils who are qualified and has placed three or four or five of them in the regular livelihood of navigation surely we ought to know it. I find no fault with the institution, but I do find fault because the reports are absolutely barren of results. I myself would think that instead of having one professor at each of these five places it would be better to have either one or two professors, more liberally remunerated, say in Montreal, where there are a great number of young men who would have the aptitudes for navigation, but you should carry on the schools in a more systematic manner and in such a way as to give more definite results.


John Waterhouse Daniel: I notice that there has been rather a large amount spent for plates of signals and other things of that kind. They appear to be rather expensive. Could the hon. minister give us an idea of the sort of plates these are? I think the amount is over $4,000.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: 


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: These plates were exhibited on the table of the House last year and they were commended by the press all over Canada. They were the most elaborate and finest of their kind. They are necessary for the purpose of instruction in these schools. I would have great pleasure in inviting my hon. friend to come down and see them at the department, and he will be convinced that they are well executed and that they afford one of the most effective methods of imparting instruction to those who are engaged in the study of navigation.


John Waterhouse Daniel: I rather approve of the method of distributing these schools in different parts of the Dominion. I think it very much better than the mode suggested by my hon. friend from Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk). These men in different parts of the Dominion certainly will be better served by having schools where they can get at them than they would be if there were just two schools at which a smaller number would be able to attend.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: If the question of the organization of a naval reserve had not been under consideration. I would have taken up this school of navigation more thoroughly and I would have insisted that a larger amount be placed in the estimates to carry on these schools at which people could study the science of navigation. But, as the scheme of a naval reserve embodies in itself the establishment of special schools, I did not think it proper to insist on a larger expenditure, but I concluded that the expenditure should be the same as last year so as to give the poorest class of the people the advantage of attending lectures of this kind in different parts of Canada.


George Eulas Foster: I think the hon. minister was very wise in not asking for more money until he could show some tangible results from the expenditure already made. Seven thousand five hundred dollars together with the initial expenditure for plates and other apparatus is a tidy bit of money. No results have been accomplished. You cannot say that results have been accomplished because a man has given so many lectures and so many people have attended. The lectures may have been interesting and a good many may have attended them, but I think the minister should have got from the teachers a report as to what the results were. Does the hon. minister say there has been no system of examination at all so as to make concrete as it were, the instruction which has been given and also to give to the pupil who has benefited by the instruction a certificate by which h* ca* be benefited and which would show the progress he had made? Nothing of this seems to have been

done ; it is class work that is necessary and not lecturing; you can never make a man efficient in navigation unless you put him through a virtual instruction. It would be very much better if the teacher should form a class which would have stated hours for attendance, whose members would be examined and receive certificates when it is found they are entitled to them.


Mr. BARKER.: The idea on this side of the House is to find out whether these schools are merely places where lectures are given, or whether they are devoted to practical education. Lecturers can always be found who will deliver any number of lectures in the season at a fixed fee, no matter how many or how few may attend. All we can ascertain from the report is that there have been thirty-five lectures at one particular class, at which the attendance has ranged from five to thirty-five, or an average of twenty-two. I would ask the minister to see that in future the lecturers should keep a record of the attendances of each student, so that we would be able to know whether or not some good is being done. If we could see that twenty or twenty-five had attended regularly, probably some good would be done, but if all we know is that there was a lecture at which twenty-two casuals dropped in for want of something better to do, it may be that the expenditure of this money is useless.


George Eulas Foster: Will the minister see that these reports are obtained in future ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: We employ our examiners of masters and mates at these ports, paying them an extra allowance of $250, and they report to the superintendent, Mr. Demers, who has replaced Captain Salmon. Mr. Demers then makes a summary of these reports for the report of the department, but I do not think it would be of any use to publish the full report of every professor. About two years ago we authorized these lectures, because we thought we would help poor young men who were desirous of studying the science of navigation. I do not know what happens elsewhere, but I know that in Montreal these lectures are very much appreciated, and quite a number of young men have acquired sufficient knowledge to enable them to enter the naval profession. During these two years, in Montreal, at least fifty young men have been fitted to go to sea with some useful knowledge of navigation.


George Eulas Foster: The information which the minister has given from his personal knowledge of Montreal is the kind of information we want. There is no opposition to the schools ; what we want to do is to assist the minister in making it effective. We want to know if we are getting results from the expenditure, and that report does not give the least idea of what has been accomplished.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I have no objection that all the details should be given.


George Eulas Foster: We should be told if there is any attempt made to test the result of the teaching by examination ; we should be told as to the number of regular attendants at these lectures, and to what extent they have been useful in fitting young men for positions as ships' officers.


John Barr: The minister tells us that these schools are only in their infancy ; and such being the case, it is the very time for us to begin to make them as perfect as possible. They are undoubtedly of great importance and, if they are properly conducted, they deserve encouragement. The next report of the Minister of Marine should show how many have attended these lectures, the extent of the knowledge the students were able to acquire, and the number of certificates issued for competency. It is quite possible, under good management, to make these schools of the greatest possible use ; and even if we expended more money on them than we do now, it would be well applied, provided, of course, the schools were efficient. But we want something more definite. AVe do not say that more could have been accQmplished than has been accomplished in the past few years ; but what we do urge is that in the future these schools be made more perfect and more important to the class attending them, and then we have no doubt that good results will come from the money expended upon them.


Angus Alexander McLean: I quite agree with what the minister has said as to the necessity of having these schools, and I do not think any member of this House would object to a vote of even twice the amount for this purpose. I believe these schools should be established at every centre where sailors are to be found. In the province of Prince Edward Island I do not think there is a school of this kind, so that the sailors there have to pay for their tuition at home or go to Halifax or St. John to get education. I observe that only $250 is allowed to each professor. If a school can be established for so small a sum of money, the sailors of Prince Edward Island should be placed on a par with the sailors of the other provinces. There are two schools at Charlottetown which are competent to teach the sailors and to fit them for the examination, and I would ask the minister to consider the advisability of placing in the supplementary estimates an amount sufficient to pay for a professor at Charlottetown. I may remind him that there are from 3,000 to 5,000 sailors in the province of Prince Edward Island, men who go to all parts of the world, and I think these men should receive the benefit of the legislation and the votes of this parliament.
' Mr. PREFONTAINE. I may say for the information of the hon. gentleman that as



2G4S
soon as Mr. Campbell, who has the nomination of examiner of masters and mates, is appointed, he will be authorized to open a school at Charlottetown.


George Eulas Foster: What is the grant to the marine school In Montreal ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I think it was $500. It is paid out of this item, and is for the purpose of furnishing the rooms and paying the rent of the rooms.
Removal of obstructions in navigable rivers,


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: The regular amount asked for by the department for years has been $1,000, but last year the appropriation was increased to $10,000, for the removal of a sunken grain elevator at section 27, Montreal harbour, and also for the removal of an obstruction of logs in Oxstall river, B.C., so that salmon could ascend the river. The cost of raising the sunken elevator at (Montreal has been paid to the Montreal Harbour Commissioners by the company that owned the elevator, so that the department has been put to no expense in the matter. With reference to the obstruction in Oxstall river, B.O., and also the obstruction in Copper river, B.C., these obstructions are caused by logs in the rivers, preventing the fish ascending. The estimated cost is $1,000 each. This appropriation can now be reduced by $5,000. There are other obstructions reported from British Columbia. At the time the main estimates were prepared I thought we might require $10,000, but I will now move that the amount be reduced to $5,000.


John Waterhouse Daniel: Then there must be a misprint in the report of the minister, because if he looks at page 17, he will find that it states that the amount granted last year was $1,000, whereas as a matter of fact it was $10,000.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: That must be a misprint.
Motion was agreed to.


George Oscar Alcorn: I wish to draw the attention of the minister to the fact that I had some correspondence with him last summer in reference to a request for three lighthouses to be placed in the Bay of Quinte, and I think the answer I got was that the finances of the department would not permit it to be done that season. May I ask the minister to make a note of the matter new, so that in the coming season it may receive attention. These lights are highly necessary.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I will give instructions.
Tidal service, including the salary of an assistant clerk beyond $500, notwithstanding anything in the Civil Service Act, $28,000.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: 


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: The increase seems to be for appliances for surveys and for maintenance of vessels. The principal tidal stations maintained in continuous operation day and night throughout the year were : Quebec, Father Point, for the St. Lawrence river ; St. Paul's Island, at the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence ; Halifax, for the Atlantic coast and Nova Scotia ; St. John, N.B., and Yarmouth, N.S., for the Bay of Fundy ; Forteau Bay, in Belle Isle Strait; Sand Heads, B.C., for the Gulf of Georgia, Vancouver, &c. The secondary tidal stations are : Victoria, B.C., for additional information ; P.amfield and Port Simpson, B.G., Charlottetown, P.E.I.; Pictou, N.S., Souris, P.E.I.; and Trepassey, at Cape Race, Newfoundland, for comparison with currents 1902. The record obtained from the above gauges is reduced, hour by hour, throughout the year, in the tidal survey office. This reduction is submitted to an analysis in the Nautical Almanac Office, London, where the tide tables are calculated by means of a calculating machine specially devised for tidal purposes. This analysis brings the tides into direct relation to the movements of the sun and moon, and eventually forms a basis for the calculation of the tide for all time to come, so long as the oceans and continents remain as they are. It is thus work or' the most permanent value which can be undertaken. During the past 12 months, eight complete years from Father Point, St. Paul's Island and Halifax have been thus treated, and six more years are now in hand, which will serve to improve the accuracy of the tidal tables for Quebec, Father Point and St. John, N.B.
Winter mail service, $9,000.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: This is to provide for an ice-boat during the winter between Prince Edward Island and the mainland.


