1905-04-25

Mr. P. D. MONK.: Before the Orders of the Day are called, I would like to ask the
government if, in the appointment of a commission to inquire into the cause of the explosion at Kingston on the steamer 'Scout,' the government has secured the services of an expert ? The matter has been brought to my attention by a number of people interested in the manufacture of carbide and in the sale of acetylene gas as an illumin-ant. They think very properly that an explosion of acetylene gas just when that substance is beginning to be extensively used as an illuminant is calculated to do serious injury to that industry. Their pretension is that acetylene gas submitted to a pressure of over 30 pounds becomes extremely dangerous, and that where it is submitted to a pressure of 180 pounds, as I am told it was in the case of the accident at Kingston, the danger is much increased, and such would be the effect, not only with acetylene, but other gases as well. They, therefore, consider it very important that an expert, a man quite conversant with the uses to which acetylene gas may be put, should be joined to that commission of inquiry, in order that the facts may be fully brought out and made widely known, and that this industry, which is now being considerably developed, should not suffer because an accident happened under circumstances they consider were calculated to produce the explosion that did occur.


Sir WILFRID LAURIER.: I am sorry that my hon. friend and colleague the Minister of Marine and Fisheries is not in his seat, but I shall report to him the observations of my hon. friend.


Mr. A. BRODER.: Does the government intend doing anything for the families of those who were killed ? Two of the families are in the town in which I live, and in circumstances which ought to receive the attention of the government.


Wilfrid Laurier: I am not in a position to answer my hon. friend to-day. We shall await the report of the commission before coming to any determination.


Mr. GEO. TAYLOR.: Who were the parties forming the commission of inquiry into the accident on the steamer ' Scout ' ? I understand that they are all three officials of the Department of Marine and Fisheries.


Wilfrid Laurier: I understand so.


George Taylor: I think the inquiry should be extended. The constituents I have the honour to represent are very largely interested. Within an area of half a mile square, and close to the town of Gananoque, there are three of these immense tanks lying out in the open air, exposed to any person who may come along and tamper with them. No person is in charge of them. The explosion that took place at Kingston was that of a small buoy, not one-fourth the size of these immense tanks lying exposed

to any accident that might happen to tlipm. They are in close neighbourhood, to many of the Thousand Islands, where hundreds of steamers are passing every day loaded with passengers, they are within a very short distance of the town, and if another explosion took place similar to that which I have mentioned, our town would be blown out of existence. A most rigid inquiry should be made. I warned the government when they first proposed to adopt this system of lighting that it was dangerous, and would surely result in accidents. An accident has occurred already, and even more disastrous than I expected. At every place in the country where people have adopted this system of lighting, accidents have occurred ; but the government, for some reason or other, went on and adopted it and are using it now. The people in Gananoque at present are very nervous on account of this immense quantity being stored there, and think this commission should be enlarged ; and if the stuff is found to be dangerous, it should he removed out of the municipality at once.


Wilfrid Laurier: The hon. member for Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk) has already called the attention of the government to this matter. I realize fully the importance of the subject and the importance of the observations the hon. gentleman (Mr. Taylor) has just addressed to the House. I have not been able to confer with the Minister of Marine and Fisheries, but he will be here this evening, and I will mention the subject to him.


George Taylor: I think the commission should be composed of others than civil servants in the department which has control of the lighting.


Wilfrid Laurier: Perhaps so.



EXTENSION OF THE BOUNDARIES OF MANITOBA.

Mr. R. L. BORDEN.: I would like to call the attention of the government to a press despatch which purports to set forth some observations from an hon. member of this House in the constituency of Mountain, province of Manitoba, where, I understand, an election for the provincial legislature is now in progress. The despatch, which is as follows, may be found in the Montreal ' Gazette ' of the 24th April :
Winnipeg, Manitoba, April 23-(Special).- From a despatch received from Belmont in Mountain constituency, it would appear that Manitoba's boundaries are settled. In a speech at that place on Friday night, S. J. Jackson, M.P., for Selkirk, announced the new boundary lines, the following is an extract from the despatch : '
Mr. Jackson Is the first of the Dominion parliament members to take part in thp campaign in Mountain, and to-night he informed the electors that before the Roblin government took action for the boundary extension, Mani-Mr. TAYLOR.
toba. Saskatchewan and Ontario members had discussed the matter, and had arrived at a basis of agreement, which, though informal, embraces beyond all doubt, a basis of settlement on which the matter will be arranged. The enlarged province will then have a greater area than the new province of Alberta. The new province of Saskatchewan is to be increased in area by adding territory between the 60th parallel of latitude, and the Churchill river. With this addition its area will be about 275,000 square miles, and that of Manitoba will be about the same.	[DOT]
Manitoba's western boundary will be as at present, except that it will continue straight north until the Churchill river is reached. The boundary will follow the course of that stream to its mouth, and continue down the coast line of Hudson bay until the mouth of Wenisk river is reached. It will ascend that stream to Wenisk lake and continue south through Lans-downe lake to Fishing lake, which is on the boundary of Ontario, and which will be the boundary for Manitoba until the 49th parallel is reached. That portion as delineated for the boundary award, Keewatin, lying between Wenisk river and James bay, is to he given to Ontario, which will thus have a deep water port on Hudson hay. By this arrangement Saskatchewan will have a Hudson bay port at Fort Churchill, and Manitoba will also have the use of this, the boundary line being the middle line of the river. In addition to this Fort York wil! also be in Manitoba's territory, and several other harbours south and east of this, while Ontario will get what that province has so long desired, a deep water port on Hudson bay.
' This arrangement is satisfactory to all parties,' said Mr. Jackson, * and as soon as the Autonomy Bills are disposed of, and the matter is taken up by Dominion government this will be the settlement arrived at.'
I thought it advisable to bring this despatch to the attention of the government, because it is unusual to have an announcement of this character made by a private member of parliament, more particularly when parliament is in session. If Mr. Jackson is well informed, it seems to me the proper course would have been for the First Minister or some other member of the administration, having particular charge of matters of this character, to make the announcement in parliament. For that reason, I venture to inquire whether or not Mr. Jackson's statement is well founded ; and if so, why is it that the government has seen fit to have the communication made to the people in this informal way ?


Wilfrid Laurier: I have read the despatch to which my hon. friend has just called attention. I do not understand from it that Mr. Jackson presumed to speak on behalf of the government or to say that any policy had been arrived at and finally determined upon. What I understood him to say was that there had been conferences between members from the districts of Saskatchewan and Alberta and the province of Manitoba, and that they had come to a conclusion that an arrangement could be made which would be acceptable. Should that prove to be the case, and should the govern-

ment come to a similar conclusion, we shall furnish parliament with every, information in the usual way.



STRANDED IMMIGRANTS.

Mr. GEORGE H. PERLEY.: Before the Orders of the Day are called I desire to direct the attention of the government to an unfortunate incident that occurred in connection with immigration and which is reported in the newspapers of Friday and Saturday last. Some 40 Austrian immigrants arrived here from Montreal on Thursday evening last by train, without money and without food. According to the newspaper reports, there were no fewer than 40 poorly clad and weary looking immigrants finding themselves homeless and without shelter. There were a few women among them, though they were mostly men. They found their way to the police station in Ottawa, as there was no place for them at the Canadian Pacific Railway station where they could remain, because the railway authorities do not allow people to loaf about their station, and they were directed to the police station. They came there on Thursday evening and asked to be kept over night. Tney reported to the police sergeant that they were penniless, they had no place to go and they wanted to remain over night. Consequently room was made for them at the police station. I am given to understand that food was procured for them by one of the citizens of Ottawa, almost wholly at his own expense, who provided meals for them. These poor people are reported as saying:
We will starve unless we get something to do. Our money is all gone and we have no more food. The women need clothing and we have experienced many hardships during the journey. Canada was pictured to us as a land of wealth and plenty, and we do not expect to be disappointed.
Fortunately they were not disappointed, because the next day, on Good Friday, the immigration agency found work for all these men and they were sent away from Ottawa to work on some railway construction. Now, I want to call the attention of the government to the fact that when these people arrived here without any means or food, if they had not been able to secure work at once they would have been a charge on this city for an indefinite period. These people were Austrians and they are said to have come here of their own volition. It seems to me that something ought to be done by the immigration office to prevent this sort of thing occurring, to see that people do not come here without money and with no means of procuring a- livelihood. If the government are going to allow people of that class to come here they should provide for them at some seaport town where they can be looked after until they get work, arid they should not be allowed to find their way into the interior
in a destitute condition. Our country is filling up iiow very rapidly and we are all proud of it. We have got a grand land, and we ought to see to it that the proper class of immigrants are brought into this country. I would suggest to the right hon. the Prime Minister, who I understand presides over the Immigration Department for the time being, to take some steps to see that cases of this kind do not occur again.



PROVINCIAL AUTONOMY IN THE NORTHWEST.

[Stage Direction]
House resumed adjourned debate on the proposed motion of Sir Wilfrid Laurier for the second reading of Bill (No. 69) to establish and provide for the government of the province of Alberta, and the amendment of Mr. R. L. Borden thereto.
Mr.  A. ERODE R@Dundas: I have to thank the House for allowing my hon. friend from Queen's, Prince Edward Island (Mr. A. A. McLean) to move the adjournment of the debate on my behalf at the last sitting of the House. I need not repeat what has been so frequently stated that the measure before the House is a very important one. Some features of the Bill have elicited much wider discussion than others. The main object of the Bill, as I understand, is to give autonomy to two new provinces of this Dominion. That is a very important measure to the people dwelling in the new provinces, Connected with that Bill as a part of the autonomy proposed to be given them, there are certain clauses which have elicited more than usual criticism and which will no doubt cause a great deal more discussion in the future. I refer to the clause relating to separate schools. I need not say that I for one regret that it was found necessary by the leader of the government to interject that question into the political arena. The discussion on these Bills has largely centered around the school clauses of this Bill. Sir, that opens up a very wide field for discussion. This is not the first time that public men in this country have seen fit, and have been obliged in fact, to discuss similar issues. When confederation took place it was brought about by men who, having sharp differences of opinion on these questions, found it necessary, so far as possible, to get rid of these issues and banish them from the federal arena, and the public men who took part in that great work supposed that they were getting rid of these questions for the future by taking them out qf the federal arena. The Confederation Act was accepted as a final settlement of that subject, and I consider it a great misfortune to this country that it has not remained so. We find that the people of the province of Quebec, who were largely interested in the minority rights, and properly so, believed that when they came into confederation they would have exclusive right to deal with these matters which were of an entirely local

nature. They were given control over certain questions which were of a sacred nature to them, and they accepted confederation as a guarantee that the question of education should remain for all time to come under the control of the provinces.
This was true not only of the public men of Quebec but of the public men of Ontario, including the Hon. George Brown and his followers. They accepted confederation in the hope that because of it these sharp issues would not again disturb the peace and quiet of this country. But that expectation, unfortunately, has not been realized. As we have progressed we have found a recurrence of these discussions and of this strong feeling that runs counter, as I believe, to our best interests as a people. And, Sir, no one is more responsible for the present condition of things in this country than the rigjt hon. gentleman (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) who leads the government. We had a right to expect better things from the right hon. gentleman. If we go back to 1896, we find that he took issue with the governing party of this country on the question of giving to Manitoba what many regarded as her guaranteed rights under the constitution. We find the right hon. gentleman, as the leader of a great party, throwing himself, as it were, across the path of his own people's interests and hindering the government of that 'day from carrying out what was known as tfie Remedial Order. Now, I will say that whether it was advisable to act as the government acted at that time or not, they were acting within constitutional lines according to their judgment and according to the best legal authorities the country could produce. And when the right hon. gentleman (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) took the position he did, and went through this country, as he did. speaking to the electors, not only of Ontario but of other parts of the Dominion, he led the country to expect that in the future these issues would not be raised. Now, I had the good fortune-I suppose I may call it so-of listening to the right hon. gentleman, then plain Mr. Laurier, in the town of Morris-burg, in which I live. He carried on an Ontario campaign, and he did my town the honour-I do not know whether it was because I lived there-to open that campaign with a speech made in that town. And he was accompanied by no less a personage than Sir Richard Cartwright. I listened attentively to the right hon. gentleman on that occasion and I have taken the trouble since to look up the report of his remarks. He condemned the government of the day in the course they were taking, and advocated certain ' sunny ways ' if you please. And he told the people a fable, and no doubt, he will recall that fable. It was the fable of the contest of the sun and the wind. Meeting a traveller in the road, the wind said, ' I will wager that I will make Mr. BRODER.
that traveller take off his coat.' And the wind blew and raged, and raged and blew; but the more he raged and blew the tighter the man buttoned his coat. And when the wind gave up the job the sun said, ' Let me try my hand.' And he began to shine and glow and everything grew warm. And first the man unbuttoned his coat, but as he grew warmer and began to perspire he took the coat off altogether. And that is the way the party of the right hon. gentleman were to take the coat off Greenway -that was the proposition. This speech to which I refer was made on the 8th of October, 1895, and it was published in the ' Globe ' of the following day. . I shall quote briefly from the report as it appeared in the ' Globe.' ' The hon. gentleman told the fable as I have related it, and found fault with the way the government of that day were trying to solve the Manitoba school question. He said the government were windy, and said Ihov were trying to take the coat off Green wav bj wind. Aud he went on :
If it were in my power and I had the responsibility, I would try the sunny way.
Now, he has the power anl the responsibility, and what is he doing now' ?
I would approach this man Greenway with the sunny way of patriotism, asking him to be just and to be fair, asking him to be generous to the minority, in order that we may have peace amongst all creeds and races which it has pleased God to bring upon this corner of cur common country. Do you not believe there is more to be gained by appealing to the heart and soul of men rather than by trying to compel them to do a thing ? If you have a contest with one of your neighbours, and he comes to you and says ' you must do this," in a moment you will say 'no, I will not do it.' Your manhood will rise up against it. But, if you appeal to your neighbour and say ' we have a contest and we must settle it,' he will say ' I will meet you half-way.' But the government of Canada, Instead of appealing to Mr. Greenway in this way, have threatened to coerce Greenway and the people of Manitoba have declared : ' No, we will stand no coercion.' This is not the way to settle the question. Well, Sir, the government are very windy ; they have blown and raged and threatened ; but the more they have blown and raged and threatened, the more that man Greenway has stuck to his coat.
Now, what about Hon. Mr. Greeuway', coat now ? Has the sun been shining on Greenway V What about the coat of Greenway ? And what about the coat of Sif-ton? Of course, I cau understand that the hon. ex-Minister of the Interior (Mr. Sifton) took his coat off to turn it on this question -he had to do that. I want to make this point clear-if there was one thing more than another that made Greenwfiy and the Manitobans stubborn it was the conduct of the right hon. gentleman (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) and his discussion of the question throughout the country. The right hon. gentleman's attitude made it impos-