Angus Alexander McLean: When did this service begin during the present season and how many trips have been made.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: The service began on January 27th, 1905 and has continued, with some intermissions, up to the present, and I have here a statement showing the number of trips made and the delays that occurred which I will pass over to my hon. friend.
- Mr. A. A. McLEAN. Before this item passes I wish to make a few remarks in reference to the manner in which this service has been conducted this season. The hon. minister has just told us that it commenced on the 27th of January, 1905, and that, with some intermissions of a week at a time, it has gone on up to the present. On the 24th of January last, the trips of the ' Min to ' and ' Stanley ' ceased, and the only communication between the mainland and Prince Edward Island since then has been by this antiquated system of ice-boats-a

system which was in vogue seventy-five years ago. You are aware, Sir, that when Prince Edward Island entered confederation, one of the provisions of the agreement was that efficient steam communication would be provided by the Dominion for the conveyance of mails and passengers from the island to the mainland and back at all times winter and summer. Well, in no winter season since confederation have the interruptions to this service been so great as during the present winter. These have caused a great deal of inconvenience and loss to the travelling public, and in that connection I want to draw the attention of the minister to this fact. Travellers upon the railway going to Pictou or Cape Tormentine are entitled to receive information either at Moncton or St. John as to the conditions of the service at those points. But nearly every traveller on that road complains that he cannot get any information whatever, or that when information is given him it is misleading, and he is put to extra trouble and expense in order to retrace his steps. As I have said, this is a serious matter for the people of the island. From year to year it has been brought up in this House and from day to day during this session, but is treated as lightly by the present government as it has been by preceding governments. I would like to read a letter which I received yesterday, and which shows the manenr in which the people of the island consider this matter. This is a private letter but I am at liberty to read it to this House and with your indulgence, Mr. Chairman, I shall proceed to do so :
Charlottetown, P.E.I., 6th March, 1905.
Dear Sir, In view of the blockade of steamers, trains and mails, it would seem to be important that our representatives should make energetic remonstrances in both Houses as to the non-fulfilment of the bond for continuous steam communication with the mainland. The Dominion enforces the union bond to the letter where the terms can be construed against us, and has in that way taken away one-third of the representation which we thought we had for all time. We have been now forty days without a steamer from the mainland. The ice boat service brings us an occasional mail of letters, one two or three weeks old. As for newspapers, they are frequently a month old before they reach us. And there are now tons upon tons of newspaper mail from a month to six weeks old piled up on the other side of the straits awaiting transmission to the island. It would be easy to have sufficient ice boats to bring these papers over. What is the good of a newspaper a month or six weeks old ? And yet thousands of island subscribers to the Montreal 'Star,' Toronto 'Globe,'and other papers printed in Canadian or American cities are left in that position, with island cattle literally starving for want of the hay that is detained at Pictou. The conditions are intolerable. As surely as the sun rises there will grow up an agitation to break out of the union if these things are not remedied. The history of the Tenant League shows what our people can and will do So} ,
when aroused. At present the bond of union with Canada is looked upon as a galling fetter, a bond of slavery and injustice, and so far as we can see nothing doing, nothing planned to make things any better. A more powerful winter steamer is a first prime requisite till we get the tunnel. I hope you and your fellow representatives in the House and Senate will urge this on the government with all your force. If nothing is done the people of Prince Edward Island will very shortly lay their grievances at the foot of the Throne and demand the abrogation of the union. Certain it is that with all we are paying in federal taxes we would be better out of the union than in it unless the Dominion carries out its contract to give us constant communication. I do not care for my name to be used, but otherwise you can make whatever use you like of this letter.
Every word of this letter, Mr. Chairman, is true. A solemn bond was made with the island, and the Dominion government enforces that bond to the letter when it operates in its favour. It is true that a year or two ago a sort of settlement was made for the lack of communication during some previous years up to 1902, whereby the government of Prince Edward Island receives $30,000 a year for all time to come. But what Is the government of Canada going to do to-day ? There were on the 6th of March last between two and three thousand bags of mail matter at Cape Tormentine and Pictou. I took the trouble yesterday to telegraph the president of the Board of Trade in Charlottetown as to the present conditions. In the meantime, between the date of this letter and the 15th of March, an attempt was made to take this mail matter across to the island, and I believe they reduced it by something like 1,000 bags,* but the president of the Board of Trade telegraphed me yesterday as follows :
Eight hundred to one thousand bags of mail at Pictou. Papers and samples of goods accumulating since January 27th. Also one hundred and eighty-five bags at Tormentine.
On the 28th January what was the situation at Cape Tormentine ? The government were not in a position to carry the mails and passengers from Cape Tormentine to Prince Edward Island. They had only four boats. I was there on the 28th January last and saw the situation. I saw a boat hanging up in the boat house, and I asked the man in charge there why this boat was not put ino the service. I was told that there were a number of boats owned by private individuals whose services could be obtained if the government desired them. They told me that in order to have outside boats employed it was necessary first to telegraph to the postmaster of the city of Charlottetown, and that he in turn would have to telegraph to the minister in Ottawa. Under conditions as pressing as those which I witnessed on January 27th, I think it was ridiculous that such red tape was necessary. On some occasions there were something like eighty-five

passengers there trying to get across with no boats. Men who own boats there offered to put them in the service of the government to make the round trip for $25 and to furnish all the men. The answer was that the government would not employ any boat except the boats they themselves owned. What has been the consequence ? The consequence has been that the business of Prince Edward Island has been imperilled to a great extent. It is true that the Postmaster General, a few days ago, stated that the mail matter which was there was simply commercial. Commercial matter in Prince Edward Island did not make any difference. Commercial matter in the district which the Postmaster General represents would be a matter of great interest to him in his business, but when the difficulty is in Prince Edward Island it does not make any difference; these people live away down in the east and come here year after year to air their grievances. I know that the people of Prince Edward Island are not going to come here many more years to ask to have these grievances remedied. Here is a grievance that could have been remedied by the payment out of the public treasury of a few dollars of public money. The government could have got ten, fifteen or twenty boats to carry the mails over, but they were so near and parsimonious that they refused to employ any boat except the four, five or six boats which they own themselves. It is all very well for the minister to laugh. I have heard of ministers laughing over this situation before, but it is a serious matter for the people of Prince Edward Island, and I wish to impress on the government that this should not occur again ; and if it does occur, they will hear more strongly from the people of Prince Edward Island than I am speaking to the House to-day. A mass meeting of delegates from every section of the province of Prince Edward Island met in Charlottetown on the 10th day of March instant in order to bring this matter properly before the parliament of Canada, and at that meeting, which was attended by representative men from one end of Prince Edward Island to another, a resolution was passed. I shall read that resolution to this House as it appears in the ' Island ' newspapers of the 11th day of March :
Whereas, this province of Prince Edward Island entered the Canadian federation under these explicit terms as to communication, ' efficient steam-service for the conveyance of mails and passengers to he established and maintained between the Island and the Dominion, winter and summer, thus placing the Island in continuous communication w-ith the Intercolonial Railway and the railway system of the Dominion.'
And whereas these terms have not been fulfilled, to the great hardship of the people and detriment of the province.
And whereas a tunnel under the straits from Carleton Head Cove to Money Point, as already surveyed and reported on by Sir Douglas Fox, Mr. A. A. MeLEAN.
is a possible impletion of said terms of confederation.
Therefore resolved that this meeting ef. the people of Princ Edward Island in general convention assembled do hereby call upon the federal government to fulfil the said terms of the union forthwith by causing such tunnel to be constructed at the earliest possible moment.
And further resolved that pending the construction of such tunnel we demand the daily .communication by navigation by the construction and operation of a third powerful steamer of the most approved ice-breaking type, and that one of the steamers be used on the western route in winter. '
Resolved that the provincial government be, and is hereby requested to urge incessantly on the federal government the absolute necessity of impleting the terms of confederation and further
Resolved that our claims for compensation for the non-fulfilment of such terms be yearly served upon the federal authorities.
Here is a plain statement of the case of Prince Edward Island, so far as the present situation is concerned. What do we find ? We find that the two boats which ply between Charlottetown and Pictou ceased running on the 24th day of January, and they have not yet resumed their trips. These boats are filled with hay and other goods. I understand that between Toronto and Pictou there are over 350 cars of goods to be taken over to Prince Edward Island. As this letter to me states, during last season there was a shortage of hay in the province, and that hay which is necessary for the maintenance of the animals on that island is at Pictou and cannot be taken over. Why ? Because the government have not provided a steamer of sufficient power to break through the ice. I will be told probably to-night that the steamers which are there are powerful enough and as large as is necessary in order to properly do the work. But what do we find when we go to the Mackinaw' straits, where the ice is just as thick and the conditions as bad as between Pictou and Prince Edward Island ? We find there car ferry steamers 400 feet long, the ' St. Ignace ' and the ' Ste. Marie.' These are boats of the same style as the ' Ermaak ' in Russia, and go through ice four, five and six feet thick without any trouble, and they never make a miss. If we had boats of similar construction, boats of similar power, probably this situation, as it exists to-day, w'ould not have occurred. I would ask the Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Mr. Proton taine) to take this matter into his serious consideration. When this matter has been brought up year after year in this House it has been passed upon very lightly. I may tell the minister that we in Prince Edward Island pay one-fiftieth part of the revenues which are collected from the population of Canada, which is something like $70,000,000. so that we pay into the public treasury about $1,500,000. What do we get in return ? Not half of that amount, including the construction of the little bit of railway which