sible lor tlie government of the day to settle this question, because, he held up to Greenway the guarantee that the great party he led in this country would stand by him resisting a settlement of that question. And now what do we find? Well, it reminds me of an anecdote. And, perhaps we have been too serious in this debate, so, this anecdote may not be out of place. There were two ministers, one very successful in his vocation and the other unsuccessful. The second man went to his successful neighbour to ask the secret of his success. And the other man said,
You don't know how to fish. When 1 go fishing, I take a delicate hook, a slender line and a long pole; and 1 put on a nice bait and let it down into the water where the sun can shine upon it, and I catch fish. Rut when you go fishing, you take a beam for a pole, a pot-hook for a hook, a scorpion for bait and you bring it down into the water ker-slash!-' Bite or be damned.' And that is what the right hon. gentleman has done in this case. He was fishing in 1896, and he had the nice delicate hook, the slender pole, the twinkling, line and the enticing bait. And he caught fish-he got into power. But now he is in power, and he brings the bait down upon the water ker-slash!-bite or be damned ; that is what he says to the west. There are no ' sunny ways the sun has set so far as these things are concerned. It is a most unfortunate thing for our country that this question has been thrown into the political arena. It is against the interest of the schools and the harmony of our people. And the right hon. gentleman is not excusable upon the ground that he was not aware of what would take place. He referred to it in the speech with which he introduced the Bill. 1 quote from the right hon. gentleman's speech on the 21st of February. as reported at page 1526 of ' Hansard ':
I now come to the question of education, and this question is perhaps under the existing circumstances the most important of all that we have to deal with. There are evidences not a few coming to us from all directions that the old passions which such a subject has always aroused are not, unfortunately, buried ; indeed, already, before the policy of the government has been known, before the subject is fairly before the people, the government has been *nw.rned as to its duty in this matter, and not only warned but threatened as well.. The government has been warned, threatened from both sides of this question, from those who believe in separate schools and from those who oppose separate schools.
In the face of that statement the right hou. leader of the government is willing to throw this country into a commotion over this question. He was warned, forewarned in fact, of what would be the outcome and it ill becomes hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House to get up and speak about the agitation of the countrv and try to 154	'
charge the fact that there is an agitation upon hon. members on this side of the House. The right hon. leader of the government had the agitation, no doubt, within his own ranks. That is where the commotion was because nobody else seems to have approached him. He must have felt that there were contending parties within his own household on this question. Notwithstanding that the right hon. leader of the government is willing to run the risk of. throwing this question into the political arena, let the contention and the commotion be what they may.
There is another matter that I wish to speak about and I do not intend to speak long. There has been a great deal said about the intolerance of Ontario. Ontario has a broader tolerance than the men who accuse her of intolerance and I will prove it. In the first place, take the public school of Ontario ; the public school of Ontario is a school that any man's ehild may go to, Catholic or Protestant. Can you say that about the majority school in the province of Quebec ? As a matter of fact the school nearest the public school of Ontario is the Protestant school of Quebec and the Catholic school of Quebec is not a school that a Protestant can very well send his child to. And they say : What business has Ontario to talk about this question which affects the west ? Well, there has been a good deal said by some of our French friends on the opposite side of the House about the intolerance of Ontario, about attacking their religion and all that. The hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Bourassa) invoked the whole history of his church in this discussion. He went back to the missionaries of 250 years ago and invoked their whole history in the discussion of this question and in reference to their schools as well. If there Is any criticism upon this proposition it i'll becomes him or any of his friends to get up and speak of intolerance on the part of anybody. I find that in the province of Ontario fifty per cent of the English Catholic children are attending the public schools. That proves two things- that the English Catholic people are satisfied largely with the public schools of Ontario, and further that they receive treatment that is satisfactory to them in these schools or their children would not be there. In many instances the most active, energetic and efficient trustees, secretaries and workers in the interest of public schools are the English Catholics of Ontario. I can speak of my own town of Morrisburg. Perhaps there is not a town of its size in Ontario that has a collegiate institute of higher standing than Morrisburg. The secretary of the school in that town for thirty years has been a Roman Catholic Irishman who has been an effective worker in the interest of the public school. The Roman Catholics have been approached by their church authorities and requested to start



a separate school in that town, but the Roman Catholic people, many of them wealthy men, some of whom have passed to their long reward, in days gone by have felt and now feel perfectly satisfied with the condition of things which they have there. The priest is a member of the school board, and if you go to any entertainment in that town given by the young people of any of the churches *there you will find all classes present, Catholic and Protestant together carrying out the programme. No one will question the devotion or sincerity of the Roman Catholic people in that town as far as their church is concerned. I think this condition of things ought to be more general than it is. Then, hon. gentlemen opposite say : You are prejudiced against the Frenchmen. No matter whether you like the French or not you have to use them well. There is no great harm in that. Out of 24,000 children in the high schools and collegiate institutes of Ontario there are
13.595	studying the French language. Does that look like prejudice against the French people ? Nearly two-thirds ! Mind you, it is not compulsory ; it is optional and yet out of 24,000 over 13,000 are studying the French language in our high schools and collegiate institutes. I would like some hon. gentleman who talks about intolerance to show a like condition of things on the other side.


Mr. ZIMMERMAN.: I am going to ask the hon. gentleman a question. I would like to ask the hon. gentleman if he is aware that the high schools of Ontario are common to all children, that the separate schools of Ontario apply to the public schools only, but not to the high schools? Where there are separate school boards in Ontario Roman Catholics have the same privileges as members of that board as the Protestants. Where there are no separate boards the separate schools and the common school have one common board and the Catholics have the right to have one representative on the common school board.	[DOT]


Andrew Broder: year to support a teacher. It was found after a while that the revenue from the Island was not sufficiently large to pay expenses and they transferred it to the town on condition that the town would pay the expense and .that was the first school supported by direct taxation at which education was given to the children of the people whether they were able io pay taxes or not.
That was away back in 163!). They went over into New Hampshire, crossed the Green mountains' of Vermont, through Connecticut, away up through the Dutch settlements in New York, out to the valleys of the Mississippi and Missouri, thence to the sources of the Oregon river and on to the Pacific coast to where the Oregon rises on the Pacific coast, and they planted the school and the church. If you look up the history of these people who are charged with religious zealotisin, you will find that the crime in the United States does not rest at their door, but at the door of the foreign element coming to the United States and from countries where there were no public schools either. Not only is that the case, but the crime is due largely to the civil conditions and the race complications that exist in the southern states. When the northern flag was unfolded over the south, the puplie school was instituted. Previous to the civil war the south had the advantage in * higher schools and colleges because the planters were wealthy and they wanted to educate their sons and daughters, but the common school was neglected and not until the northern army was victorious was the public school system established in the southern states. I think that the right hon. gentleman made a mistake in charging against the public school system of the United States, the crime which exists in that country to a greater extent than in Canada. But the right hon. gentleman forgot another fact. To hear him speak you would think that there was not a religious school in the United States. That is not so. So far back as 1846 the brothers of the Christian schools-a branch of the order in Ireland, I believe, which controls most effective schools-the brothers of the Christian schools were sent to the United states and established themselves in the city- of Baltimore. In 1848 they came to New York, in 1852 they went to St. Louis and to-day there are 35,000 pupils .attending these schools in the United States. Have these schools no deterrent effect on this crime which we hear so much about ? The right hon. gentleman did not cover the whole situation when he charged the public schools in the United States with the undesirable conditions which exist in that country:
The hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Bour-assa) went back a great many years to prove the attitude of the hierarchy of Quebec towards the British Crown. He spoke of the loyalty of the bishops from 1774 to


Andrew Broder: 
Mr. SPROIJLE.: Why did'nt they send that to the Pope, to let him know it was settled ?
Mr. BEjODBR. But now we are told that the Manitoba school question is not settled, and so it turns out that the people of Canada were deceived as to that. While that assertion was being placarded all over the country, an emissary was sent to Rome, behind the backs of the people, to say that the settlement was only an instalment. Have not the people of Canada a right to be apprehensive as to their rights and their concern in the welfare of this country, when the party in power backed up by a strong majority saw fit to deal in that way with matters that are sacred to every man ? I am not going to say much about separate schools on their own merits-I will leave that question in the hands of its own friends, and that's bad enough. We have heard a great deal from our friend the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Fisher) about the condition of education in the province of Quebec.	.
Some people will ask : What business is it of yours whether our schools are good or bad ? I reply that certainly it is our duty. If we appropriate public money for school purposes, we are certainly interested in seeing that the money is properly expended. If it were any particular church which was spending its own money on the schools, then of course it would be the business of nobody except those belonging to that church what these schools were like. Let me read here what the lion. Minister of Justice (Mr. Fitzpatrick) said in the Quebec provincial legislature about these very same schools in that province. You may talk about the intolerance of Ontario, but, I defy you to look through the speech of any public man in that province and find in it a stronger indictment against the school system in Quebec than is made by the Minister of Justice. I am taking the report of the Montreal 4 Herald,' and of course, as the hon. Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Fisher) has a good deal to do with that paper it could not by any possibility indulge in a lie. Here is what Mr. Fitzpatrick said :


Mr. W. F. MACLEAN.: In what year ?
Mie.BRODER. The speech was made on the 10th February, 1893, and this appeared in the 'Herald' the following day. The occa'sion was the voting of supplies for the schools. I have taken the trouble to compare the Montreal ' Herald's ' report with that of the Quebec 'Chronicle,' and find they are both alike. The ' Herald ' of course is friendly to the Quebec government, but 1 do not know on what side is the Quebec
' Chronicle.' But here is the report in the ' Herald ' of Mr. Fitzpatrick's remarks :
Mr. Fitzpatrick, supporting Mr. Marchand, said that our common school system was the very worst that could be found in any country ; its evil effects were everywhere apparent. The House had been informed that in many parishes the .people were so illiterate that it was impossible to find school commissioners able to read or write. He, himself, knew that thirty per cent of the jurymen in our law courts could not sign their name, yet large sums of money were voted last year for the common schools. To what use was that money put, aud were the popular classes better educated today than twenty years ago ? He thought not.
A large amount was also yearly expended on normal schools which appeared almost totally useless under the existing state of things. He was informed, he wished to be corrected if he was wrong, that over fifty per cent of the graduates of the normal schools were at present seeking a living in the United States. This was not to be wondered at when we reflected upon the ridiculously small salary paid to teachers in this country. Classical education was on a fairly good footing in this province, but in respect of all that concerned financial and commercial pursuits the majority were on an unequal footing, not that the ability was wanting, but because of the vicious educational system. Our banking and commercial occupations of the higher order were consequently in the hands of a certain class of the population. Education was the basis of success. Popular education in this province must be thorough and practical, otherwise we would never he anything but hewers of wood and drawers of water to the educated minority.
That is what th(T hon. Mr. Fitzpatrick said about the schools in the province of Quebec in 1893.


William Findlay Maclean: Is that fanaticism ?


Andrew Broder: That would be called intolerance if any man in Ontario had said it. But said by a Quebec man. that charge cannot lie. But Mr. Fitzpatrick's comments are rather hard on the statements made by the hon. the Minister of Agriculture the other day. It ought to be the aim of every man in this country to have our schools efficient. These schools ought to be the schools of the people. If the right lion, the First Minister was sincere in what lie said about public schools, he certainly cannot be sincere in giving to the minority in the Territories the small concessions lie is giving them in the Bill before the House, if we are to judge by the criticism of his own friends. We have had man after man of them get up and say that the school clause does not mean anything that it merely establishes public, schools with half an hour religious instruction added. If that be the case, then the right hon. gentleman is not dealing honestly I with the minority and is not consistent ! with his own professions. If he believes that public schools are not in the interests of the country, then he should see that the people in the Territories lie really given separate schools, and that the minority there

be given the full rights to which the right hon. gentleman says they are entitled. We find the hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Bourassa) going to the province of Quebec and telling the people there : Oh, this Bill does not give enough, it is not satisfactory. But that, Mr. Speaker, is no doubt only intended as a bluff in order to pacify and set at ease these fellows from Ontario who are supporting the government. It gives them some excuse for saying : We are not giving anything ; it does not amount to anything. But, Mr. Speaker, that is not an honest way of dealing with the question. If you are giving the minority any rights, give it to them like men. If the constitution does not give you the right to deal with that question here, as the leader of the opposition says it does not, let us leave the people in the Territories to settle their own differences in the general interests.
It is impossible for an Ontario man to understand the condition of things perhaps in the province of Quebec. We find there a very large majority voting for the First Minister, although the right hon. gentleman turned his own compatriots down in the province of Manitoba. Here are three fingers. The first represents religion, the second language and the third nationality. The right hon. gentleman finds that the two representing language and nationality are more sacred than the other one. But where does the English Catholic come in ? He has just got the little finger, religion, and the others have the other two. We find right here in Hintonburg that the English Catholic has difficulty in getting his full rights in the minority schools. Why ? Because the French majority say : You must learn in the French tongue. We find the same difficulty in Montreal. and it is high time that somebody should speak up for the Irishman, who I think has as good a right as anybody to have his views respected. But his rights are overlooked in the great cry of religion, nationality and language in the province of Quebec. I say that the man in that province who has only his religion ought to have some consideration as well as the man who has besides the other two fingers, language and nationality^ Give this man who has only a little finger in the pie, the English Catholic, a little chance.
Before I sit down I want to say that in a new country like this, where the possibilities for a man's success are largely from within and not from without, it is what a man prepares himself to do and what he is able to do in the world which makes him successful or otherwise. That being the case, in this great country of ours, full of great possibilities, every man in it ought to be fitted to the fullest possible extent for the business of life. No man understands better than does my right hon. friend, that business competition, that competition in every vocation of life, is so keen that it behooves our public men should take an


Andrew Broder: interest in the preparation of our young generation for that fight.
And, Sir, that being the case, this question of schools is an important question to every man. Whether he thinks as I do or not is his own business, not mine. All I say is, that, in a new country, we ought to be careful about making mistakes that will affect the future. In 1896, I said to my people : There is a grievance, because an agreement with the Manitoba people has been broken. And I took the responsibility of that issue. I met the right hon. gentleman (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) speaking against me, I met Mr. Dalton McCarthy, I met Mr. N. Clarke Wallace, I met Sir Richard Cartwright, all speaking against me. And you talk about the tolerance of Ontario. But let me tell you that, in that strong Protestant riding I was elected on that issue in spite of the opposition of all these gentlemen. But one thing I thought I might have been spared. When I was willing to take my political life in my hand, in defence of the minority of Manitoba, I thought 1 might have been spared the active, personal opposition in my county of the hon. gentleman who is now Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier). But. the hon. gentleman's visit did no harm. This question is one in which the people have a living interest. It is a great pity that any question of religion should intervene in political affairs. But sincere men on either side can respect their sincere opponents. I will never'find fault with any Roman Catholic for supporting his religion ; all I ask is that whether a man is Roman Catholic or whatever may be in his religion, he shall be sincere. The man who is n6t sincere is not of much use. I regret deeply that these questions should be again forced to the front of our political discussion. If you ask a man who is advocating separate schools whether a school trustee is an officer of the church or the state, what will he tell you ? Some will tell you that he is an officer of the church, others that he is an officer of the state. It has come to the point where the people resent the encroachments of the church, whether Protestant or Catholic. This question of separate schools was a burning one in Ontario for years. When the question of the clergy reserves was settled, in the very Bill in which that settlement was embodied, was a clause declaring that this Bill was to do away with all possibility of connection between church and state. And the people thought they were done with these questions. And who stood up and fought for the rights of the minority yi Ontario-though, perhaps, he did not believe much in the principles which seem to them so important ? The man tvlio fought for the interest of the minority was Rev. Egerton Ryerson, a Methodist minister. He was a man of statesmanlike ability and moulded in the strong mould of theological discipline. And we can name similar men from the Catholic side, such as Bishop Connolly, of

Halifax. These men are bigger than the church ; they belong to the people. And Dr. Kyerson and his supporters endeavoured to settle these vexed questions against the opposition of the Liberal party led by Hon. George Brown, and reached a settlement in 1863 which was supposed to be final. And how long did it last. Just three years, and then the agitation began again. But what I say is this:	If you admit the
principle that this is according to the genius of our institutions, you must admit the necessity of change and improvement and must avoid that feature of the issue in future.


Mr. J. BUREAU (Three Rivers and St. Maurice).: Mr. Speaker, I shall not take up much of your time, for this question has been pretty thoroughly threshed out, and hon. members have made up their minds whether they are to support the amendment or the Bill. But, before I enter upon the discussion of the Bill itself, there are a few statements made by my hon. friend from Dundas (Mr. Broder) on which I wish to take issue with him. The hon. gentleman has given it as a mark of the great tolerance of the people of Ontario that French is taught in the schools. - Let me tell my hon. friend that we do not make English a part only of the curriculum in our schools, but we teach it in a practical way. And the hon. gentleman has had in this House some fair samples of what common schools can do to teach English to the French Canadians of Quebec. If the teaching of a language different from that of the majority is so great an evidence of toleration, I think that we in Quebec can fairly claim to be considered tolerant. The hon. gentleman would not have been regarded by his friends as making a speech if he had not tried to discredit the school system of Quebec. He had to read from the Montreal ' Herald ' an extract which, at the very least, was very much exaggerated. It may be from the mouth of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Fitzpatrick) ; it may be from the newspaper owned and controlled by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Fisher). But I say that the schools of Quebec are not as inefficient as the htfn. gentleman would have us believe. If you wish to form an opinion of our system of schools, judge it as you would judge anything else. You judge a tree by its fruit ; judge the schools of the province of Quebec by the fruits of them that you see about you. The hon. gentleman (Mr. Broder) said that the French majority votes for Laurier, thotigh he did not know their wants or recognize their claims in 1896. Let me tell my hon. friend that the French majority in Quebec listen, read and think before they vote. Let me mention just one case. There never was in Quebec a more popular man than the late Hon ore Merrier. Yet, when the friends of hon. gentlemen opposite were able to bring that great leader even under the shadow of suspicion of corruption and dishonesty, the French Canadians voted
against him and he went down in irretrievable defeat. I do not think that the protestations of tolerance on the part of hon. gentlemen opposite will be received by the public. These hon. gentlemen accuse the Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) of being the cause of the agitation and the strife that is going on in the country. But, Sir, with all the friendship and respect I have for my hon. friend from East Grey (Mr. Sproule) I am compelled to say that he was the man who started this agitation. When I read ' Hansard ' I find that it has already been put on record that a circular was issued throughout the country by my hon. friend from East Grey, that circular being dated 16th February, 1905. Now, the Bill we are now discussing was brought down on the 21st of February, 1905. The hon. gentleman (Mr. Sproule) has stated in this House that he only used his right to petition parliament. I would be the last to deny that right to any man. But, the question is, did the hon. gentleman, as a representative of the people and as an elector of this country act in such a way as to bring peace and harmony, or did he not ? He begins this circular to which I have referred, ' Dear Sir and Brother.' I suppose the hon. gentleman felt a sudden gush of brotherly love for his electors, or he thought that to call them brothers might create a little more sympathy. Let me read further on in the circular, and I find something else. Then he says, on the 16th of February :
We believe an effort is to be made to impose separate schools for all time to come on the people of the new provinces.
Now, Sir, why 'impose1'/ Did the hon. gentleman know anything about the clauses which this Bill was to contain? Did he know anything about the particulars, so as to be able to say how much imposition there was going to be in this Bill ? Did he have any special information? If so, how did he get it, and where did he get it ? Perhaps he may have got it in the same way that the confidential memorandum was obtained that was put before the Council by the ex-Minister of Railways. How could he foresee, with all his parliamentary experience and far reaching knowledge, how could he foresee, on the 16th of February, the details of a Bill that was not brought down until the 21st of February ?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Was the forecast right or wrong?


Jacques Bureau: Well, Sir, we can find that out by reading the balance of the circular, and by reading a little in the constitution. I say that the forecast was wrong, and for this reason.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I say the forecast was right.


Jacques Bureau: That is where we take issue. You cannot impose anything on

people if they are willing to accept it. Imposition means an unwillingness on the part of the receiver, and a major force on the part of the one who imposes. Now what did this Bill impose? It merely confirmed a principle that these people in the Northwest Territories had imposed upon themselves. The imposition, if any, was made by the local legislature of the Northwest Territories and sanctioned here. Therefore if there are any shackles being put on the people, they put them on of their own free will.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Does the hon. gentleman not admit that by the . Northwest Territories Act, 1875, they were compelled to do certain things? Now what people are compelled to do is not done voluntarily, is it ?


Jacques Bureau: Why, Mr. Speaker, they were compelled to respect the rights of the minority, as we want them to do now. Now let me go on with this circular, and I will show you where the imposition comes in. It says :
It behooves every lover of liberty, and especially every Orangeman, to give a helping hand to prevent this injustice being perpetrated.
Now, Sir, ' it behooves every lover of liberty.' I think if we read the past history of the people of this Dominion we do not have to go to any sect or to any organization to find lovers of liberty. I have travelled over this Dominion from the Atlantic to the Pacific, I have lived on the western plains, I have lived in the east, and I have found among all the people where I have lived, I have even found in the city of Toronto where I had the pleasure to stay for a few weeks-I found lovers of liberty. Why, Sir, it is the Orangemen who wish to make of this measure a question of religion and a question of race. Well, the Orangemen are a much abused lot if we are to accept as true what is said of them as being opposed to Catholics.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I ask the hon. gentleman if there is a word about race in the circular?


Jacques Bureau: No, Sir. but this House knows it to be a fact, it is known in the streets, that the Orangemen and the Catholics are antagonistic. Does the hon. gentleman deny, for instance, that the Orange men are unsympathetic towards the Catholics?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Yes, I deny emphatically that there is any antagonism between Orangemen and Roman Catholics-on the part of the Orangemen. And what is more, they have usually worked harmoniously together.


Jacques Bureau: I am asking if they are sympathetic to the Catholics?


Jacques Bureau: 


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Yes. I say that according to the principles of the Orange order they must be kind, humane and sympathetic towards Roman Catholics.


Jacques Bureau: And so, in order to bring
them closer together, the Orange order allows its members to intermarry with Catholics, to bring up their children iu the Catholic faith, or the Papist faith, and to send them to Catholic institutions. Is not that forbidden ?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: It is.


Jacques Bureau: Is not that one of the obligations they take ?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Yes.


Jacques Bureau: And is that a mark of sympathy with the Catholic religion, to forbid them to intermarry with Catholics?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Is it a mark of inhumanity ?


Jacques Bureau: Between inhumanity and sympathy there is a wide difference. I say that when you talk of the protection of the minority in the Northwest Territories, it is the Catholic minority that is meant.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I want to ask the hon. member this question. Does the Catholic church allow their people to intermarry with Protestants?


Jacques Bureau: I do not know anything about the theological side of the question.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: The hon. gentleman is a Catholic and he does not know that.


Jacques Bureau: I am a Catholic, and i am a member of Catholic societies, and in not one of them is there any denunciation made of people of any particular faith, in not one of them is there an obligation that prevents a member from marrying a Protestant girl, or from educating bis children in the Protestant faith, or in Protestant institutions.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Is it not a fact that within the last year there have been cases where Roman Catholic children were taken out of the public schools, and their parents were told it was wrong to send them there, and they were compelled to send them to separate schools ? Yet the hon. gentleman says that educational intercourse is not prohibited.


Jacques Bureau: The hon. gentleman is shifting his ground. It is not a question of whether Catholic people are justified in sending their children to Protestant schools; it is a question of finding out whether a particular sect is sympathetic to Catholics or not.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I am answering the question the hon. gentleman raised.


Jacques Bureau: Not at ail. Why prohibit intermarriage if you are sympathetic?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Does your church not prohibit it?


Jacques Bureau: I am not talking about my church, I am talking about the organization he addressed this circular to.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: May I ask him this question. If the church prohibits it and if the Orange order prohibits it, then if there is inhumanity on the one side there must be inhumanity on the other.


Jacques Bureau: We make no appeal to the Catholic church in this Bill. The hon. gentleman has not seen any circular coming from the province of Quebec in opposition to this Bill, except the petition in favour of the Bill that was sent by the Jacques- Cartier Club of Montreal, a Tory organization, and sent out from the headquarters of Toryism in the province of Quebec. I do not blame any lion, members on the other side for exercising their right; the organizers of then-party in the province of Quebec did it to harm the government. I read this circular to show that if there is any agitation today, it comes from that side, with the object of embarrassing the government, of binding the people to the real issues of the ease, thinking by that means that they will be able to get into power. Let us read further :
The efforts made in 1896 to compel Manitoba to grant separate schools nearly drove the people of that province to rebellion.
Now I think that statement is not justified. I lived in the province of Manitoba in those days, and there could not be a more peacefnl people than they were. Of course, the minority wanted their rights ; but there is a vast difference between people going to the courts to get their rights, to get justice, and engaging in rebellion.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: May I ask him if he ever read what the ex-Minister of the Interior said in the county of Haldimand when he said that if the Remedial Bill was persisted in it would drive the people to rebellion ?


Jacques Bureau: I am not here to analyse what the ex-Minister of the Interior said, I am here to look the plain facts- in the face. I am not here to quote statements from every Tom, Dick and Harry, but to inquire into facts.


Mr. SAM. HUGHES.: Will the hon. gentleman endorse the statement of the hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Bourassa) to this effect, that the people of Manitoba should have gone into rebellion at that time? And he repeated it half a dozen times in his speech.


Jacques Bureau: If the hon. member for Victoria and Haliburton (Mr. Sam. Hughes) says that, I shall have to accept his statement. because the rules of the House compel me to. But let me tell him that I do not sympathize with him when he says that he is going to shoulder his musket, and start out with a big drum, calling upon the people to follow him, that he will lead them to victory, as he did in South Africa.
I do not sympathize with that. I do not think that it is patriotic. I do not think that is loyalty. I think the hon. gentleman ought to sit down in the town of Lindsay and write such articles iu his paper as will bring peace and enlightenment to the people of Ontario. He ought to counteract the effect of the Toronto papers-the 'World,' the great organ of the hon. member for South York (Mr. Maclean). He bows; lam glad he does. He ought to counteract the effect of the 'Mail and Empire' and those other papers published in the city of Toronto. Of course, they claim that they are right; they may be, but we claim they are wrong. We claim that you cannot, by fanning the fires of passion, bring reason and sound judgment to the people. If my hon. friend from Labelle said that, all 1 can say is that I do not believe in rebellion. I believe in peaceful rebellion, I believe in a man standing up iu this House or anywhere else and claiming his privileges, but as far as shouldering his musket is concerned I do not believe in that at all. They may blame our svstem of separate schools. IV e may lack in that respect, but that is a thing they do not teach there. Of course they may have a bad habit of going too far back as my hon. friend from Dundas (Mr. Broiler) has said, to find examples, but, when it conies to appealing to the musket, the pistol or the sword, as the hon. member for Victoria and Haliburton (Mr. Hughes) does, we are not taught that.


Samuel Hughes: And the Prime Minister?


Jacques Bureau: No, the Prime Minister can only handle justice and equity. The Prime Minister can handle the minority and give them their dues. The Prime Minister I will never talk musket or rebellion to get a political advantage out of it. It has been charged in this House by the hon. member for Beauharnois (Mr. Bergeron)-of course these remarks are a little disconnected, but when interruptions are made we have to answer them-that we are making a light one way in Quebec and the other way m Ontario. I desire to deny that entirely. The Prime Minister has always bad one line of conduct and one policy and one measure for all concerned be it In Ontario or Quebec. I deny most emphatically this double game that we are charged with, and I would say that on the contrary the statement refers to the speeches delivered and the practices followed by hon. gentlemen opposite. I win now continue my little circular. I 1ria'"ena great. Hiring for this little circular. It tells a lot when you analyse it.
I would suggest that every member of our order lend a helping hand to prevent this out-

rage by writing or wiring and getting others to do so.
And then lie qualifies this measure as 'criminal folly.' Why, Sir, if these hon. gentlemen w ere in earnest they would have addressed themselves to the task of improving that proposed clause, they would not qualify this provision of the law as criminal folly or try to raise prejudice and passion among our people. The hon. gentleman from East Grey (Mr. Sproule) said :


Thomas Simpson Sproule: May I ask the hon. gentleman a question?


Jacques Bureau: Yes, anything you want.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Does he consider that the party who rings the fire alarm and rouses the public to stop the fire more criminal than the man who sets the fire?


Jacques Bureau: The hon. gentleman lit the fire on the 16th. We never had any fire on our side until the 21st. Who Is the criminal?


Thomas Simpson Sproule: I knew the fire was lit before that, but it had not extended so much that it was open to the world. I had the information before that. It was onlv smouldering then.


Jacques Bureau: 
Robert Laird Borden: Not quite correctly. X suggested that the lands should be given over to the administration of the provinces absolutely, and I said even if we could not do that, it would be wise to come to some arrangement with the people by which we would place some restriction on their method of dealing with the lands as has been suggested. That was really an alternative proposal.