1C, 1905 2653
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they gave us a few years ago ; and still, if we come here and ask for justice, ask for the fulfilment of the terms of the solemn contract' made between the Dominion and the island when we entered confederation, we are told : We will consider the matter. In 1903 we were told that it would be a matter of consideration whether a third winter boat would be built or not. I suppose that matter is still under consideration. This matter has been brought to the attention of the minister by my colleagues from the island and by myself, and I think that the government are now in possession of all the facts of the case. The serious conditions which exist there are apparent to them and to every man in this House and to every m^n in Canada. This does not affect the business interest of the people of Prince Edward Island only, it affects the business interests in Toronto, Hamilton, Montreal and all the manufacturing centres in Ontario and Quebec, but still this matter is left with the members of Prince Edward Island. I would ask to-night the assistance of those gentlemen whose interests are the same as mine, and as the interests of the business men and farmers of the province of Prince Edward Island, I would ask them to come to the rescue of that province and to endeavour to obtain for that province justice from the government of Canada. It is no small matter for the people of Prince Edward Island to be shut up there for two months, as they have been this present season, without any communication. This matter, as I said before, is treated lightly ; it has been treated too lightly, and I want to impress upon the Minister of Marine (Mr. Prefonfaine) that it is his duty to lose not one moment in making a contract for the construction of a third winter boat. What will be the situation next year if the contract is not let at once ? I understand that before the model of the present boat was made no effort was made to discover what would be the proper model of a boat for that service. I would direct the attention of the minister to the construction of the boats at Mackinaw, and I think that if none of his officers have seen these boats and their operations

and I understand that none of them have-it would be his duty to send a man up to the Mackinaw straits ; and if he cannot get the information there, he might be sent to the centres in Russia, where these powerful boats are in use, boats which break through ice fourteen and fifteen feet thick, and keep up constant communication with the outside world from such icebound ports as Cronstadt and other ports in Russia.
Now, Mr. Chairman, before this item_ is carried I would like to direct the attention of the minister to the fact that these boats which are used at the capes in the service to-day weigh something like 1,000 pounds each in weight. There are three men on each side to row and pull, six men to each boat, and these boats can only carry 350
pounds of mail. On nearly every occasion in which the mails come down there are only four boats at Cape Tormentine, and they can only take half the mall which reaches that centre. That is not as it should be. There should be a sufficient number of boats to take every pound of mail that comes to Cape Tormentine, and the same condition should apply to Cape Traverse. The service has not been properly kept up this season. It was not equipped in time, and by reason of the neglect of the government the people of Prince Edward Island have suffered a serious wrong and injury, particularly the farmers and business men. Let me give the minister one instance. During the months of December and January when these steamers were running, something like 10,500 dead hogs came over on these boats, But when the boats stopped running what was the situation ? The farmers had to stop killing their hogs and go on feeding them. You can understand what a great amount of money was expended by the people of Prince Edward Island in feeding these animals which, if the boats had been running properly, they would have 1aken to market. Contracts were made by the dealers in fish, in meats and other commodities with the merchants of the provinces of Quebec, of Manitoba, and all these contracts had to to be cancelled. Take the fresh fish industry alone. From the steamer ' Stanley,' at the wharf in Georgetown, I am told something like 10 tons of fresh fish was thrown overboard, and the fish industry, by reason of the fact that there were no steamers there to carry this fish to market, was very seriously injured, and all the fish which was caught was thrown into cattle pens as manure. Why, Sir, I could stand here talking for hours on the injury that our people are suffering. The Minister of Marine and Fisheries knows the conditions just as well as I do, and it is not necessary that I should detail them any further. What we want him to do at the present time is to give a contract as soon as possible for the construction of a third winter steamer, one with twice the power possessed by either of the steamers now on the route. Then let ns have what the people asked for the other dav. let us have a tunnel. In my opinion that is the only proper solution of the difficulty, and it is a solution that the people of Canada owe to the people of Prince Edward Island. The agreement is made. The people of Canada must fulfil this contract, they must fulfil it to the letter. When a bridge was being constructed across the Hillsborough river two or three years ago the government of Canada said, yes, we will build a bridge if the .people of Prince Edward Island will contribute one-half the cost, and we did it. We knew that we were entitled to that bridge without any
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payment from our province, but in order to get the bridge we agree to contribute one-liaif of tke estimated cost, and we are now contributing over $9,000 a year for all time to come for the construction and maintenance of that bridge. Now I suppose if the people made an offer to the minister to pay one-half the cost of another steamer he would give out the contract to-morrow. But I want to tell him that the people of Prince Edward Island are not going to make such an offer as that. It is our due to have that steamer at once ; and I would ask the Minister of Marine and Fisheries, I would also ask the Minister of Finance who lives in the maritime provinces, a gentleman who I know has the interests of the maritime provinces at heart-I would ask him also to take this matter up and fulfil speedily the terms on which Prince Edward Island entered the confederation.
Blois.   J.@: ,T. HUGHES. The question raised by the junior member for Queen's Prince Edward Island (Mr. A. A. McLean) is one of vital importance to the province, and also affects the adjacent provinces with which we do the chief part of our trade. A few days ago the island members arranged to bring this matter up on Monday next, when the hon. member for Prince (Mr. Lefurgey) will move a motion he has on the Order Paper. But my hon. friend from Queen's, for some reason or other, has seen fit to bring it up to night, consequently I will not go into the matter as fully as I intend to do when the motion is moved on Monday next. I may say, however, at present, that the conditions on Prince Edward Island and in the maritime provinces are unusual particularly so on Prince Edward Island. There is practically a famine there to-day in cattle feed. There is a large quantity of hay at Pictou, only a few miles distant, some hundreds of tons I believe, that were brought down there last fall, but we cannot get this hay over, and the cattle are dying by thousands, according to the information we receive. This is a serious condition of affairs. I am also told that many farmers are killing part of their stock in order to save the rest. Our business on the island is chiefly dairying and hog raising. But the dairying industry is probably crippled for years because of the present famine. Of course we cannot blame the government for the scarcity of feed, nor can we blame the government for the unusual severity of the winter. But there is perhaps some blame attaching to some one because there are not more powerful steamers on the Straits of Northumberland, steamers that could keep the passage open, and that could bring over this hay. I understand, from reading the terms of union, that the gover-ment is not bound to carry freight, but they are bound to provide a continuous communication for passengers and mails. Such a communication I am bound to say has never been carried out to the letter.' That Mr. A. A. McLEAN.
agreement was made at the time the province of Prince Edward Island came into the union. Some of our friends in the other provinces think perhaps it was more than fair ; I think I have heard the statement from gentlemen in this House that the government of the Dominion of Canada have been generous towards Prince Edward Island. We entertain a different opinion with regard to that matter, and particularly with regard to this question of communication. Now I want to state that I think the government will have to consider this matter seriously.
While the conditions this year are unusual as far as the snowfall is concerned -they have not been very unusual in so far as the frost is concerned. Consequently i am afraid that the ice conditions in the Straits of Northumberland are not much worse this winter than they will be in other winters, and if the steamers we now have there have been unable to keep up communication this winter they will in all probability be unable to do so for the years to come. Certainly the condition of things that we have had this winter should not be permitted to continue. I may say that when the people of Prince Edward Island were invited to link their fortunes with their brethren in this part of the world and join the confederation, there was no argument held out to them that appealed so strongly as this, namely, that their isolation would be overcome, that the disadvantages and difficulties under which they were placed, because of their insular position would be things of the past, and that they would have continuous and efficient communication by means of the Intercolonial Railway and other railway systems with the rest of the Dominion. Well, we have not had that, according to our way of thinking at all events, and when I go into this matter a little more thoroughly as I intend to do on Monday next, when this matter will come up again. I think I will be able to prove that contention. That is all I have to say at present on the matter. I just desire to suggest to the government that this is a matter that requires very serious consider-tion particularly on the part of my hon. friend the Minister of Marine and Fisheries.


Mr. COCKSHUTT.: The matter that has been brought to our attention by my hon. friend from Queen's, Prince Edward Island (Mr. McLean)


Some hon. MEMBERS: Louder.


William Foster Cockshutt: 
Some hon. MEMBERS: Louder.
Mr. iCOCKSHUTT. You are hearing, now, are you not ?


An hon. MEMBER.: No.


William Foster Cockshutt: Not hearing ?


An hon. MEMBER.: No.


William Foster Cockshutt: Well, you have a pretty dull understanding. You apparently are not open to have the truth enter.


Sir WILLIAM MULOCK.: Order.


William Foster Cockshutt: I think I am quite in order.


William Mulock: Address the chair.