Jacques Bureau: I think if you were to give the administration of the lands to the provinces and to place restrictions on them in that administration, it would be an encroachment on provincial rights. You would be establishing a condition ot things which they themselves would not enforce, that is, you would be encroaching on provincial rights, and consequently I come to the conclusion that in the opinion of hon. gentlemen opposite the principle of provincial rights is a good thing to shelter yourself behind when it suits you, but when it does not suit you, to the winds with provincial rights. I read with great interest a speech made by the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster). His experience, his wide knowledge of men and politics and events in
this country, have greatly interested me in this speech. In reading that speech I tried to decide whether I was not biased, whether I could not change my views. After reading it very carefully, I found that the hon. gentleman had not treated the question at all. The speech starts out by finding fault with everybody on this sale of the House-and I am surprised that the hon. gentleman did not find fault with everybody in the country. Then he is astonished at the change of front of the Prime Minister. Well, Sir, after reading and comparing the speeches of the hon. member for North Toronto in 1896 and 1905, I have come to the conclusion that all the hauling around and changing of front had been performed by the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster). In those days when he discussed the question of remedial legislation, he dismissed with a snap of his fingers the question of provincial rights. He said that:
The assertion was made in this House and in the country as well that for the Dominion parliament to attempt to legislate on this subject is to interfere with and invade provincial rights. I beg to state my humble opinion that it cannot be fairly maintained either in this House or in the country, looking to the distribution of powers by the Confederation Act where the jurisdiction is plain and unequivocal, that for this parliament to exercise its powers, to exercise its jurisdiction is to interfere with any rights that belong to the province in question at this time or of any other province, if this question touching any other province were to come up.
One of the questions to be put aside before you come to an honest conclusion is the question of provincial rights. He does not seem to think the same this year, and on reading his speech I find things there that have surprised me. I do not know if X may qualify portions of that speech as the most deliberate appeal to arms ever heard since the days of Patrick Henry. He says :
I want to ask in the first place why there should be any attempt to inject into the constitution of these new provinces the principle of separate schools.
Where is the Injection, and who are the Injectors ? I understand that the word ' inject ' means to force a foreign body through some mechanical force into another body. We do not inject anything ; the Injection was in 1896. The Manitoba legislature of that day had passed a law which had been declared within their powers of legislation by the highest tribunal in the land, and the Conservative government at Ottawa were endeavouring to impose on the Manitoba legislature the very contrary of that legislation. But this time the people of the Northwest, through their representatives, through their government, through their legislature, have passed a law, and of this law we have said to them : Gentlemen, this law suits you, you want the law, you made it yourselves, you can have it ; there is a minority in the two new provinces, and you

have decided in which way you wish to protect the rights of this minority and to what extent they shall have rights and privileges, and we say we shall perpetuate by your constitution what you yourselves have seen tit to do. In the same speech the hon. gentleman says :
And it we can trust aM these other provinces what reason in the world is there that we should for ever tag with a badge of inferiority these two great coming provinces of the Northwest ?
Now, Mr. Speaker, I pause here, and X want to ask the hon. gentleman where is the badge of inferiority because they have separate schools ? I wish the liou. member for North Toronto were here, because I wanted to ask him what he had in his mind when he made that statement. The only two provinces in which we have separate schools are Ontario and Quebec, and surely he would not be so ungrateful as to tax Ontario with inferiority, because he owes too much to Ontario, the province which has launched again on the political sea his political canoe after it had been wrecked at several places. What must he have had in his mind ? He is a gentleman who challenges the world with the statement that he has never in public, outside of this House or in the House, uttered a word against the Catholics or the French, but he is one of those able actors who, when you look at them as they speak, convey one impression to your mind, but if. you read their speeches without seeing them using these words, you get another and an entirely different impression. Who can tell what is in the mind of a man with that ability ? I think he had in his mind, if we can judge by the utterances of some of his friends in the House aud their press in the country, the province of Quebec, and I wish to protest against that. I want to say,. in the name of my fellow-countrymen of Quebec, and in m.v own name, that we do not admit for an instant that we are inferior to the hon. member for North Toronto (Sir. Foster) or to anybody else.
Mr. SPlROULE. That does not- needl'd with what the Minister of Justice said in the Quebec legislature.


Jacques Bureau: You cau test my statement iu any way you please and that statement is :	That the members representing
Quebec constituencies in this House are not inferior to the member for North Toronto or to any other group of members from the province of Ontai'io either politically, socially or educationally. The hon. gentleman (Mr. Foster) told us that in 1896 he was the victim of his patriotism and of his adhesion to the principles of justice, and that lie fell trying to render justice to the minority. Well, Sir, if his superiority consists in (to use his own words), having tagged upon his forehead by his leader the badge of a traitor, he can have Mr. BUREAU.
that superiority; I do not want it. If superiority consists in going around from one constituency to another and from one province to another before he eould get back (into this House, the member for North Toronto cau have that superiority. If superiority consists in the fact that his knowledge and experience as a parliamentarian for 23 years, brings no greater enthusiastic evidence from his supporters that they desire him to lead them than the hon. gentleman has experienced, then he is welcome to that kind of superiority. For my part, I prefer to have tagged upon me the badge of loyalty to my leaders aud the badge of being true to my friends. So far as I am personally concerned, I say to these gentlemen opposite who would tag me with the badge of inferiority : The book of my life is open before you, turn its pages and if one of these pages is soiled, then you can charge the offence against me. The member for East Grey (Mr. Sproule) has accused the Minister of Justice of stating that education in Quebec is inferior. The test can be found right in this chamber.! iLet these gentlemen opposite look around them ; let them see the representatives from Quebec in this House, let them judge of the system of education by these men, and let them not strain their necks looking abroad to find that which does not exist. We of French origin in this House, are accustomed to address you. Mr. Speaker, in the English language, and If these gentlemen from Ontario who charge us with inferiority in the matter of education wish to pay us the compliment of addressing us in French, I am sure we will all be delighted. We know that our command of the English tongue is restricted ; we know that hon. gentlemen have Jo bear with us when we speak it, but still we make the attempt as the result of the education we have received in our separate schools ; as a result of that education which we have received in our colleges which are controlled by the hierarchy aud which are taught by the priests ; these noble men who have unselfishly devoted themselves to the cause of education. The hon. member for Dundas (Mr. Broder) stated that the hon. member for Labelle had to go back 200 years to find precedents for the loyalty of the French Canadian clergy. Well, I invite him and his friends to come down to the province of Quebec, and I can tell them that in this j'ear of grace 1905 they will find in this same hierarchy and amongst these same priests, that very devotion which existed 200 years ago, and which to-day is displayed in making the people of Quebec loyal and patriotic citizens of Canada. Unlike some of the ministers of other religious beliefs, the clergy of the province of Quebec are men of peace ; they may not teach us to handle arms ; they may not teach us how to promenade throughout the country preaching rebellion and resistance
1S73

to the just demands of the people of a different faith, but, Sir, they teach us the history of our country, they' teach us toleration, and they teach us to love all our fellow-citizens. And speaking of toleration, let me tell you what toleration there is in the province of Quebec. A short time ago I was speaking with a gentleman from Ontario and I told him that in the city whence I come, we elected Protestants to public offices, and the answer I got from him was that we did that because the Protestant and the Englishman was the best man. Well, Sir, there are good Protestants and there are good French Canadians, but when it comes to a choice with us we elect a Protestant because we want him to know that we are anxious he should live in our midst and that though we are in the majority, we believe that those of his religion should know that amongst us they are trusted citizens. Let nip point out that in 1867 there was an election in the county of Beauce, a county which at that time had a population of 26,600, there being only 304 English-speaking Protestants in the county. An ^English Protestant named Pozer was elected for that county of Beauce by a majority of 530. Perhaps my hon. friend from East Grey (Mr. Sproule) will sav that he was the better man of the two. Well, let me tell him that Mr. Pozer's opponent at that time was a Frenchman and a Catholic who is to-day the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. In 1872 there was another election in Beauce and Mr. Pozer, a Protestant and an Englishman v. as elected by 1,150 majority over his French and Catholic opponent. His opponent at that time was not Sir Elzear Taschereau, but Judge Blanchet of the Court of Appeals, the highest tribunal in the province of Quebec. At the next election in 1874, Mr. Pozer was elected by acclamation. That is toleration. Be it the result of separate schools or the result of anything else, it shows broad-mindedness and it shows that the French Canadian people have respect and sympathy for their fellow-citizens of the Protestant faith. Had it not been for some of the statements made by gentlemen on the other side of the House, I would not mention these things, because they are of so constant occurrence in the province of Quebec that we do not stop to notice them. In the constituency of St. Maurice and Three Rivers which I have the honour to represent, we have the reputation of being deep dyed and sincere Catholics, and out of a total population of 26,167 there are but 980 Protestants. For fifty years we had in the city of Three Rivers an Anglican and an English Canadian as Postmaster ; for fifteen years his brother was the sheriff of the district : and the jailer of the city of Three Rivers, one of the best positions in the gift of the government, is a Methodist and an Irish Canadian.


Mr. URIAH WILSON.: A good man.


Jacques Bureau: Did you say he was a good man or a poor man ?


Uriah Wilson: I said he was a good man.


Jacques Bureau: I do not know whether he is a poor man or not, but I judge him by his worth as a citizen, and I know that he is a good man and an upright man. We have to-day as collector of customs in Three Rivers a Scotchman and a Presbyterian, and I may say he is a good man and a very good man. I mention these things merely to show that we who are accused of being priest-ridden and narrow-minded do not judge a fellow-citizen of ours by his re-l'gion or by his nationality or even by the number of dollars he may have in his pocket, but we look to his-character and to his intellect and if we find him a respectable and worthy citizen we give him the credit and respect he is entitled to.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: That proves that you know a good thing when you see it.


Jacques Bureau: Quite true, but without any disparagement to my English and Protestant friends in Three Rivers, I may say that there are French Canadians there eoully good, equally upright, and equally worthy citizens, but as a mark of deference to our Protestant fellow-countrymen we are anxious that they should realize that we place them on the same plane of equality with ourselves. I might cite another instance. The city council of Three Rivers -that city which, out of a population of 13,000 has only 300 Protestants-has alw-ays an English Protestant among its members. We never form a city council without electing-and always by acclamation-an English Protestant. Now', do not for a moment suppose that w'e do it because he happens to be the best man we have got. We clc it from another motive. We do it as a mark of deference and to show- our good feeling and sympathy tow'ards those people w'ho are living with us.
We had an appeal to arms from the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster). When I heard him disclaim these words :
There is no hand which can fasten the chain and drive the rivet that will encompass and restrict the voung giants of the Northwest in years to come. You may carry your project through and ithe Finance Minister may cry peace, peace, but the moment it is cairied through and made irrevocable, that moment begins against it the warfare of an unwilling people.
When I heard those words, I really expected the hon. gentleman to thrill his audience by following them up with the wrell known appeal :	' Give me liberty or give
me death.' No doubt before the hon. member for North Toronto made that speech, he must have read Patrick Hemys allocution to his southern brothers to join the northern

forces. In fact you could liear the shackles ringing- on these little giants of the Northwest as the right hon. the First Minister was riveting upon them this chain of bondage and slavery. But why is all this bombast and extravagance, indulged in ? Simply to give food to a certain press which wants to make political capital by setting race against race and creed against creed. That is the sole basis for these frothy appeals to arms. These hon. gentlemen talk about the warfare of an unwilling people. Why, Mr. Speaker, I wish you could adjourn the House for five minutes and let us see what these people are doing with the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Oliver). How much of the warfare of an unwilling people is going on in the constituency of Edmonton ? What opposition is being made out there to the government candidate ? We have heard men on the other side of the House-for instance my hon. friend from South York (Mr. Maclean)-plucky enough to declare their willingness to give up their seat and contest any constituency in the Territories the government would open.


William Findlay Maclean: I stand by my challenge and by every word 1 said.


Jacques Bureau: Well, my hon. friend has only one thing to do and that is to give up his seat and run against the Minister of the Interior.


William Findlay Maclean: Let the right lion, gentleman make any vacancy in Ontario- Oxford, North York, South York or London

and I will resign my seat, and these are all Liberal constituencies, some of them with a thousand majority.


Jacques Bureau: I might as well ask my hon. friend to come and run against me in Three Rivers on the question of separate schools. But my hon. friend is a sport, and I make him a fair proposition : If you want to wage a battle, wage it inside the'ring. Do not go outside the field. If you want to test the sentiment of the Northwest to-day, go up into the Northwest and fight inside the ring.
I am just told that the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Oliver) is elected by acclamation. Whether the news be true or not, I do not know ; but if it be true, certainly I rejoice. Some hon. gentlemen on the oher side are good fellows, but were carried away by their intense eagerness and ambition to get back on the treasury benches. They were carried away just as the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) was. Reading that hon. gentleman's speeches in the past. I find that he used to accuse the First Minister of not being able to Storm the treasury benches but of trying instead to sow discord inside the cabinet. What are these hon. gentlemen doing now ? Even in the face of this indignation of the whole country, which they have pictured to us so graphically, even with the support of those tens of thousands of Mr. bureau.
people who, we are told by the hon. member for Toronto, are so eager to make warfare and to wreck vengeance on this government, they do not dare to storm a cabinet position. They did storm it in 1904. In that year they had their secret funds all over the country ; they had their conspiracies ; we know what was happening in Quebec, how that province was going to sweep the whole Liberal party out of existence-but things did not turn out as anticipated. The hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) was carried away then, as he is to-day, by his own enthusiasm. In fact I can in no other way describe his conduct to-day than by saying he has simply been carried away by his own rhetoric. When we hear so much talk about superiority and inferiority, 1 cannot help but admit that in certain things the hon. member for North Toronto is certainly unequalled. He has, for instance, the greatest command of epithets of any man I have ever seen. We might call him indeed the king of epithets. He has besides the exclusive monopoly of insinuation and innuendo and unsupported statements; and if you do not take him up at once, he will come back the next day and repeat the statement, and say it must be true because you did not contradict it. Take, for instance, the charge he made one day that Mr. Russell was paid for going to Rome out of the money of the Canadian people. The Minister of Justice at once denied the statement, and the hon. member for North Toronto took it back. But why did he make the statement ? Simply because, if it had not been contradicted, you would have seen the Toronto press take hold of it and declare in capital letters :	The
Prime Minister sent Mr. Russell to Rome and paid him for his services and his expenses out of the money of the people. The hon. member for North Toronto has a mono-ply of insinuation and innuendo, and, as far as hair splitting is concerned, I have never-found his equal from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
To my mind, Mr. Speaker, this is not simply a question of provincial rights. There are other rights involved. It is a question of individual rights, which are more sacred than provincial rights. The privilege of separate schools is now enjoyed by the minority in the Territories, they are entitled to that privilege, and those schools should be perpetuated by the legislation we are now enacting. We must not forget those men who first went into that country, those men who discovered it, those men who first planted the seeds of civilization in it and who were inspired to do this, not by motives of speculation or greed for gain, but by their love of God and great nature and the hope that others would follow. I do not care what you say about the hierarchy, they have done noble work ; they have done a lot of good in these very Territories which we are now about to erect into provinces. We must not forget that when the pioneers came in, fol-

437S
lowing in the footsteps of those missionaries, it was to those apostles of religion that they had to turn to for consolation. It is very easy nowadays to ride in a pullman car and gaze out of its windows at the beautiful prairie, but you must not forget the hardships and the anxieties and the sacrifices which those men made who went into that country first, who went there alone, having nobody to depend upon but themselves. Those men, 1 repeat, have acquired individual rights and are entitled to the request of our legislators. And If so far the people in the Territories to-day have thought that these men were entitled to their own school systems, why should we take it upon ourselves to decide that they are not. The hon. member for North Toronto asked why did not the Prime Minister prevent in 1896 the robbery of the minorities rights ? Well, it was not for the First Minister to prevent it. That was the duty of hon. gentlemen opposite. If they thought that an injustice was being done, why did they not veto the legislation instead of throwing upon individuals the onus of pleading against the local government. If the late Conservative government had vetoed the legislation of the province of Manitoba, and the provincial legislature considered that in so doing they had exceeded their jurisdiction, then there would have been a fairer fight. It was the duty of hon. gentlemen opposite to have prevented the wrongdoing. but they did not ; and all we could do, after the harm was done, was to apply a remedy.
Let us hope this debate shall soon be at an end and that this little flurry of disagreement, this little wave which looked rather wicked at the top, will soon subside. 'The ground taken by hon. gentlemen opposite is in defence of provincial rights. And they talk much about these young provinces. Well, though the provinces are young, I think they know best what they want. And the election of the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Oliver) is a fair indication of the sentiment of the Northwest. The fact that the Conservative party has not offered any opposition to the return of the Minister of the Interior surely indicates that hon. gentlemen opposite have found that they have entered upon slippery ground and that the further they go in the same direction the more slippery it becomes.
It has been well said that the measure before us is a very important one. I trust that the two new provinces to which autonomy will be given on the 1st of July will develop rapidly and become great. And I trust that with their admission into the union as provinces we shall have heard the last of race and creed differences in this Dominion. I think it was wise on the part of the Prime Minister and his cabinet to take such steps as we may hope, will settle these questions once for all. The people who are flocking into these new provinces go there for business, and, under good institutions, their work in developing the natural resources of that country will materially aid in building up a grand and prosperous nation. By helping to prevent the recurrence of such questions as those before us to-day we also shall do our share, for we shall establish a basis for concord, a basis upon which we can all unite in maintaining the peace and increasing the prosperity of our Dominion.


Mr. J. HEBRON. (Alberta).: Mr. Speaker, I have listened with some interest to the remarks of the hon. member (Mr. Bureau) with reference to the Northwest Territories.
I presume he is an old resident of that country by the remarks he has made. But I may say, in beginning, that I think he is a little wide of the mark in some of the statements he has made. He may have resided in Manitoba, but I think he is not familiar with the conditions in the Northwest. He is not the only member of this House who has spoken of settlements made in the Northwest previous to the establishment of the means of law and order. He has said that the missionaries carried on a great work there and that it was followed up by the settlement of the country by those of his race and religion. To that I take a certain exception. I was in that country in the very early days, and I travelled all over the length and breadth of the Northwest Territories south of the great Saskatchewan and east of the Rocky mountains, and I think I am safe in saying that there was no such * settlement in that country, certainly none except at the present town of Morley west of Calgary and that was the settlement of a Methodist missionary. There was no French settlement in that country as has been alleged in this House from time to time. Nor, were there, I regret to say, these great establishments of the church which have been referred to. Because, while I did not claim a greater share of the spirit of tolerance than any other hon. member of this House, I may say that I helped to build the first Roman Catholic church that was built between the North Saskatchewan river and the International boundary which embraces the foothills of the Rocky mountains. This was some thirty years ago. Under the circumstances, I think I have the right to take exception to some of the statements that have been made in this House I admit that at the present time We have a number of French Canadians in the Northwest and, of course, Roman Catholics are there as in every other part of the Dominion. These French Canadians are certainly as good a class of settlers as any others we have. But, when you give them credit for beginning the settlement of the Northwest, I think you go further than is necessary, because that credit is not wholly due them.
Now, in dealing wit Ii the school question, I am brought to the same point as that I



APBIL 25, 1905 48S2

[Stage Direction]
by their brands. You can onlv approach1 them on horseback. Therefore it is a business entirely different from stock-raising in other parts of Canada. Nearly 100 miles of that stock country east of and next to the Rocky mountains has been turned into an' agricultural country during the last three years, and that throws the cattle interests further east, so that they are now confined to a belt about 170 or 200 miles in extent, east of Lethbridge, and from that down to a place called Maple Creek somewhere about GO miles below the present boundary line. Now- there are at the present time some 500,000 head of wild cattle in that district. If that line was to be put 60 miles further east it would take in practically the whole of what is known as the range country in the new province of Alberta. Here I may mention that one bon. gentleman on the other side of the House, I think the hon. member for West Assiniboia (Mr. Scott), stated with reference to this boundary question that the stock interests shipped more cattle at Yorkton, out of this stock country, than they did from Alberta, and that therefore Yorkton must be in a stock country also. You might just as well say that the province of Quebec is a stock country because a lot of stock is shipped from the city of Quebec, but the stock comes from the west and is shipped through Quebec. Now I wish to show the House how the proposed boundary line affects the stock business. Suppose that iu the new province of Saskatchewan a tax of five cents a head is put on cattle, and that in Alberta a tax of ten cents per head is imjiosed ; hon. gentlemen can see the difficulty stock men would be in. That is an illustration of what would be the result in only one line of business. The owners of these cattle never count them. I suppose they have not been counted for twenty years in some herds, numbering from 5,000 to 15,000. head. As I have said, they are only recognized by their owners by the different brands. If you cut square through the centre of that country where those large herds of wild stock are running, and make a boundary line dividing the stock interests of the two provinces, I think the House will understand that it is very important to the stock interest where that line is put. I hope that when this Bill gets into committee some amendment may be made to it in this direction. I do not see that there could be any objection to it from either side, or from any other province, and it would be of great advantage to the people of the two new provinces. You must remember, Mr. Speaker, that this is the . only stock country we have in the whole of Canada, indeed it is the only stock country to-day on this continent, where stock runs out the year through. It is a very large business, and will continue to grow for years to-come, and I think it would be a pity for this parliament to legislate in any way that would injure 155
that business. Several hon. members have made light of this boundary question, but we consider it a very serious one in our country. In fact there have been mass meetings in several places protesting against the boundary line running along the fourth meridian.
Now, with reference to the land question. As I said at the beginning, that question has been an issue at all the elections wre have had in the Northwest Territories and I suppose that the result of those elections may be taken as a fair test of the feelings of the people. The test of the last election was that provincial autonomy be granted. The people of the Northwest Territories asked for one province, and I am of the opinion that one province W'oulil have been quite sufficient for the present needs of that country and perhaps for all time to come. The people of the Northwest Territories were unanimous, or very nearly so, that one province would be sufficient. That was a question that was left undecided in Mr. Haultain's draft Bill, but one question that they were decided upon was that they should themselves handle the lands and minerals in that country. I think there is no question as to what the decision of the people of the Northwest Territories was on that point. Mr. Haultain went to the country in 1902 ; that question was discussed on every platform, and after the elections wrere over and the returns were counted, while a few dissented from Mr. Haultain's opinions in regard to the general principles of administration, on the principle of provincial autonomy there was not one dissenting voice at the first meeting of the assembly. I think that is one of the best indications of tiie way the people in the Northwest Territories feel on this question. Hon. members have read letters from people in the Northwest Territories and, as I stated a moment ago. one hon. member read a letter from a gentleman in Alberta saying that the people desired that the Dominion government should retain control of their lands. You can only compare that with what occurred in 1002 in the elections. One of the reasons why we are so much in favour of retaining our own lands in tne Northwest Territories is this : We have laboured from the early days under the disadvantage of railway and other corporations owning a great deal of the land. It makes no differ ence what government is responsible for it, the fact exists, and we have to deal with, it as we find it. It must be recognized that it is a hardship to the people in that country to be at the trouble and expense of improving land that other people may derive the benefit from their efforts. Every dollar that we have expended in the improvement of our land has been expended to improve the land of railway and private corporations, and we have always looked forward to the time when this government would deal in some way witli these corporations, and put the
[Stage Direction]


question of the exemption from taxation and all the unsettled land questions on a satisfactory basis. I may state, while I think of it at the moment, that in reference to the exemption of Canadian Pacific Railway lands, I have received' several petitions from the Northwest Territories, which I have presented to this House, asking that something should be done before we become a province by which we shall be relieved from the burden of the Canadian Pacific Railway exemption on their rolling stock, roadbed, yards and everything of that kind. I do not think that any one in the Northwest expects this government to step in and cancel the contract that exists between the Dominion government and the Canadian Pacific Railway. I do not think that is at all the idea, but I believe the people of the Northwest think-and I do not see what objection there can be to It-that this government should try to deal with this question in some way which would make the Dominion government to some extent responsible for the exemption clause in the Canadian Pacific Railway contract. I think that every hon. member in this House knows that when that railway was built across the continent it was not built expressly for the benefit of the people of the Northwest. It was built to fulfil a political compact made by the Dominion of Canada. When British Columbia came into confederation In 1871 she came in on the understanding that this railway would toe built so as to connect British Columbia with the eastern provinces in ten years. It is not necessary to go over ancient history, to recite the efforts made by different parties in the Dominion of Canada to induce the building of this road, but it is sufficient to state that in the final bargain that was made with the Canadian Pacific Railway an exemption clause was inserted in the contract. We claim that this exemption was not given to help the people of the Northwest, but to get British Columbia into the confederation, that it was given for the benefit of the whole Dominion, and we think, therefore, that this parliament should deal with the question. We do not expect this government to repudiate previous contracts with railway corporations, but I think we are justly entitled to believe that the parliament of Canada should step in and deal with that question, and that the people of the Northwest should not be further burdened. But that is not the worst feature. We have that burden on our shoulders at the present time, but now we are going further. We are going into another land deal, we are going into provincial autonomy, we are going to establish new provinces, and this Dominion parliament is going to retain the balance of the public lands in that country. I have already pointed out that by improving our lands in the Northwest Territories we are advancing the prices of lands held by private corporations, and we are going to be burdened in the same way by reason of the Dominion gov-Mr. HERRON.
eminent retaining control over these lands in the Northwest. We had looked forward to the time when we should get provincial autonomy and be able to deal with our own lands, which we believe would in some way counterbalance the disadvantage we have been subjected to in reference to Canadian Pacific Railway and other railway corporation lands in that country. But what is the result ? The Dominion government is going to retain our lands in the Northwest Territories, hundreds of millions of acres in extent, that we believe rightfully belongs to the people of the Northwest. It is not only that they are going to own them, to receive the benefit of them and that the money is going to be put into the treasury of this Dominion, but we, the pioneers of the Northwest, the men who have made that country, who have been cultivating and improving their lands for the last twenty years, are the ones who, by their efforts and by their taxation, will add to the value of those lands which will be worth from $10 to $20 an acre. Yet a body entirely outside of that portion of the country is to derive the full advantage of the labours and taxation of the people who are there.
Mr.   SPROIJDE@: Do they pay any taxes in the meantime ?


John Herron: I do not suppose the Dominion government will pay any taxes in the meantime. They never have, and I do not suppose they will be more liberal in the future than they have been in the past.


Mr.   SPROIJDE@: I mean the Canadian Pacific Railway.


John Herron: That is one of the objections we take to the provisions of these measures in respect to the lands. We also think we are as capable of dealing with the land question in the Northwest Territories as they are here at Ottawa. I wish to state most emphatically that the Dominion lands in the Northwest Territories, in a great many instances, are not used for legitimate purposes. A great many land deals are going on as side issues for political advantage in that country. I wish to make an exception of some of the land officials in that country, who are just as good officials as there are in any country, who know their positions and who have not interfered in Dominion politics, but I wish to say, on the other hand, and I say it without fear of contradiction, that quite a number of land agents- have been nothing more nor less than common political organizers. It Is easy to prove that statement, and I think this is one reason why the Dominion government is so anxious to retain our lands.
As I said before, I am not going to take up much of the time of the House in discussing these questions as I am not a speaker, and shall not attempt to make any great speech on this subject. But I ' do think that before the government com-

I'letes this Bill they should do something to remedy some of the evils which I have mentioned. One hon. member opposite, the hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Bourassa) I think it was, made allusion in his speech to the settlers coming into that country as one reason why the Dominion government should retain control of the lands. He made allusion to the Americans who are coming in and stated that it was not safe, that they might come in in such numbers as to constitute a danger. He did not state what they might do, but I inferred from what he said that he thought is was possible they n ight undertake to turn the country over to the United States. I wish to state for my part that I believe to-day the American settlers are the very best settlers who are coming into the Northwest.


Wilfrid Laurier: Hear, hear.