William Foster Cockshutt: I think I am in order. I have a right to he heard in this House as well as other hon. gentlemen. If any hon. gentleman wishes later to go into this question it is open to him to do so. I am endeavouring to show to hon. gentlemen opposite that it is their duty to remove this cause of complaint which is backed up by truth and justice, and I say that hon. gentlemen in this House, be they on that side or this side, si ion Id join with the oppressed, with those who are suffering, and see that a sufficient measure is brought down to enable the government to carry out their obligations to the people of this little province. I do think it is time that hon. gentlemen opposite listened to the cry from Queen's and other parts of the island of Prince Edward. Day after day the Postmaster General has told us that the mails cannot be got across to the island, and now we hear from the Minister of Marine that he cannot get his boats across with supplies to keep the animals on the island from starvation-probably we will soon hear that the men, women and children may- be lacking supplies as well, for all we know. It is the duty of the government to see to it that the obligations which rest upon the Dominion in connection with Prince Edward Island should be carried out quickly and effectively. It is their duty' to see that Canada carries out the terms upon which Prince Edward Island came into the confederation. I hope the appeal of the hon. member for Queen's (Mr. McLean) will not longer fall on deaf ears, and that something will be done by the government to rectify this grievance.


Edward Mortimer Macdonald: I do not know that my hon. friend from Prince Edward Island (Mr. McLean) who initiated this discussion, can congratulate himself upon the assistance which the hon. member from Brantford (Mr. Cockshutt) probably thought he was rendering the cause of Prince Edward Island. This lion, member (Mr. Cockshutt) seems to have taken everybody in this country under his wing from the wildman of the west, down through the other provinces of the Dominion, to the people of the little island province by the sea. But, before he entered on this discussion it would have been perhaps wise on his part had he informed himself as to what the present government has done in the matter of carrying out the terms of confederation with Prince Edward Island. My hon. friend from Brantford was so anxious to attack the present government, that he altogether lost sight of the fact that for eighteen years his Conservative Mr. COCKSHUTT.
friends were in power, and that all they did was to furnish one boat to solve thisi problem of winter communication, whereas the present government has furnished an additional boat much better adapted for the service than the single boat which plied in former years. For the past six or seven years, the ferry service to Prince Edward Island have been performed by these two steamers in a fairly satisfactory way. as every' unprejudiced man in the maritime provinces will admit. But, this winteii has been an ubnormaly severe one in the history of the maritime provinces, and even those of us who live on Jie mainland have suffered great inconvenience. Even so we do not think there is anything in that to justify this scold from our hon. friend (Mr. Cockshutt). I presume that if any objection should be raised to the government carrying hay on the Intercolonial Railway in order to relieve the fodder famine which existed in eastern Nova Scotia, the member for Brantford will not be found criticising the government on that account. We have had some indications that gentlemen on the opposite benches intend to condemn the government for their action in that respect, and now that thd member for Brantford has become the champion of the people of Prince Edward Island, I trust he will champion the people on the mainland who laboured under similar stress. When this question comes up, if it should come up, I hope the hon. gentleman will be found disassociating himself from his party friends. I think my hon. friend from Queen's (Mr. McLean) will agree yvith me that the climatic conditions in the maritime provinces were abnormal this yvinter, and that being so it is unfair to charge the government with neglect. It will be conceded by every hon. gentleman who understands the matter, that the solution of the problem of winter navigation must be worked out in face of the variable conditions as they exist from year ton year. I have no doubt there is distress in Prince Edward Island, l am sorry it should be so; but, it is not fair to argue that because of that we should have a steamer that will accomplish wonderful things and overcome the forces of nature. Such talk as that will not settle the question. The hon. member from Queen's (Mr. Martin) has been threatening the House day after day that he will produce telegrams complaining that the people of Prince Edward^Island have not had a regular mail delivery, but I may tell him that we in Nova Scotia luyve had the same difficulty with our mail service although we have not cried out about it so vociferously7. because we have been fair enough to see that the extremely severe winter was the cause of this inconvenience. Living in a contiguous province, I am interested in

Prince Edward Island, and 1 desire to see the question of winter navigation satisfactorily solved, but I can quite see that my hon." friend from the island province (Mr. McLean) is not going to help his case in the slightest degree by hysterical appeals because of peculiar conditions existing this winter, which were due to the abnormal' severity of the weather, and which it was difficult if not impossible for human ingenuity to overcome.


Mr. J. J. HUGHES.: Judging by the manner in which the hon. member for Biantford (Mr. Cockshutt) approached this question, it is quite evident that it was not his desire to help the people of Prince Edward Island, but rather to try and make a political question out of it. I can tell him that the people of Prince Edward Island do not want anything of that kind, and if that is the only kind of assistance the member for Brantford can give us vfe would much rather be without his help. This is not a political question -at all, and we dd not want to get it into politics. But, since the policy of the two political parties has been referred to, it is nevertheless a fact that since the Liberal government came to power in 1896, we have had a better service to the island than we ever had before. We have two steamers now when previously we only had one, and I may say that all the other branches of the public service have been greatly improved under the Liberal regime. We believe, however, that the existing conditions can be further improved. but as has been already said there is no need for approaching this question in an hysterical manner or for making any extreme or rabid statements. I am quite convinced, judging by the remarks of the hon. member for Brantford, that he does not understand the question at all although he doubtless knows something about the aborigines in his own part of the country. and we know that he is exceedingly willing to air his views before the House! upon every possible occasion. He has been good" enough to lecture me on my duties as a representative from .Prince Edward Island. Well, I do not claim any particular ability, but I do think that I endeavour to do my duty towards the people of my constituency and the people of mv province, and when I think I need a lecture from the member from Brantford I will be humble enough to ask him for it.


An hon. MEMBER.: You will not get much information from him.


Blois.   J.@: HUGHES Perhaps not. We in the island province are anxious to have the assistance of every member in this House of Commons, and we will be thankful for it provided that whoever should be good enough to assist us shall show by his manner and disposition a real desire to advance our prosperity. I am sorry to thinki that the manner and the method of the gentleman from Brantford did not indicate that such was his object this evening. I may tell him that an hon. gentleman who occupies a prominent position on his side oj the House has repeatedly stated that Prince Edward Island was getting too much. I do not know that that gentleman represents the opinion of our friends on the other side of the House, and I hope he does not.


Andrew B. Ingram: To whom does the hon. gentleman refer?


James Joseph Hughes: He is not present to-night and I would prefer not to mentioil his name, unless my hon friend (Mr. Ingram) insists that I should.


Andrew B. Ingram: It would be just as well to mention his name so that he may be in a position to defend himself if he wished to.


James Joseph Hughes: I refer to the former Minister of Railways and Canals (Hon. Mr. Haggart).


Andrew B. Ingram: He is able to answer for himself.


James Joseph Hughes: I may say that the conditions this winter are abnormal. I hope we shall not have another winter like it for many years to come. I may state that the three representatives from Prince Edward Island who are here now had arranged to bring this matter up on Monday next and go into it thoroughly. We hope to have a representative House on that occasion, and I have asked the Minister of Marine to be present. I did not expect that the subject would come up to-night.


William Mulock: As the hon. member for Queen's alluded to myself, he will perhaps permit me to say that he drew a somewhat erroneous impression from what I said. He said that I had explained that the detained mails from the mainland consisted only of merchandise and papers, and that while I might think that merchandise and papers were important to other parts of Canada, I evidently thought the people of Prince Edward Island had no desire to obtain merchandise and papers. If the hon. gentleman refers to my remarks, he will find that I did not speak of the articles detained in any such spirit. I stated as a simple fact that we had endeavoured to transport to the island the mails, but not being able to send them all, we had sent the letters and newspapers addressed to individuals, while the class of mail that we thought the people could, with the least inconvenience do without was the merchandise and the uuaddressed newspapers ; but I certainly said nothing to indicate that I did not think the island was as anxious to

obtain its merchandise as all other parts of this country would be. With that exception I thought the hon. member for Queen's presented his case fairly and well from his standpoint, and I think we are prepared to give him credit for that. The only gentleman who seemed to think that the hon. member for Queen's could not plead his own case sufficiently well was the hon. member for Brantford, and he may be right and all the rest of us wrong. My hon. friend suggested that the true way to solve this problem is to construct a tunnel. Perhaps that is so. The question then becomes a question of cost. Can the hon. gentleman say offhand what the cost of a tunnel would be ? I believe there have been estimates. He said that the island had with business enterprise contributed towards the cost of the Hillsboro' bridge. Perhaps the island would be prepared to join with the Dominion in a like spirit and in contributing in the same proportion towards the construction of a tunnel. If so, we would be approaching the subject in a practical way.


Angus Alexander McLean: I am very glad that the Postmaster General has put the case as he has with respect to the manner in which this matter was brought up by me. It was not my intention to deal with it as a political question at all. The contract which I read to the House was clear and distinct, that the government of Canada should furnish communication winter and summer for mails and passengers. This they have not done. So far as the tunnel is concerned, that was before this House before, and I believe an estimate was made by Sir Douglas Fox. I do not remember what the estimate was. It can be found, I suppose, in ' Hansard.' But we think we have a contract with the government of Canada which is enforceable, and we wish to enfore the contract against them. I believe it is the duty of the government of Canada to obtain an estimate of what the tunnel will cost, and it is not the duty of the people of Prince Edward Island to contribute one cent towards the fulfilment of a contract which should be fulfilled by the government of Canada.