John Herron: I do not exclude settlers irom any foreign country. I prefer, of course, our own people from our own provinces of Canada, but of the people from any foreign countries, there is no doubt in the world that the people of the United States are going to be our best settlers, and I think they are going to be as loyal citizens of this country as can be found in the Dominion of Canada. I know they have proved themselves to be that up to the present time, and I think we are quite safe in trusting them in the future. When I heard the Prime Minister introducing this Bill declare that the Dominion was simply putting the stamp of nationality on the new provinces, that that was all they required to make them full fledged provinces, I was delighted with the noble sentiments he expressed, but when I learned all the conditions to be placed on the people of the Northwest, I began to think it would be more appropriate, not so parliamentary, but more appropriate, if he had called us reserves ; if he had said that he was going to make two great reserves. We are familiar with reserves in our country, we have Indian reserves and half-breed reserves, and if he had called them reserves, it he had stated that the government were going to retain the control of the lands and minerals in those provinces and that the provinces were to have separate schools placed on them, that they were to be dictated to from Ottawa, I think it would have been more in keeping than to say that we were to have the great stamp of nationality placed on the two new provinces. If he had said that they were putting the Maverick brand on us and placing us in the Maverick herd, it would have been nearer the truth. If I was to vote alone on this question, but I am glad to see there are several members on this side at least, who have some consideration for the people of the Northwest Territories and are willing to do justice to those Territories,-but if I were to be left here alone to vote on this 1554
question, I would vote against provincial autonomy under the conditions under which we are getting it here to-day.
At six o'clock House took recess.
After Recess.
House resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. C. H. PARMELEE (Shefford).: Mr. Speaker, I feel almost like apologizing for venturing to address the House in this debate which has now lasted for a great many weeks. However, I can plead the excuse that I do not often abuse the patience of the House and further, that as one of the Protestant minority of the province of Quebec I may feel that a few observations from me will not be out of place. The question we are now discussing is an important one. We have before this House of Commons measures creating two new provinces in the great west; provinces which some day we hope will become among the most populous and most prosperous in this whole Dominion, and provinces for the future welfare of which we have the greatest aspirations. It is, therefore, an act of the highest statesmanship that we should give these new provinces a constitution under which they can successfully work out their destiny. I may remark in passing that I fully endorse the proposal of the government in respect to the public lands of these provinces. In view of the vast importance to this western country that it should be peopled with an enterprising and energetic population, it is a wise provision that the Dominion government should retain the lands and continue the splendid immigration policy which for some years past has been so successful. Then, too, I am fully in accord with the very generous financial terms which the Bills accord to the new provinces. I believe we have made them financial concessions which will place them in perhaps a better position to construct bridges, to build roads, to maintain schools and to support their provincial institutions generally than if they had the management of the lands in their own hands. My remarks will be directed chiefly to the school clauses in the Bills before us, and in order that I may be brief I shall make no quotations. Although I may be a little out of the fashion in that respect I feel that I will earn the good will of my fellow members by adhering to this rule.
The great bone of contention in this debate has been the schools which are to be established in these new provinces, and on this question I fear that a great deal more than was at all necessary has been said. As a layman it would not be fitting for me to expound the constitution, but, Sir, the ordinary man reading the provisions of the British North America Act cannot help seeing that there is written in the constitution of Canada the principle of separate schools for the protection of minorities. If we go I back to the genesis of separate schools

we find that they were first demanded by the Protestant minority in the province of Quebec and that they were established principally for tlie protection and safety of that minority. Those of us who have read the pre-confederation debates must realize that Sir A. T. (hilt, who made himself the principal champion of the rights of the Protestant minority, who discussed the question on the public platform and debated it during the conferences, who went to London to argue in favour of it, every one of us, I say, must recognize that Sir A. T. Galt in demanding these privileges for the minority of the province of Quebec must have foreseen that in all decency and in all fairness similar privileges must be accorded to other minorities in other parts of the Dominion. There can be no dispute about that, and indeed ever since confederation that principle has been crystallized in the legislation of this parliament. In 1870, when Manitoba was admitted into tile confederation, the legislation enacted in this federal parliament purposed to establish a system of separate schools in the prairie province, but perhaps through bungling here and through bad faith elsewhere the intention of parliament was not carried out. But, Sir, even that lapse does not alter the fact that it is in the spirit of our constitution which this parliament has tried to live up to, that with respect to education minorities should have special protection. Let me speak of tlie conditions existing in the province of Quebec with which 1 am familiar. 1 consider myself fortunate that I was brought up in a province in which people of different races and different creeds are able to work harmoniously together for the welfare of our common country ; I consider myself fortunate in this because it has given me tlie opportunity to understand some things which men situated differently have not had the opportunity of realizing. At confederation, in 1867, the Protestant minority of Quebec were granted separate school privileges, and the carrying out of that understanding was placed largely in the hands of the Catholic majority. I am prepared to say here, Sir, that from 1867 to the present day not only has the spirit of our constitutional guarantee been faithfully adhered to by the Roman Catholic majority, but that the majority has shown itself in all respects and at all times generous in its treatment of tlie Protestants and has done everything it possibly could to promote good feeling and harmony. I am happy to be able to state in this parliament of Canada to-day that there is perhaps no country in the world where people of different origins and different creeds live together in such accord as in tlie province of Quebec. There is no country, I believe, which affords such a good example of the good that can he brought about where the majority and the minority are disposed to he fair to each other. Everybody knows that in the very nature Of things Mr. PARMELEE.
a minority is apt to be timid and suspicious, but, Sir, the Protestant minority in the province of Quebec have never had reason to complain. We have no complaints as to our treatment in the past, and in spite of many bitter things that have been sqjd in this debate ; in spite of the regrettable appeals to Protestant prejudice against the minority in the west, we, the Protestant minority of the Province of Quebec, have no apprehension in the future that the Roman Catholic majority will make this an occasion for reprisals upon us. I may, Sir, that the minority in the province of Quebec confidently believe that they will he treated just as fairly and just as generously in the future as though this debate had never taken place. The policy of the majority in the province of Quebec has ever been to treat the Protestant minority in a spirit of fair play, and I would ask if that is not a good policy; good for the majority, good for the minority and good for the welfare of our common country ? Providence has bestowed on ns the greatest among the earth's heritages; we have the freest of constitutions suitable to our necessities and desires; we are placed here in this fair land, men of different races and religions, to work together for the welfare of our country, and I appeal to my friends on both sides, of this House if the best policy for us to pursue is not that very policy of toleration, of broadmindedness and of fair play which has characterized the dealings of the 'Catholic majority in Quebec with the Protestant minority of that province.
It would seem to me, Mr. Speaker, that in starting these new provinces on their career, a constitution that is good enough for the province of Quebec, and which, by the way, is good enough for the great province of Ontario, ought to he good enough for Alberta and Saskatchewan. A few moments ago I glanced over a manifesto issued under the authority, or at any rate with the approval, of my hon. friend from East Grey (Mr. Sproule). The hon. gentleman starts out in this manifesto by declaring how desirable it is that in a country like Canada we should have peace, but he immediately proceeds to make for peace by a declaration of war. It is contended that the schools ill the Northwest should be national schools, and I know that the argument is often made that national schools are absolutely non-sectarian and that an adherent of any particular faith might go to a national school without doing violence to his religious convictions or his conscientious scruples in any way. Well, Mr. Speaker, we might as well discuss this question frankly, fairly and candidly. That statement is liot founded on fact. The views of Protestants and Catholics in respect to education are so radically different that there is no possibility of reconciling them, and that being so, it seems to me that we should follow the example set in the province of Que-

bee find conclude that the only policy under -which we eau have peace and a good understanding is to agree to disagree on this subject. A great deal has been said on the other side of the House about provincial rights. It is a very catchy phrase and it can be rolled under the tongue like a sweet morsel, but after all we must remember that at the very inception of our constitution provincial rights were accorded in respect to education with the restriction that the rights of minorities in respect to denominational schools must be respected.
That being our constitution, it appears to me we ought to carry it out in its entirety and in the spirit of tolerance and generosity in which it was framed. A good deal has been said regarding the efficiency of separate schools, and I know that the prevalent idea among a good many Protestants is that they are not as efficient as they ought to be. In many cases, however, those who thus criticise these schools have in their minds the poor parochial schools maintained by conscientious Catholics out of their own money after being obliged to pay their taxes for the national school system. Is it any wonder then that separate schools so handicapped should not be as efficient as they would be otherwise ? But the very fact that the minority feel compelled by their conscientious convictions and scruples to impose burdens on themselves ought to convince us that we should at least meet them half way and give them the privilege of having the money raised by their taxes devoted to the maintenance of schools to which they can send their children.
A great deal has been said about our school system in the province of Quebec. My hon. friend from Dundas (Mr. Broder) quoted a speech made by the hon. the Minister of Justice (Mr. Fitzpatrick) in the Quebec legislature, away back in 1893, in which the minister criticised the separate schools then in existence in . that province. But my hon. friend did not take the trouble-perhaps he did not know-to explain the circumstances surrounding the delivery of that speech. Why. down in the province of Quebec we are animated by a spirit of educational reform, and at that time the Minister of Justice was pleading for an increase in the educational grant and endeavouring to arouse a sentiment among the people in favour of a greater expenditure on education, in favour of paying the teachers higher salaries and building better school-houses. That was the object my hon. friend had in delivering that speech, and it is quite possible that his zeal in the cause of reform induced him to make the most of his case and perhaps even exaggerate the conditions. But what he was endeavouring to do was to get the Quebec government to spend more money and take every means possible to put our educational system there on the most satisfactory footing. And I have no doubt that in the superior province of
Ontario, an equally earnest advocate of reform could find plenty of grounds for making a similar plea. I have no doubt that a member of the Ontario legislature, who was endeavouring to have the educational system of that province improved and no one will deny that it is not susceptible of considerable improvement-could easily find data on which to base an argument that elementary education there was not at all that it ought to be. and make just such an appeal to the people of that province, as the Minister of Justice did to the people of the province of Quebec, to put their hands in their pockets and do more for the cause of education than they had hitherto done. But with all its defects, I venture to say that in the province of Quebec, under our system there, both Protestants and Catholics have on the whole as efficient schools as can be found in other provinces. I believe that we are doing as good work there in the cause of education ns is being done anywhere else in this broad Dominion, and I am confident that we are as ambitious to have our system made as perfect as possible and equal to, if not superior, to that of any other province as are the people in any other section of this country ; and that, Mr. Speaker, is a sort of rivalry which we can all applaud.
I find it difficult to refrain from making a contrast between the treatment accorded the minority in the province of Quebec and that accorded the minorities in the other provinces. In the province of Quebec the Protestant minority have not only been treated fairly but most generously. We are given more than our share of public money, we are perfectly free to adopt whatever system we choose, and our constitutional guarantees have been carried out to their fullest extent. My hon, friend the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Fisher), who is connected with the system of Protestant education in that province, and my hon. friend from St. Antoine division (Mr. Ames), who also holds a high place in the educational system, both stood up a few days ago and explained how the minority have been treated in the province of Quebec ; and I appeal to any man who listened tc them if their words did not carry the conviction that nothing could have been fairer or more just than the treatment there meted out to us. The result is that everybody there is satisfied, and we never hear a word of complaint from any one. Take the Protestant press of the province of Quebec, and what has been its attitude during this debate ? Nearly all the papers have been enthusiastic supporters of the educational clause in the Bill before us, and those who have not supported it actively are giving it. their tacit approval. Even the Montreal ' Witness,' which, as far as Protestantism is concerned, is the watchman on the tower has declared that any Protestant in that province would be acting a mean and contemptible part if he should assist in any attempt to withhold from the

Catholic minority in the Northwest Territories the privileges which this Bill grants them. No Quebec Protestant, that newspaper contends, could hold up bis hands for the special protection and rights the Protestant minority now enjoy in the province of Quebec and at the same time give his countenance to any attempt to snatch from the Catholic minority in the Territories similar rights and privileges. Sir, under the system now established in the province of Quebec, we have an ideal province, in which both Catholic and Protestant live side by side in perfect peace and harmony. Side by side they work out in harmony their municipal institutions, and in none of our political movements is the question of race and religion ever made an issue. We have in this House members from that province, who are Protestants, and yet are elected by constituencies, the large majority of which is French Canadian and Roman Catholic. We see the same thing in our municipal institutions, showing the disposition on. the part of the majority there to be just and even generous and meet their fellow citizens of different races and creeds more than half way. The result is peace, harmony and a good understanding. Well, if that be good policy in the province of Quebec, why should it not be good policy in other portions of the Dominion ? But has that policy always been carried out in the other provinces ? Who does not remember that the great Conservative party in the province of Ontario fought two election campaigns on a proposal to curtail the privileges of the minority in that province and cripple their separate school system ? And if we contrast that policy with the policy which has always been pursued in the province of Quebec, all of us who wish to be at all fairminded must admit that the Protestant minority in Quebec has been given far better treatment than that given the Catholic minority in the province of Ontario. Then take the province of Manitoba. There cannot be the slightest doubt that the Dominion parliament intended to give the minority there separate schools. But one fine day these schools were abolished by provincial legislation. And even in the Territories, a good deal of the same disposition has been shown. Do you think, Mr. Speaker, that that is right ? Do you think it is fair ? Do you think that that is living up to the spirit of our constitution and giving equal rights to all ? We have men standing up in this House and telling us to trust the west. Well, after all that has happened in the great west, can anybody, can any fair minded man blame the minority if it should display a spirit of suspicion and apprehension. Why, it seems to me that nobody could argue with any fairness that the minority there have not any good ground for insisting upon this parliament seeing that the guarantees are observed which our constitution fortunately gives them.


Charles Henry Parmelee: There are some things in this debate that I deplore, and that, I hope, the great majority of the people of this country deplore. Appeals have been made calculated to stir up angry passions, to pit creed against creed, to wound the feelings of the people instead of establishing peace and promoting unity. Every man who has the welfare of Canada at heart must deplore the use of such appeals in connection with this debate. Why, the hon. member for East Grey (Mr. Sproule) even dragged in here a quotation which credited the Roman Catholic church with making France a nation of atheists and illiterates. I do not suppose he did that to promote good relations between the different elements of our population ; I do not suppose he did it as holding out the olive branch to those who differ from him in religion. I fancy he did it for party purposes, that he did it with a view to making party capital. This afternoon that hon. gentleman denied the imputation that he had done anything to set the heather on fire. In accounting for his knowledge of the Bill in advance of its presentation to the House, he said that a little bird had whispered that something of this sort was likely to be introduced, that this parliament would stand by the pledges it had given the people of the Northwest and would enact legislation that would guarantee equal rights to the people of that great country. And at once he tells us, he saw that something was going to happen, that feeling was going to be stirred up, and so he sent out a warning to the people of Canada to look out, for passions were going to be stirred up. This, the hon. gentleman assures us, he was not trying to do, in fact he was trying to prevent it. But, I think, that with all the facts before us, perhaps, we should take that statement with a grain of salt. The hon. gentleman sent out a manifesto addressed to the members of this House-a manifesto in the interest of peace, as he said, to bring the people closer together, to make us better friends. And he winds up with these words-that is, the order which sent it out with his approval winds up wdth these words :
We, the members ot the Right Worshipful Grand Lodge of Ontario West, composed of men of various nationalities and different shades of political opinion, unanimously pledge ourselves to use every legitimate means to drive from public (life any and every member of parliament who votes for this objectionable measure.
They pledge themselves to use every legitimate means to drive the hon. member for Cornwuill and Stormont (Mr. Pringle) from public life because he has dared to stand up for what he believes to be right. They pledge themselves to use every legitimate means to drive the hon. member for St. Antoine division (Mr. Ames) from public life, an hon. gentleman of the very highest standing in his own province, and, as he has shown himself, a man who is able, when