William Mulock: My hon. friend misunderstands me. I understood him to suggest as an alternative that there should be a tunnel. There is no contract, as I understand, on the part of the government of Canada to build a tunnel. The contract is to maintain steam communication. Does the hon. gentlemen think that It is possible to maintain unbroken steamship communication between the island and the mainland across the straits at all seasons of the winter, with all the appliances that can be brought to bear ? What thickness of ice forms there ?


Angus Alexander McLean: I am asking simply that the government of Canada fulfil their contract.


William Mulock: 


William Mulock: I ask the hon. gentleman as a lawyer if he thinks it is possible to carry out the contract specifically in all its details ?


Angus Alexander McLean: I know it is, or the government of Canada would not have made the contract. They must have known that it could be carried out, and I think the men in the government of Canada at that time were business men enough to know that that contract would be enforced against them.


William Mulock: The hon. gentleman may be perfectly right. I speak from lack of information-what is the thickness of ice that at times has to be broken in order that the steamer may cross the straits ? Does the hon. gentleman know ?


Angus Alexander McLean: I do not know. Perhaps the Minister of Marine and Fisheries would be able to tell. That would be part of hiS duty. I have crossed the straits, but I never made a study of that matter. But the matter that I have studied very much is this, that the government of Canada have not fulfilled their contract. That is something I know as a positive fact, and I know that if the government of Canada spend money enough, they can fulfil that contract, and it is their duty to fulfil it, no matter what it costs. We were told years ago that the contract they made with British Columbia could not be fulfilled ; but it was fulfilled. We were told that it would take the whole resources of the British Empire to fulfil it. It did not, and the undertaking is a paying enterprise to-day. We might as well say that if it took the whole resources of the Dominion of Canada, it is the duty of the government of Canada to fulfil that contract. If a tunnel were built, I believe the value of the farm lands of Prince Edward Island would be increased one-half. What is the amount of money expended on the present service ? The interest on the winter boats is about $8,000 ; wear and tear, about $20,000 ; running expenses, about $75,000 ; average deficit on the Prince Edward Island Railway, about $90,000 ; subsidy to summer steamers, about $12,500, ice-boat service, about $8,000. There would be $210,000, which you would strike off the account if you built a tunnel. Suppose it cost $15,000,000. What would that be at 3 per cent, at which rate this government can borrow money ? It would be something like $450,000 a year. You would have then only $240,000 a year for the government to supply, and the extra trade which would be brought by that route would amply repay the government for that expenditure.


Mr. FIELDING.: Any argument based upon the general view that we should improve transportation facilities in any part of Canada would be deserving of our eon-1 sideration and attention ; and if, owing to

the isolated condition of the island, we fiud it necessary to do something more in order to improve her communications, by all means let us try to do it, and any reasonable argument to that end may well be brought before the House. But since my bon. friend put it entirely on the ground of a contract, I wish to say that no such contract exists which has not been fulfilled to the letter. Every contract made with the people of Prince Edward Island has been fulfilled. If there be any doubt upon the point, you have only to look to the statute of several years ago when, in consequence of the difference of opinion said to exist, an allowance was made, the amount of which, it was distinctly declared in that statute, was to be in full and final settlement of the terms of union. Let my hon. friend put this thing on a fair ground. There is no portion of this Dominion which has been more liberally treated-I do not say too liberally-in the distribution of public money for some years past than the province of Prince Edward Island. Let our friends recognize that fact and not come before the House in a complaining spirit and say they have not been treated justly. Let them put their claim on the other ground, on the ground that the world is moving, and that they should have the benefit of better ships, if better ships are built. Any argument of that kind will have my warm sympathy. Anything in reason which can be done to improve communication between the island and the mainland will have my hearty sympathy and support; but I do hope that the case is not to be put before the House of Commons for ever on this old ground that the terms of union have not been fulfilled, because there is no justification for any such statement.


Mr. W. ROCHE.: An observation has just been made bj' my hon. friend from Brantford (Mr. Coekshutt) to which I wish to call attention, and that observation revived a remark or two made this afternoon in the course of the debate at which I was not present. I regret I had not the opportunity then to refer to the same observations made by the hon. member for St. Antoine division of Montreal (Mr. Ames) and which were endorsed, I am informed, by my hon. friend from Halton (Mr. Henderson). These gentlemen alluded to the immense number of electors in the city of Halifax who apparently had emanated from the steamer ' Lady Laurier.' My hon. friend from Halton, I am informed, said there were some ninety-five seamen of the steamer 1 Lady Laurier ' represented as electors and as having their domicile in that steamer. My hon. friend from Brantford (Mr. Coekshutt) alluded to that just now in a jocular and somewhat sneering way. To relieve the apprehensions of my
hon. friend from Halton, and to some extent prevent those apprehensions being communicated to my hon. friend from Brantford, I shall read a list of the electors on the ' Lady Laurier ' irrespective of the oflicers. The officers are householders and well known and entitled to vote on their own holdings.
Names on electoral list of Halifax having address SS. ' Lady Laurier ' :
Sullivan, Jasper, 3c.
Goodwin, A. G., 4a.


Blois.   J.@: , 5a.
Calderwood, J. W., 5a.
Gallagher, S., 5a.	*
Jones, M., 5a.
Mitchell, E., 5a.
Nicholson, A., 5a.
Pelletier, E., 5a.
Pelletier, E. S., 5a.
Ten in all. These are the men in buckram to whom my hon. friend from Halton alluded this afternoon. He only multiplied the number by nine, and I have no doubt his mind will be greatly relieved to know the exact number of electors of the city of Halifax who were on the books of the steamer ' Lady Laurier ' at the expense of our great and growing and common country.


James Joseph Hughes: I regret that I cannot agree exactly with my hon friend the Finance Minister (Mr. Fielding) In his statement that the Dominion government had entered into no obligation.


William Stevens Fielding: I said they had fulfilled the obligation.


James Joseph Hughes: I think this was the statement, that the Dominion government had entered into no obligation with the province of Prince Edward Island which it had not carried out to the letter.


William Stevens Fielding: That is right.


James Joseph Hughes: Let me mention one fact which disproves that statement. In 1901, this parliament granted to Prince Edward Island a subsidy in perpetuity of $30,000 a year, equal to $1,000,000, as compensation for the non-fulfiln*nt of the terms of the union up to that time


William Stevens Fielding: That is the compensation.


James Joseph Hughes: I understood my hon friend to mean that the terms of the union had been carried out all along, whereas a money payment had to be made as compensation because of the non-fulfilment of the terms of the union.


William Stevens Fielding: And was paid.


James Joseph Hughes: Here is the clause:
That the Dominion government shall assume and defray all the charges for the following services.
2C67

Then there is a list of the services and among them we find this one :
'Continuous efficient steam service for the conveyance of mails and passengers to be established and maintained between the Island and the mainland, winter and summer.
Thus placing the island in continuous communication with the Intercolonial Railway and the railway system of the Dominion. But we have not enjoyed that continuous communication during this winter for forty-four or forty-five days. I agree with the Minister of Finance that we need not put our claim- in legal form. I hope that the people of Canada will he prepared at any time to treat every province in a fair and generous spirit and that we need not go to law for redress. I agree with my hon. friend that we should not put our claim on that basis until every other means have been exhausted. I would rather put it on a commercial basis and appeal to the good sense, the commercial instincts and the generous and fair impulses of the members of parliament and the people of the Dominion as a whole, and I believe that we shall not have to make that appeal in vain. The conditions on the island this year and a year or two ago have been practically intolerable, particularly this year. And if some steps be not taken to provide a more powerful ice boat, these conditions will be met with again. I have a sugestion to make, which I would make now as there are some members here to-night who will not be here on Monday. I think my hon. friend the Postmaster General asked if any boat could be built which could overcome the difficulties of winter navigation in the Northumberland straits. Well, in the ' Scientific American ' I read a few weeks ago. the statement that the ' Ermaak ' could meet and successfully overcome an ice pack of from 20 to 35 feet in thickness. If that statement be true, a vessel of the strength and power of the 'Ermaak' or perhaps a less powerful boat, would be able to meet and overcome all the ice packs between tha island and the mainland.
An hon. gentleman asked me what is the thickest ice we ever have. I do not know, but I presume the captains who have been crossing there for so many years would be able to give a full and complete answer to that question. I presume there is no ice in the straits of Northumberland whicli would be anything like twenty or thirty feet thick, although I know the ice sometimes packs there very heavily. This is the proposition which I have to make to the members of this House: I believe that within a very few years Hudson bay will be open to navigation for commercial purposes. I understand that the Canadian Northern is about to build a railway to Fort Churchill, and probably within a few years Mr. J. J. HUGHES.
that magnificent inland sea will carry on its bosom a mighty commerce. That route may perhaps, probably will be, the great commercial route for four or five months of the year from the great west to the markets of Europe, and a powerful ice breaker there in the early and late summer to assist these vessels which may and probably will be trading in that part of Canada would be a very great assistance. In mid-summer such a vessel might be used for surveying and other purposes. Such a vessel built for that purpose could be successfully used on the straits of Northumberland, between Prince Edward Island and the mainland, in winter, and could leave these straits in time to arrive at Hudson bay in plenty of time to give assistance to the merchant marine that we expect to find in a few years in that part of Canada. If Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Russia, these northern countries in Europe, find it profitable, from a commercial point of view, to build such ice breakers as I have seen described in the papers which I have read on the subject, it might be profitable for Canada to have such a vessel in the higher latitudes in this northern sea. That perhaps might be a matter worthy of the consideration of the committee, and particularly of the Minister of Marine. If that can be successfully carried out, every province in this Dominion would have an interest in it. It would not be Prince Edward Island alone that would be benefited, but the great west particularly, and those provinces that would have ports on Hudson bay-and it is likely that in the near future Quebec. Ontario and Manitoba will have extended railways to that great inland sea. I make that suggestion to the committee for whatever it may be worth.