occasion requires, to rebuke some of the sentiments which have been given utterance to by the members on his own side of the House. They pledge themselves to use every legitimate means to drive the kon. member from Sherbrooke (Mr. Worthington) from public life, and my hon. friend from Argenteuil (Mr. Perley), if they venture to vote against the amendment. And this is to be the issue in this country,-creed against creed, and political parties are to divide on a cleavage of that kind. And the gentleman who must acknowledge thp paternity of this sort of thing stands up in the House and says he wants peace, and blames us for setting the heather afire, for stirring up passion and creating bad blood among the people. And then there was the appeal made by the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster). I was simply astonished at the audacity of his ground and lofty tumbling the other day. In 189G he was the most eloquent champion of minority rights, not merely because they were guaranteed by the constitution, but because they ware right and because majorities should be fair and just to minorities. He made one of the most moving and eloquent speeches ever delivered in this House along those lines. If those principles were sound then they are right to-day. But the hon. gentleman (Mr. Foster) had the audacity to rise in his place in this House and say : Well, the elections of 1896 took place and the Liberals were returned to power, so, my arguments do not seem to have had the effect they ought to have had with the people ; and the same was repeated in 1900 and again in 1904 ; and therefore I am going to swallow my principles, I am going over to the other side. Well, if that logic were sound, the hon. gentleman ought to come clean over to this side of the House and not divide opinion with us on this question alone. The hon. gentleman knew, perfectly well, when he spoke, that the elections of 1896 were not decided on the Manitoba school question. He knew, that for years the people of Canada groaned under a bad policy and a worse administration. He knew that four or five years before 1896, the people of Canada had made up their minds that at the first opportunity they would change rulers and change methods of government in this country ; had made up their minds that they would put men in office pledged to an entirely different policy in the administration of affairs. He knew that the Manitoba school question had little to do with the verdict of the people. And he ought to have known that again in 1900, after four years' experience of Liberal policy and Liberal rule, moderate protection and progressive administration, the country had gone ahead by leaps and bounds, and that the people were satisfied. Yet the hon. gentleman stands up in the House and says that in 1900 the people of Canada voted against separate schools, and therefore he hastens to abandon the defence of minority rights on the ground that they were right and to get over to what he conceives to be the strong side. Mr. Speaker, that seems to me a simply awful position for a leading public man in this country to take. I do not wish to follow the hon. gentleman or to imitate the kind of language he has -indulged in, but on two occasions in this House upon a question germane to this he made what I consider a straight appeal to the prejudices of the people. Well, speaking about prejudices it is not for me to advise the great Conservative party, though it has gone back upon every principle that its great leaders laid down


Some hon. MEMBERS: Oh, oh.


Charles Henry Parmelee: Upon every occasion in the past when this question came before parliament, every Conservative leader worthy of the name has taken much the position of the Liberal party under the leadership of the right hon. Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) is taking to-day. Everybody who is familiar with the history of this country knows that to be the case. But, as I say, it is not for me to advise them- this is their funeral. But I do say that in a country situated as this is, no man can rise to the highest position in the councils of the nation unless he is broad enough to stand up in this House and everywhere and plead for equal rights for all the people.
Now, I promised to be brief, and I have already spoken longer than I intended. But, before I sit down, I would like to make one appeal in contrast and in contradistinction to some of the appeals that have been made. I would appeal to the sense of fairness of the Protestant people of Canada. As one of themselves and as representing an element treated most generously by a Catholic and French Canadian majority, I would like to ask them if we should be outdone in the desire to live and let live, if we should be outdone in the desire to manifest Christian charity and Christian toleration, which, after all, are the best justification for the Protestant religion. I would like to ask them, with all these facts before them, if they are going to be scared, and if they are going to have their prejudices aroused, and if they are going to refuse to do what is right simply because for partisan purposes the Conservative party chooses to make sectarian appeals and stir up sectional strife. Well, I do not know that I should say for party purposes for one can hardly know -which is the party, and which is the rump.
At any rate, what stands for the great Conservative party to-day, for the sake of making a little political capital, takes its stand against a proposition so eminently fair which is based upon the constitution and upon inherent rights. Now it seems to me that they are barking up the wrong tree. Prejudices may be aroused for a little time,
4S95

passions may bo excited temporarily, but they will soon pass away. There is a saving" remnant of common sense, a saving remnant of fairness in the hearts and minds of the people of this country ; and after this discussion is over, after these Bills have passed and have become law, after the provinces have been created and have set out for themselves, the people of Canada, Protestants as well as Catholics, will not be kept apart by reason of anything that has been said which ought not to have been said during the course of this debate. Now, Sir, if I were to attempt to give a word of advice to the people of these new provinces -and perhaps I may venture to do so with the experience we have had in the province of Quebec-it is this, that if they wish to promote the best interests of those great provinces, if they wish to have a happy, united and contented people, let them imitate the action of the people of the province of Quebec, let them be just to the minority, and give all classes reason to feel that they are safe in the enjoyment of perfect civil and religious liberty, and of equal rights for all time. If the people of these new provinces do that, they will lay the foundation of their great communities upon a solid basis, one which will ensure their lasting prosperity, and help to build up this' great Canada of ours.
Now, Sir, some things have been said, in the press perhaps more than in this House, reflecting upon the right lion, the Prime Minister. Statements have been made tending to create the impression that in this instance he has been influenced by the fact that he is a Roman Catholic In religion and a French Canadian by birth. Now surely, any one who is acquainted with the recent political history of this country, must know that attacks of that kind have no foundation in fact, that they are most unfair and unjust, and can be made with no other purpose than to destroy the splendid reputation the right lion, gentleman has made in this country, not only by his executive and administrative ability, but from the fact that no public man in this country-every one knows it, it is recognized everywhere -no public man in this country has ever done so much as he has done to make the people of this country a united people. He has consecrated his life to the great aim of dispelling prejudices which are calculated to do harm in a country with a mixed population like ours. Canada is a difficult country to govern in any case, and for Heaven's sake, don't let us make it more difficult by accentuating these differences of race and creed. Let us rather imitate the noble example of the Prime Minister who has devoted his life to the single purpose of bringing the people together and uniting them in heart and sympathy. No public man in this country, no newspaper can cite a single instance where his con-Mr. PARMELEE. *
duct has not been influenced by the highest conception of what is absolutely right and true and just. I would like to see liis course followed by other public men in this country. There is my hon. friend the leader of the opposition, who has not quite made up his mind whether he is for or against separate schools, he seems to be on the fence, so to speak ; and I am sorry to think that he has lost one of the best opportunities a public man ever had of rising above these latent prejudices, which I am happy to see, aud every man ill Canada must be happy to see, are gradually disappearing. I think after this question is once settled, after the rights of the minority are guaranteed in the Northwest provinces, we may hope to have heard the last of questions of this kind, and posterity will wonder how it was that we fought, and squabbled and assailed each other over questions of this nature.


George Taylor: The hon. member for Sbefford (Mr. Parmelee) who has just taken liis seat, opened his speech by saying that he would not make any quotations. I presume the right lion, the Prime Minister, and his leaders generally, were thankful to hear him make that promise, because if lie had undertaken to make any quotations dealing with this school question, I am quite sure that most, if not all of them, would have reflected very seriously, upon those lion, gentlemen and the party generally. Before I resume my seat I intend to quote a few of the utterances of some of those gentlemen. The hon. gentleman referred to the Montreal [DOT] Witness,' and said it was the champion of Protestantism in the province of Quebec. He might also have referred to it as being the champion of total abstinence in the province of Quebec. But true to its instincts, it is always ready to place party j before Protestantism and before temper-i since. We remember si few years ago when i this government, to satisfy the temperance | people, promised a referendum, they sub-I u-itted a bogus referendum to the people,
I and this Montreal ' Witness ' that he says is the champion of Protestantism, sold out its temperance principles, approved of the bogus referendum of the government, and to-day it is doing the same tiling with Protestantism to uphold the party that it belongs to.
Then the hon. gentleman occupied some time trying to make the people of this country believe that appeals to racial and religious questions had emanated from this side of the House. Now I will say to that lion, gentleman that he may read ' Hansard' from the time this debate began up to tlie present moment, and after my speech is concluded he may read that also, and he will not find that one word has been said by any hon. gentleman on this side of llie House calculated to excite race or religious questions in this country. Nor has

one word been said against separate schools; yet the hon. gentleman tries to make the people believe that all the noise about separate schools, that all the questions about race and creed, have emanated from this side of the House. I challenge him or any other hon. gentleman to produce one Syllable, one line or one word that has been uttered from this side, pointing in the direction he has indicated. The hon. gentleman also referred to the utterances of my hon. friend from East Grey (Mr. Sproule). Let him read the speech of my hon. friend from East Grey, and I defy him to find one word in it against separate schools, or one word calculated to raise race or religious feelings in this country.
' He read from a document which he said was sent out by direction of the hon. member for East Grey, and insinuated that it was the production of the hon. member for East Grey. I thought the hon. gentleman would not lower himself to anything of the kind. He read from a circular which he said emanated from my hon. friend from East Grey. But my hon. friend from East Grey did not produce any such document, on the contrary, he did not approve of the document that the member for Shefford read from.
It was a resolution passed by some lodge. My hon. friend from East Grey had nothing to do with it, and yet the hon. member for Shefford gets up and attributes it to my hon. friend. He said that some little bird had whispered into the ear of my hon. friend from East Grey that a Bill of this kind was to be introduced. Did not the hon. gentleman hear the speech from the Throne when the Governor General announced that these Autonomy Bills would be introduced this session ?' Is the Governor General of this country to be referred to by the hon. gentleman as a little bird whispering in the ears of members of this House ? He referred to the fact that ministers had stated in the campaign that autonomy would be given. Had it depended on the statement of ministers, no person, not even my hon. friend from East Grey, would have paid any atten tion to it, but when the Governor General came down and announced that these. Autonomy Bills would be introduced, my hon. friend from East Grey then had every right to say to his friends in the country that they were going to be introduced. The hon. member for Shefford. like every one who has preceded him in this debate, closed his remarks with a eulogy of the right lion. Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier)-the greatest man that ever lived on earth. He would be worth millions to Barnum if he had him. That is all in line with the course pursued by other members of the party. They eulogize the minister and they take the patronage. The hon. member for Shefford did not deal very much with the Bill before the House ; therefore, X do not propose following him any further. Representing, as I do, one of the strongest Protestant constituencies in the province of Ontario, one containing, I think, more Orangemen than any other constituency in Canada, and at the same time containing a population of about 3,500 or 3,600 French and Irish Roman Catholics and having about 800 Roman Catholic voters in my constituency, I think it my duty to the people whom I represent that I should say a few words on the question before the House and explain the position that I purpose taking. I have received many letters from constituents of mine throughout the county. I will not trouble the House with more than one, which is a fair sample, to which I replied immediately, giving the position I purpose taking on this question. This letter is as follows :

Elgin, Ontario, March 15th, 1905.
Mr. George Taylor, M.P.,
Dear Sir,-Pressure of work has prevented me from writing to you earlier, but ever since the Prime Minister introduced the now famous Autonomy Bill I have felt that this is a fine opportunity for the forces in opposition and the Protestant forces in the House to serve Canada and the future. 1 do not believe any government in Canada for many years has made a proposal so unreasonable, or so opposed to the genuine unity of our country as this ultra-montaine educational policy for the two new provinces. From no point of view can I see that it is defensible as it stands. Its uncon-stitutionali'ty, its impolitic invasion ot territorial or provincial privilege, its coercive protection into the unknown future of the progressive west of a mediaeval system of schools, and its almost certain results in the way of dissension amongst the various elements of a much mixed population-all condemn this scheme as altogether bad. I sincerely hope you will advocate the elimination of the educational clauses.
Sincerely yours,
(Sgd.) GEO. L. CLENDINNEN.
I seut the following reply :-
Ottawa, March 17, 1905.


Rev.   G@: Clendinnen,
Elgin, Ontario.
Reverend and Dear Sir,-I am much pleased to receive your letter of the 15th instant, referring to the Bills now before parliament m reference to the new provinces for the Northwest. In reply I beg to say I fully agree with all you say, and am very much pleased that the Protestant clergy of all denominations are taking so much interest in the matter. I am very much pleased also with the attitude of the ' Christian Guardian.'
The position to-day is quite different from the Manitoba question. Then it was the minority appealing under the provisions of the constitution for their rights. When Manitoba was given a constitution these rights of separate schools were provided, but the Greenw'ay government abolished them. The decision of the Privy Council was that the legislature had exclusive Jurisdiction in dealing with educational matters, but the minority had a.5"e'r" ance, and under the constitution had a ngn w appeal to the Dominion parliament for remedial legislation. But it is very singular that the parties headed by Sir Wilfrid Banner were the parties who claimed provincial rights for Mam-
4S99

toba, and are now attempting to refuse it to the new provinces. These provinces are now being formed and we are giving them a constitution. If we do so and give them the right to separate schools the legislature there are powerless to abolish it except to take the same course that Greenway did. Then the minority would have the same right to appeal as the minority of Manitoba had for remedial legislation.
I therefore intend both with my voice and vote to oppose any legislation that will interfere with giving these provinces full jurisdiction in dealing with this matter themselves.
I herein inclose you copy of ' Hansard ' giving ithe debate that took place here on Wednesday last, showing the attitude of the parties on the question.
Believe me to be,
Yours faithfully,


Jacques Bureau: Who is it signed by ?


George Taylor: What does the hon. gentleman say ?


Jacques Bureau: Who signs the letter ?


George Taylor: I signed the letter.


Jacques Bureau: Oh, thank you.