Mr. McISAAC.: I think every member on this side, as well as on the other, will heartily sympathize with the people of Prince Edward Island in their efforts to improve the communication between that island and the mainland, and I think also that we may safely say that every government of this country for the last thirty years, whether Conservative or Liberal, have made every honest effort to give facilities to the people of Prince Edward Island. The late Conservative government gave them, as has been mentioned by the hon. member for Pictou (Mr, Macdonald), one steamer, which is not sufficient for those purposes. As everybody who has had a seat in this House for many years well knows, when the Conservative party were in power we had appeals day after day from the other side of the House to the then government for better communication between Prince Edward Island and the mainland. When that government was succeeded by a Liberal government the conditions were simply reversed, and our Conservative friends from the other side have continued winter after winter, session after session, and week after week, to bring up this worrying question in this parliament.

We all sympathize with these people, and whilst I am free to admit that all governments have made every effort to do the best in their power, yet that problem has not been fully solved, although the conditions have been very much improved. We have to-day two steamers instead of one. Some years ago a second steamer was secured by the present government, and, as every one knows, it is superior in every way to the steamer which was there before, but every effort has not yet been exhausted. I want to call the attention of the Minister of Marine to a matter in connection with this subject which I have brought, not only to his attention, but to the attention of several other ministers who preceded him. That is, that there are other routes, particularly one other route, which would afford far greater facilities for this service than the route which has been tried for many years. The present route is between Pictou on this side and Georgetown on the other side. The whole trouble, it seems to me, is owing to the selection of that route. Mariners of experience will tell you that the conditions in the winter are such that the tides in St. George's bay will drive the ice westward into Northumberland strait, and it will pile up there exactly in the route where these steamers run. The result is that the steamers are caught in bad weather, whilst if the Cape George route starting from Georgetown or Souris on the island and landing on the mainland at Cape George, in the county of Antigonish, which I have the honour to represent, were employed, the conditions will, I say, and I challenge contradiction, be entirely changed. There has not been a day in this whole winter when the steamer could not have landed on the mainland at Cape George. This has been the case every year for thirty years. Two or three years ago, during the great blockade, when flye steamer was ice-locked for five or six weeks and unable to make land anywhere, it was at last landed at Cape George. The sea there is open generally all the year round. Some one may ask me why. The conditions are such and the tides along the strait of Canso and the narrow entrance beween Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton are of such a nature that the current is so strong that the ice keeps continually moving either northward or southward or else backs westerly into the Northumberland strait. This is a matter which the marine officers should take up at once ; they should have experiments made by competent sea captains, and I undertake to tell the minister that he will in this way get a route which will, enable the present steamers to go to the mainland every day in the year. That would have been possible even in the bad winter we have had this year.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: What is the distance ?


Colin Francis McIsaac: Cape George is about fifteen miles from the Intercolonial Railway. The year before last the mails and passengers had to be landed there, when they had been struggling for six or seven weeks in the ice in Northumberland strait. I know there are objections to this plan ; the people of Pictou do not like to see the steamers cross between Prince Edward Island and the mainland down there. The people of the western part of Prince Edward Island would not like to see that change either, but when it is a matter of fulfilling the terms, of confederation by making an effective communication, winter and summer, between the mainland and Prince Edward Island, I would urge that any point on the mainland which would give you a continuous communication all winter would fulfil to the very letter the agreement referred to to-night. The only thing, therefore, which I ask the minister to do is to make the experiment. Let him to-morrow telegraph to the captain of the ' Stanley ' or the ' Minto ' and ask him, if he is unable to make land anywhere else, to try Cape George. I undertake to tell him that before forty-eight hours the steamers can land at that point. There is deep water and a fine wharf, and all that is necessary is to make the experiment and he will find that everything is all right. Once that experiment is made, and my contention proved, as I am sure it will be, it will be necessary, of course, to build a short line of railway in a part of the country where it is very easy to build a road, for some fifteen miles, and you will have then the last link connected, and I undertake to say that this will be the easiest and the least expensive way of carrying out the terms of the agreement mentioned in this House to-night.
Mr. OO'OIvSHUTT. The remarks that have just fallen from the hon. gentleman opposite I think have justified fully what I said when speaking before. If the hon. member for King's (Mr. J. J. Hughes) had made the same speech at the outset as he has made ii^ his third speech, I should not have found it necessary to interfere in the debate. I was requested to do so, however, owing to the tone of the first speech the hon. gentleman made. I have no desire to interfere in the affairs of Prince Edward Island, if by so doing I am in any way hurting the interests of that island. But I want the hon. gentlemen who find fault with me to say whether their politics are confined to any particular counts^ or province. Mine are not. I profess while in this House to be representing the Dominion as a whole, and not confining my attention to any particular county. If hon. gentlemen opposite think that they can put me down on. a question of that kind they are quite mistaken, I am not so easily downed as they may think. They may call me hysterical if they please, or any other term they wish to use, but those will not answer arguments. The hon. gentleman

from Pictou (Mr. Macdonald) took a great deal of glory to himself because the present, government, he said, had three boats while the old government only had one. What) credit does the hon. gentleman take to thel government for having three boats if thejrf do not run them ? It has been shown that these boats are not running, and the more) is the shame if they have three boats to do what one used to do. The hon. member fori Queen's (Mr. McLean) said there had never been so bad a breakdown in the service since confederation. Now if that is the case when they have three boats, what credit is it to the government to say that they have got)' three boats where the Conservative govr . ernment only had one ? Then the Minister of Finance says they are under no obligation to keep up uninterrupted communication, with Prince Edward Island.


William Stevens Fielding: I did not say that.


William Foster Cockshutt: Now the hon. member for Queen's has shown conclusively that there is an obligation resting upon the gov-: ernment in that respect, that the Dominion is Obliged to keep up communication with the island, that that is a part of the termd of confederation. Therefore you are not allowed to take into account the question) of the cost, it is the fulfilling of the obligai tion that should count. Now the hon. gentled man said, what business is it of mine tcJ say anything with regard to Prince Edward1 Island ? I may say that I happen to be a member of a firm that ships to Prince (Edward Island, we also ship to all other provinces of the Dominion, and therefore we are interested in keeping up communication with all the provinces of the Domin-, ion, when it is possible to do so. Whether that is a justification for my having spoken the hon. gentleman can say himself. He says that I am always taking people under1 my wing who have any grievance. I wish I could make the same charge in regard) to the hon. gentleman, that he is taking the weak under his wing. I merely endeavoured) to help my hon. friend from Queen's who was receiving no assistance from the other side, that was the reason. I do not profess to be an angel, and that is the only kind of .person that has wings, so far as I know. But the hon. gentleman says that I am| taking all people under my wings, and he goes back, because I spoke of the red men some weeks ago in the House, and casts that as a slur upon me because I had taken them under my wing. I have a perfect right to defend the cause of the weak or the cause of the oppressed wherever I find them in this Dominion. It is not a slur that should bd cast upon me, and if that is the only accusation the hon. gentleman has to make, I will shoulder it and consider it rather in the light of a compliment than an accusation. I think the case which my hon. friend from Queen's has made to-night must appeal to the hearts of everybody in this House. There Mr. COCKSHUTT.
is a province that should have communication with the mainland and has not got it. It has been shown that the communication is deficient, and nothing is being done. Now I thing this discussion has done good, and I thank the hon. member from King's (Mr. J. J. Hughes) for that last speech of his. He was looking after the interests of his own constituency, of his own province in particular ; and I care not whether this government is concerned or any other, where the obligation is entered into by the Dominion by a clause in the Confederation Act with regard to the admission of a province, that obligation should be carried out no matter how much it is going to cost. That is not the question, so long as the money is well expended. It is no credit to buy more boats and not run them. I was not wishing to make political capital, I never rose with that intention. The idea is absurd, I never intended to make political capital, but what I did say was to back up the hon. member for Queen's, who made an impassioned appeal here to-night, one well reasoned, and delivered with good judgment, and apparently backed up with facts; yet there was no one from the other side of the House to assist him, and I was requested to speak. The hon. gentleman opposite did not take up the cudgels for him, and in the discussion it came out that the main reason was because my hon. friend had forestalled the members for Queen's by a couple of days, as it was his intention to bring this question up next Monday. The case was well presented by my hon. friend from Queen's, and it was the duty of all concerned to do what they could to assist him in endeavouring to get justice for that island.


Mr.   MAODONADD@: My hon. friend from Brantford (Mr. Cockshutt) seems to resent the few remarks I ventured to make in regard to his style of address in dealing with this subject. He reminds the committee that I had said that this government had placed two boats upon the route. While he disclaims all desire to make any political capital, he wants the committee to believe that though the government have to put two boats on the route where there was only one before, this government do not know how to run any one of the boats. Well, I think that the remarks which I made in regard to the hon. gentleman are quite justified by that utterance of his. Of coures he claims the right to take under his wing- to repeat the phrase-all the weak, distressed and oppressed people of this country, not only of Canada but of the whole empire. Of course nobody objects, if he wants to do so. Such missionary enterprise on his part is rather to be commended. But when he rushes into a discussion he ought at least to know something about the things he is fighting for. When I ventured to point out

to him that we had had a winter in the maritime provinces this year such as has never been seen before in the memory of many of the inhabitants, he says that does not make any difference whatever, that though the boats cannot run on account of the winter, j et this government should run the boats, and inferentially this government ought td be blamed because they are not running the boats. Well, I am sure the hon. member for Queen's (Mr. McLean) appreciated the value of the services of this gentlemari who has taken under his wing all the weak and oppressed in this country. My hon. friend, I am sure, will find that when the people of Prince Edward Island come to read his remarks they will conclude that they would have been much better off if he (had not ventured to discuss this subject, .about which he knows so little. I am not going to discuss this question at any length! but I want to say to our friends from Prince Edward Island, when they come td this government or to any government asking for a consideration of this question, they should not come and say, we have not beeil getting the mail for ten days at a time in Prince Edward Island, and therefore Prince Edward Island is entitled to special consideration. I may tell him that in Nova Scotia, the farmers in many districts have iiad to kill their cattle the same as they have done in Prince Edward Island. Our people in Nova Scotia have not been able to have communication with the country * districts for ten days at a time, and my hon. friend from Hants (Mr. Black) says, for fourteen .days. These conditions are general all over the maritime provinces, and if our friends from Prince Edward Island want to make a case, let them put it upon a sound basis. I agree with the proposition made by the hon. member for Antigonish (Mr. Mclsaac). The proposition which has been made in regard to the possibility of maintaining winter communication between Cape George and Georgetown is one which is well worthy of the investigation of the hon. Minister of Marine and Fisheries. I would join with my hon. friend from Antigonish in asking that the matter be fully investigated.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: In'answer to what my hon. friend from Antigonish (Mr. Mclsaac) has suggested I would say that the day before yesterady instructions were given to Captain Brown to try that route. We have had no report from him yet but if it is possible there is no difficulty about accepting that line. As to the difficulty created by the ice it is well known, as it has been repeated again and again, that this winter is one of the most extraordinary that we have passed through. We are not through it at the present moment because the steamers are yet blocked in the ice. we have instructed our men to use dynamite. They have tried dynamite to break the ice but they have failed. How can reasonable)
people imagine that what dynamite will not do a boat will do ? You might have had the most powerful boats in existence such as the ' Ermaak ' and the ' Mackinaw ' but they would have done very little more than those which are engaged in the service at the present moment. The ice was packed to the extent of 50 feet at certain places-solid ice no water to be seen-and even two days ago the two steamers failed to break the barrier at a certain point. After they had failed dynamite was resorted to but it had no (effect! Under these circumstances I would like to know if it is possible to blame the government and to use the expressions that the hon. member for Brantford (Mr. Cockshutt) has used to-night because the effort to open a passage has so far not been successful. In a sneering way that hon. gentleman says : If you have three boats you should use them. We have not said that we have three boats. We have two. Formerly there was only one boat hut now he says that if you have three you should use them and not boast of them if you cannot run them. It is not in that way that the question should be approached. When it is impossible to operate railways you must submit to the circumstances. When the ice is packed to a depth of 50 feet any one in his senses must admit that it is impossible to run these boats ; yet that is what some hon. gentlemen in this House are blaming the government for. Father Burke, a great friend of hon. gentlemen on the" other side of the House, while addressing the meeting that took place on this question at Charlottetown, I think, claimed that no steamer built could keep up communication this winter and that a tunnel was the only solution. Every one of their own friends admit that no steamer built could have gone through the ice this year, and if it is a fact that no steamer could do so what is the use of finding fault with the department ? We have two powerful boats, one of 2,400 horse power and one of 2,000 horse power. We! have tried an experiment this winter on the St. Lawrence with the 'Montcalm' in ice from 20 to 25 feet thick and all we could do was to cut pieces 500 to 600 feet in length. Owing to the current the steamer was enabled to cut a channel about three miles up the St. Lawrence. It was only by working at it sideways and allowing the chunks of ice to float down that it was possible for her to do some effective work But. where you have to deal with packed ice 25 to 30 feet in thickness which cannot be moved even with dynamite I would like to know from the hon. member for Brantford what means could have been adopted to remedy such a state of affairs. Reference has been made to the steamer ' Ermaak ' built for the Russian government some few years ago. I read all about that vessel, not lately but in former years, and I knew what she can do. That vessel cost $1,200,000 and all she can do is to go through floating ice four and a half feet thick in the sea, no packed

2675
ice of any kind, and if we have succeeded in getting, here in Canada, boats that will go through ice from 10 to 25 feet in thickness I think we have succeeded pretty well and that without spending $1,000,000 or $1,250,000. Of course, I am entirely in sympathy with the people of Prince Edward Island in the difficulties under which they are labouring this winter. Everybody sympathizes with the people who are placed in such a position. But, as is well known a somewhat similar state of affairs has existed more or less throughout the maritime provinces. Trains have been suspended for weeks and at certain points traffic is still suspended. As regards the supply of hay or other necessary produce the department has given instructions to the captains of the boats to carry as their first freight the hay that has accumulated at Pictou and they intend to carry that over according to the instructions given. Now, as regards communication by ice boat; my hon. friend because I passed the document to him- could at least have rendered the department the* justice of saying that the ice boat service has not been so bad. There were only three consecutive days of suspension of the service by ice boat. I have here a statement of the trips that were made from day to day by the ice boats.
Mr. LEFTjRGEY. Leave it for the present.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: No, I want to place it before the committee. It is as follows :
Capes Winter Mall Service.
Winter 1901-1905.
Crews assembled at Cape Traverse and Cape Tormentlne on January 21th, 1905. No crossing, heavy northeast snowstorm.
January 28.-Crossed from Cape Traverse with 49 hags of mails, weight 1,500 pounds, 2 passengers.
January 28.-Crossed from Cape Tormentine with 44 bags of mail, weight 1,400 pounds, no passengers.
January 29.-Crossed from Cape Traverse, 4 boats, 21 bags mail, 2 passengers.
January 29.-Crossed from iCape Tormentine, 4 boats, 31 bags mail, 1,600 pounds, 1 passenger.
January 30.-Crossed from Cape Traverse, 4 boats, no mails, 1 passenger.
January.30.-No crossing from Cape Tormentine, strong head wind and storm.
January 31.-Crossed from Cape Tormentine, 4 boats,'33 bags mail, 1,500 pounds, 1 passenger.
January 31.-Captain Allan left Cape Tormentine 2J hours after Captain Campbell with 4 boats and had to return, caught in northeast snowstorm.
February 1.-No crossing, gale and snowstorm.
February 2.-Crossed from Cape Traverse, 5 boats, 25 bags mail, 600 pounds, 4 passengers.
February 2.-Grossed from Cape Tormentine, 4 boats, 50 bags mail, 1,600 pounds, no passengers.
February 3.-Crossed from Cape Traverse, 4 boats, 47 bags mail, 1,500 pounds, no passengers.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: February 3.-Crossed from Cape Tormentine, 6 boats, 55 bags mail, 2,200 pounds, 2 passengers.
February 4.-Crossed from Cape Traverse, 6 boats, 23 bags mail, 600 pounds, 2 passengers.
February 4.-Crossed from Cape Tormentine, 4. boats, 47 bags mail, 1,600 pounds, no passengers.	.
February 5.-Sunday, crews on both sides refused to cross although 108 bags delayed mails at Cape Tormentine. Captain Campbell with 1 boat taking Postmaster Weir and 18 bags of mail from Cape Traverse.
February 6.-Captain Campbell stayed at Cape Tormentine, but Coxswain Bell, in charge of 3 boats, crossed from Cape Traverse, 19 bags mail, 600 pounds, 3 passengers.
February 6.-Crossed from Cape Tormentine,
6	boats, 73 hags mail, 3,100 pounds.
February 7 and 8.-No crossing either way,
northeast gale and snow.
February 9.-Crossing from Cape Traverse, 6 boats, 23 bags mail, 500 pounds, 5 passengers. February 9.-Crossing from Cape Tormentine,
4	boats, 50 bags mail, 1,500 pounds, 12 passengers.
February 10.-Crossing from Cape Traverse, 4 boats, 4 bags, 150 pounds, 1 passenger, February 10.-Crossing from Cape Tormentine,
5	boats, 39 bags, 1,800 pounds, 8 passengers. February 11, 12 and 13.-No crossings, gales
and snowstorms.
February 14.-Grossed from Cape Traverse, 4 boats, 26 bags, 750 pounds, 6 passengers. February 14.-Crossed from Cape Tormentine,
4	boats, 36 bags, 1,500 pounds, no passengers. February 15.-Crossed from Cape Traverse, 5
boats, 55 bags, 1,400 pounds, no passengers. February 15.-Crossed from Cape Tormentine,
5	boats, 53 bags, 1,850 pounds, 7 passengers. February 16.-No crossings, gales and snow. February 17.-Crossing from Cape Traverse, 5
boats, 31 bags, 900 pounds, 4 passengers. February 17.-Crossed from Cape Tormentine,
7	boats, 70 bags, 2,550 pounds, no passengers. February 18.-Crossed from Cape Traverse, 7
boats, 42 bags, 1,660 pounds, 11 passengers.
February 18.-Crossed from Cape Tormentine, 5 boats, 50 bags, 1,850 pounds, 5 passengers.
February 18.-On 17 and 18, 2 opposition boats crossed with Captain Campbell from Cape Traverse and Cape Tormentine with mails. February 19.-No crossing, Sunday.
February 20.-Crossed from Cape Traverse, 5 boats, 33 bags, 1,000 pounds, 1 passenger.
February 20.-Crossed from Cape Tormentine, 5 boats, 70 bags, 2,000 pounds, 6 passengers.
February 21.-Crossed from Cape Traverse, 6 boats, 23 bags, 1.000 pounds, 3 passengers. February 21.-Crossed from Cape Tormentine,
5	boats, 47 bags, 1,850 pounds, no passengers. February 22.-'Crossed from Cape Traverse, 5
boats, 25 bags, 800 pounds, no passengers. February 22.-Crossed from Cape Tormentine,
6	boats, 95 bags, 2,400 pounds, no passengers. February 23.-No crossing from Cape Traverse.
February 23.-Crossed from Cape Tormentine, 5 boats, 50 bags, 1,850 pounds, no passengers.
February 24.-No crossing either way, all boats at Cape Traverse.
February 25.-Captain Campbell left Cape Traverse, bad to return.
February 26.-Captain Campbell left Cape Traverse, had to return.
February 27.-No crossing either way on account of lolly.

February 2S.-Crossed from Cape Traverse, 11 boats, SO bags, 4,000 pounds, no passengers.
March 1.-No crossing, northeast snowstorms.
March 2.-Crossing from Cape Tormentine, 6 boats, 95 bags, 2,400 pounds, 11 passengers.
March 2.-Captain Allan waiting at Cape Tormentine for crossing on 3rd, so as to have boats divided up again.
March 3.-Crossing from 'Cape Traverse, 6 boats, 92 bags, 2,200 pounds, no passengers.
March 3.-Crossing from Cape Tormentine, 5 boats, 61 bags, 1,850 pounds, 6 passengers.
March 4.-Crossed from Cape Traverse, 5 boats, 22 bags, 850 pounds, no passengers.
March 4.-Crossed from Cape Tormentine, 6 boats, 57 bags, 2,400 pounds, no passengers.
March 5.-No crossing.
March 6.-Crossing from Cape Traverse, 6 boats, 34 bags, 1,500 pounds, no passengers.
March 6.-Crossing from Cape Tormentine, 5 boats, 70 bags, 1,850 pounds, no passengers.
This shows that ou two occasions there Mas a suspension, once for two days and, once for three days. The opposition boatsf could not cross over either, so that it would seem that the men employed by the government on the ice-boat did the best in their power and were not neglectful of their duty. I do not know what could have made the crossing under such conditions unless it would be a balloon.


Alfred Alexander Lefurgey: It was understood between the members from Prince Edward Island, that this matter would not be brought up until Monday next when the motion on the order paper would be fully discussed. In consequence, I do not propose now to answer the minister in many of the statements which he has made, but on Monday next, according to the agreement, 1 want the Minister of Marine and the Prime Minister to be present so that they may hear the debate on this matter which is of such importance to the people of Prince Edward Island and of the people of the Dominion generally.
I trust also that the front benches oil this side of the House will be well occupied.


Mr. LEMIEUX.: And the gallery ?


Alfred Alexander Lefurgey: I never speak to the galleries, hut I want the ear of this House on one of the most important questions that this country has to deal with. We are a small province down by the sea but we desire fair consideration, and the fulfilment ofi the terms under which Prince Edward Island came into the confederation, one of the most important of which is winter navigation between the island and the mainland.


James Joseph Hughes: It is quite true that it was understood among the representatives from Prince Edward Island that this matter would not be brought up until next Monday, and I carried out faithfully that arrangement, hut the hon. gentleman from Queen's (Mr. McLean) brought up the matter and he was energetically followed by the member for Brantford. I am glad that my hon. friend from Prince (Mr. Lefurgey) does not 86
complain of any one on this side of the House.


Mr.  A. A.@: Mc-LEAX. It is necessary L should offer a word of explanation. When this item came up for discussion my colleague Mr. Lefurgey was not present. There was some kind of misunderstanding, as L was of the opinion that this item was to be discussed to-night but that seems to have been a mistake. However, I did not bring this question up for my own glorification ; it is a very important matter and I do not see why the member for King's should take exception.


James Joseph Hughes: It is your colleague who takes exception.


Angus Alexander McLean: There is nothing to prevent this matter being dealt with on Monday or any other day, and the grievance is so great that it should be brought to the
attention	of	the	government	day	afterday and	every	day, until	the	gov:ernmeut	see	fit	to do justice	in thematter.	On	every occasion	on	which
the representatives from Prince Edward Island have the opportunity, this is a question which should be pressed on the attention of the government and the parliament of Canada. The hon. member for Pictou (Mr. Macdonald) said that he thought the manner in which I brought up this question would not receive the sympathy of some gentlemen on the other side of the House. I am not asking for the sympathy of the hon. member for Pictou nor any other man in this House; I am asking for clean, pure justice for the people of Prince Edward Island, and I hope the gentlemen who run the government of this country will see that justice will be done.


Andrew B. Ingram: As I will not be present next Monday to hear this important discussion, I want to thank the hon. member for Queen's (Mr. A. A. McLean) for the able and moderate way in which he presented the case for Prince Edward Island'. My hon. friend stated to-night that he did not endorse the policy of the Conservative government with regard to Prince Edward Island ; a statement which proves conclusively that he was not discussing the question from a partisan standpoint. Nothwithstanding the remarks of my hon. friend from Pictou, I think the House will believe that the hon. gentleman from Queen's in treating this matter as he did, only discharged his duty to his constituents.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: I heard the hon. member for Autigonish (Mr. Mclsaac) tell the Minister of Marine and Fisheries to-night that there never was forty-eight hours when there could not be communication between Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. If such be the case, and the statement is made by a supporter of the government, I am surprised that the Minister of Marine has not



long ago found out that there is the port of St. George from which communication can be constantly maintained. That statement coming from a supporter of the minister will I have no doubt he accepted as true, and I hope it will induce the minister to look about him for a solution of this winter navigation problem.
Meteorological service, $100,000.


Robert Laird Borden: Will the hon. gentleman explain the increase of $3,197 ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: 
Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: This year hydrographic survey which used to be done by the British government passes under the control of the Department of Marine and Fisheries. This amount will not cover the whole expenditure, and we expect a further vote in the supplementary estimates. Every one understands that it is one of the most important services for those interested in shipping.


Robert Laird Borden: Is it inland or sea-coast or both ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: It takes in everything.


Robert Laird Borden: What works are you carrying on in the inland waters ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: We have completed lake Manitoba and lake Winnipeg, and we hope to complete lake Superior this season. The department has to take in hand the surveys made by the British government on the Pacific coast as well as those on the Atlantic coast. We did not know at the time the main estimates were prepared what the work would cost, and we are in communication with the British government with a view to getting some of their boats in order to lessen the cost.


Robert Laird Borden: The work will consist of surveys and the preparation of charts as well ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: Yes.


Mr.   R L. BORDEN@: Is the department creating a new staff for the purpose ?


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: We took over from the department of Railways and Canals last year and from the Department of Public Works a few employees, and have been carrying on the work on the St. Lawrence between Montreal and Quebec. Then, some work will have to be done between Quebec and the gulf.


Robert Laird Borden: It is work of the very highest importance, there is no doubt about that.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: 


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: And I may say that we have one of the most competent men at the head of the department. Mr. Stewart, who is a graduate of Kingston, a gold medallist, and who has been engaged in this work a considerable length of time.


Robert Laird Borden: As the minister states there will be a supplementary estimate for this service, I will not detain the House very much in regard to it to-night ; but I think it is a matter that is deserving of somewhat extended explanation by the minister, and discussion when it comes up. and I hope the supplementary estimate will be brought down long enough before the close of the session to have it discussed, because I realize very much the importance of it, not only on the Pacific coast, but on the Atlantic coast as well.


Joseph Raymond Fournier Préfontaine: I may be able to give a programme of what it is intended to do, and which will show how well the work has been done. I do not claim credit for that, because they were prepared three or four years ago partly by the Public Works Department and partly by the Department of Railways and Canals; but the Department of Marine and Fisheries carried on the work last season.
Some resolutions reported.
Mr. FIELDING moved the adjournment of the House.


Robert Laird Borden: What business may we expect to-morrow 1


William Stevens Fielding: We will continue in supply, with the estimates of the Marine and Fisheries.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and House adjourned at 11.15 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Friday, March 17, 1905.