George Taylor: There is nothing objectionable an it, I hope.	J
much	^h, no ; I expected as
Mr. TAYLOR, Being a layman, I do not purpose dealing with the legal aspect of the question. Our leader (Mr. R. L. Borden) has given an opinion which has not been controverted, and in my opinion the hon leader of the opposition stands head and shoulders above any hon. gentleman on this or the other side of the House in so far as legal attainments are concerned. I think it is an opinion which commends itself, not only to the House, but to the country generally. On constitutional law, I do not think he has an equal in this country, and he has given an opinion which has met with the approval, not only of those who sit on this side of the House, but eveu of ex-ministers of the government, because, when the hon. ex-Minister of the Interior (Mr. Sifton) made his speech in the House, he said that he had read the speech made by his leader on the constitutional aspect of the case and also by the leader of the opposition, and he rather agreed with the opinion given by the hon. leader of the opposition. The hon. exMinister of the Interior is an able lawyer, and he approved of the opinion given by the' lion, lender of the opposition as to the constitutional aspect of tile question now before the House. But I intend to deal with it from the layman's point of view, and perhaps will, before I get through, refer to the opinion of the man on the street as the hon. ex-Mmister of the Interior did. I intend to stand by what, I think, is the proper constitutional principle ; I intend to stand by the constitution, as every Orangeman in this country is bound by his obligation to uphold the constitution. Although representing, as I said before, a strong Protestant coustitu-


George Taylor: ency, one of the strongest in the province of Ontario, when the Jesuits' Estates Act came before this House on a former occasion, notwithstanding the fact that the late Dalton McCarthy, the late Colonel O'Brien, and many other leading Orangemen and Protestants had raised a very strong feeling in reference to that question throughout the country, I believed then, as I do now, that the province of Quebec had a perfect right to deal with that question without any interference from this parliament, and I took my political life in my hand and voted in favour of leaving that question within the control of the provincial authorities.
Again when the Manitoba school question came up, when the Greenway government passed an Act abolishing separate schools in the province of Manitoba, and when that Act came before the government of the late lamented Sir John Macdonald as ail provincial Acts have to come to the Dominion government for review, notwithstanding the fact that every bishop, archbishop and prelate of the Roman Catholic church in this country had petitioned Sir John Macdonald's government to disallow that Act, Sir John acting upon the advice of his Minister of Justice, the late Sir John Thompson, who stated that the province of Manitoba had by the constitution a perfect right to deal with all school matters, agreed,
I think with the consent and approval of the present Prime Minister, to refer that matter to the highest court in the realm, tiie Queen's Privy Council, and to give effect by legislation to whatever decision tiie Privy Council might give. The matter went to the Privy Council and that court decided that the provincial government of Manitoba acted within its constitutional jurisdiction and had a right to pass the Act, but the judgment went further and stated that the minority had a grievance and had a right to appeal to this parliament, which they did. Sir John Macdonald, Sir John Abbott, Sir John Thompson, had all passed away and Sir Mackenzie Bowell was then Prime Minister. He fell heir to the promise of the late Sir John A. Macdonald, and during the first session after he became premier he introduced a Remedial Bill giving relief to the minority in the province of Manitoba. During that session disagreements arose in his own cabinet over this question and it was finally decided to let the matter stand over until the next session and to deal with it as the first question after the session was called. A session was called especially to deal with it. Sir Charles Tupper was acting as leader of the government in this House under Sir Mackenzie Bowtell, and Sir Charles introduced the Remedial Bill. Then to the surprise of myself and of almost every member of the House the present Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) the present Postmaster General (Sir William Mulock) the present Min-

ister of Customs (Hon. Wm Paterson), tlie present Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir Richard Cartwright), together with nearly every one of their supporters rose in their places and opposed the Remedial Bill which 'Sir Charles Tupper had introduced giving relief to the minority in Manitoba and they fought it so strenuously that by the effluxion of time, parliament had almost expired and Sir Charles had to abandon the Bill. Sir Charles then became Prime Minister and appealed to the country. One of the planks in the Conservative platform was that if elected to power they would pass remedial legislation. I appealed to my constituents as a supporter of Sir Charles Tupper* and of the Remedial Bill- and this should be an answer to my hon. friend from Three Rivers (Mr. Bureau)- representing as I said before, one of the strongest Orange and Protestant constituencies in Ontario, I appealed to these constituents as a supporter of the Remedial Pill for the relief of the minority in Manitoba and a supporter of Sir Charles Tupper and I was returned by the largest majority I ever obtained save and except that in the last election.


Jacques Bureau: That just confirms what I have heard, that most of the Orangemen are Tories. I did not state it this afternoon.


George Taylor: In the constituency I have the honour to represent we have two lodges exclusively Reform. They now belong to my bon. friend from Brockville (Mr. Derbyshire) and each of them voted as before, against me.


Jacques Bureau: Then they are improving.


George Taylor: But as I stated before, although I have about 800 Roman Catholic and French voters in my constituency, after having taken my political life in my hands on two occasions to uphold legislation in their interest, first in the Quebec question of the Jesuit estates and then in the case of the remedial legislation for Manitoba, when one might reasonably suppose that cut of these 800 Catholic votes I would receive at least some support, I am bound to say that I did not receive 15 votes out of the 800. Sir Charles Tupper and his candidates throughout the Dominion, and particularly in Quebec were on that occasion fighting to uphold the rights of the minority cu a question that was of especial interest to the people of Quebec. Yet what support did they receive in Quebec ? Sir Charles came back here with a following of seven from that province ; in the same way all over the province of Ontario and the other provinces the Roman Catholic support did not go to Sir Charles or his candidates, and the result was that my hon. friend the Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) carried the country. How was this state of affairs brought about ? The Prime Minister, then
Wilfrid Laurier, went through the west and through Ontario crying : ' Hands off Manitoba,' ' No coercion,' * Provincial rights must be sustained' and he made the Protestants of the west and of Ontario believe that he was fighting the hierarchy of his own church. Let me read a quotation from a speech delievered by him on June 12, 1896, at Toronto.


An hon. MEMBER.: Was it not the 12th of July ?


George Taylor: No, it was the 12th of June ; I daresay he would have made a speech on the 12th of July, just as strong or stronger. The hon. gentleman said :
For my part I do not hesitate to tell you that I am a French Canadian, a Roman Catholic. I make no boast about it. I have strong sympathy with the minority ; I wished they had back their privileges, but as I am of the minority, I will tel'l you this : As I would not be coerced by anybody, I would not impose coercion on anybody.
How does that quotation suit my hon. friend from Shefford (Mr. Parmelee) after the laudations that he piled on the Prime Minister's head. There he is as a statesman says :	As I would not let anybody
coerce me, I will not coerce anybody. What is he doing to-day out in the two new provinces he is forming ? Coercing anybody? He is coercing the whole bunch, as my hon. friend (Mr. Herron) stated here to-day. Many leading Orangemen of that day,' many strong Protestants during the canvass of 1896, told me that they would rather trust Wilfrid Laurier then than Sir' Charles Tupper, that Sir Charles Tupper would do more for the Roman Catholics than Sir Wilfrid Laurier would do, because he was fighting the hierarchy of his own church. That was the opinion generally expressed throughout Ontario and the result was that many strong Protestants who formerly had been Conservatives, many Orangemen who formerly have been Conservatives voted for him and with a pretty solid Catholic vote, the right hon. gentleman was carried into power. What did the Prime Minister say to the people of Quebec during the elections of 1S96 ? Did he tell them there would be no separate schools ? No, he said that if elected he would send a commission headed by Sir Oliver Mowat, to Manitoba, to ascertain 1he facts and settle the question, and if that failefi then he would pass stronger remedial legislation than that proposed by 8ir Charles Tupper. He said ,to his French co-religionists in the province of Quebec : You can surely trust me rather than a Protestant like Sir Charles Tupper.


Mr. BELCOURT.: He never said that; you are drawing on your imagination.


George Taylor: He did say it, and I quote from the ' Hansard ' of 1897, Volume 1, page 197, the following words uttered by the Prime Minister :

Should I be brought into power, as I doubt not I shall be, I will settle the question to the satisfaction of all interested parties, but after all should reconciliation fail I will have recourse to the means adopted by the constitution, and I will exercise them fully and in all their entirety.
Speaking at Lfivis the right lion, gentleman said :
It is I, in the last resort, with the co-operation of Sir Oliver Mowat, who will mete out full justice to my co-religionists In Manitoba.
Has full justice been meted out to his co-religionists in Manitoba Ask Archbishop Langevin ? Read the very letter which Sir Wilfrid Laurier addressed to His Holiness the Tope in which he stated that the question was not settled and that he only regarded the settlement as the first instalment. During the campaign of 1896, the present Minister of Justice (Mr. Fitzpatrick) and many of his supporters made declarations before their bishops and promised that if they were elected and if Sir Wilfrid Laurier came into iiower and he did not at the first session pass remedial legislation, then they would withdraw their support from him. The candidate for Mfgantic, Mr. Turcot, made the following declaration when he was a candidate for election in 1896 :
Considering that, by its judgment, tbe Judicial Committee of the Privy Council has definitely decided that, in law and in fact, the Catholic minority of Manitoba have a real grievance, and that they have a right to separate schools ; considering the mandement of the bishops of the province of Quebec, which imposes upon the Catholics the obligation to vote for no other candidates than those who expressly bind themselves to pass legislation restoring to the Catholic minority of Manitoba the school rights which have been recognized as belonging to them by the Privy Council in England, I, the undersigned, a candidate at the present elections, expressly and solemnly promise to demand, and to vote for, the passing of remedial legislation which will place the Catholic minority of Manitoba in the fullest enjoyment of their rights. I further promise to do nothing which would place the government in a position in which it would be impossible for them to introduce such legislation or which might delay its passing.
(Sgd.) GEORGE TURCOT,
_	_ ,	.	Candidate.
Ste. Julie do Somerset,
9th June, 1S96.


Mr. COCHRANE.: Did iie get elected ?


George Taylor: Yes he was efected. Dr. Godbout, then a candidate for Beauce and a senator, made the following declaration : County of Beauce, P.Q., June, 1896.
I, the undersigned, solemnly and expressly promise, agreeably to the mandement of the archbishops and bishops of the province of Quebec, to support in the House any measure which will efficaciously restore to the Catholics of Manitoba their schools, of which they have been deprived for the last six years ; to use every effort to obtain for the Catholics their legitimate share of subsidies for the mainten-Mr. TAYLOR.
anee of these schools ; and to obtain from the government of Manitoba tbe recognition of the principles that the education given in these schools should be controlled by the clergy.
I further promise to see that the same justice is rendered to the Catholics of the Northwest. Whatever government is in power if the law which is introduced is accepted by tbe bishops, I promise to support it.



DR. GODBOUT,

[Stage Direction]
Candidate.
The lion, member for Gaspe (Mr. Le-mieux) now Solicitor General, pledged himself as follows :
I, the undersigned, solemnly promise to vote in the House according to the desires expressed by their lordships in the recent pastoral.
The then Solicitor General (Mr. Fitzpatrick) now Minister of Justice made the following declaration :
Being sincerely disposed to put aside all party spirit and all questions of men, in order to secure the triumph of the Catholic cause in Manitoba, I, the undersigned, promise, if elected, to conform myself to the bishops' mandement in all points and to vote for a measure according the Catholics of Manitoba that justice to which they have a right by virtue of the judgment of the Privy Council, provided that the measure be approved of by my bishop. If Mr. Laurier reaches power and does not settle the question at the first session, in accordance with the terms of the mandement, I promise either to withdraw my support or resign.
In explaining this declaration to the House the present Minister of Justice (Mr. -Fitzpatrick) made use of the following language (' Hansard ' 1897, page 183) :
I now proceed to discuss my own case-and my case, I admit, is one that lion, gentlemen opposite pronounce the most aggravated of the lot. It is one that has engrossed, at all events, the largest share of public attention. 1 may tell you, Mr. Speaker, that I gave the pledge which was read in the House, that I signed it, that I gave it voluntarily. 1 went of my own accord to my bishop and gave the pledge to him, as a Roman Catholic, dealing with the head of his church in the diocese to which he belonged. I gave it to him, and I mean to stand by it, lot the consequences be what they may. I am speaking for myself alone, I am dealing with the pledge I gave, and I say that having given, having handed it over voluntarily to the bishop of the diocese to which I belong, from that day to this I have never been asked to account for that pledge which I gave, nor has my attention been ever drawn to the fact, up to the present time, that I have not fulfilled it, but the pledge was delivered over to the Tory party to be made use of for political purposes. Now, Sir, I attach some value to the position I occupy in this House, not because of my personal merit, but because of the favour and friendship of my honoured leader (Mr. Laurier), but more value do I attach by far to the good opinion of hon. members on both sides of this House-on the other side as well as on this-and if I am called upon, as I should have been called upon before, to say why I did not fulfil my pledge, I will feel that I have forfeited the confidence aDd respect of hon, gentle-

men on both sides if I do not leave this House the very moment I am called upon to do so by the religious authorities of my church.
I am not surprised, Mr. Speaker, that after the declaration made by the Minister of Justice and his statement which I have just quoted, he should try to redeem his pledge in framing the Bill now under discussion. The ex-Minister of the Interior (Mr. Sifton) speaking the other night said (' Hansard,' page 3243) :
My hon. friend the Minister of Justice the other evening accepted, as I understood, the responsibility for drawing the clause which contained the educational provisions, and I understood him also to say that the intention was to continue the existing state of affairs. Nobody would think of holding the Prime Minister responsible for tho exact drafting of this clausj, and I suppose it is not likely that my hon. friend the Minister of Justice drew it either. But I am bound to say, Mr. Speaker, that when my hon. friend the Minister of Justice employed a draughtsman to draw this clause, with instructions to maintain only the existing state of affairs in the Northwest Territories, the draughtsman either wholly misunderstood hiis instructions or he possessed a m.ost marvellous faculty for covering things which were not covered by his instructions.
That is the opinion of one of his late colleagues, accusing the Minister of Justice, if not himself personally then the draughtsman he employed, of covering up some things that he did not intend to see the light of day. Well, if the ex-Minister of the Interior had read the amended clause critically, he would find a great deal covered up in that also, and he would find that it contained a great deal more than he stated it did contain. ITe stated that this clause only maintained the educational system to-day in existence in the Territories, providing for one-half hour's religious instruction between half past three and four o'clock in the afternoon.
Therefore is it to be wondered at that in 1896. with a party united Roman Catholic vote throughout the Dominion, in the other provinces as well as in the province of Quebec, and with the support of the late Dalton McCarthy and other strong Protestants who thougut that the right hon. gentleman was in earnest and actually fighting the hierarchy of his own church-is it to be wondered at that under those circumstances the Liberal party carried the country and carried the province of Quebec almost unanimously? The Prime Minister then formed his government, but did he carry out his promise that he would settle the Manitoba school question ? Did he send a commission out to Manitoba headed by Sir Oliver Mowat to investigate the facts and achieve a settlement? He did not. But he sent a commission composed of one, the hon. Mr. Tarte, and then the First Minister announced to the country that he had settled the difficulty, and that declaration was printed in a circular entitled 'Pointer No. 2.' But
we know that the question was not settled because we have seen the First Minister's letter to his Holiness the Pope, and we have besides the Bill now before the House. However they said the question was settled, but how was that settlement arrived at ? The commission consisting, not of several members with Sir Oliver Mowat at their head, but of Mr. Tarte alone, then Minister of Public Works, went to Manitoba. There Mr. Tarte saw Mr. Greenway. And I would ask the right hon. gentlemen the First Minister to-day to appoint a commission and have Mr. Tarte sworn as a witness, and I am quite certain that he will give evidence to the following effect. He will say that he went out and saw Mr. Greenway and said to him : We want this troublesome question put out of the way. Mr. Greenway replied: t cannot settle it until the hon. Mr. Sifton, then a member of the Manitoba government, and Joe .Martin, and Mr. Prendergast are removed. Get these gentlemen out of the way and then come back and we will consider a settlement. Mr. Tarte approached the Canadian Pacific Railway authorities and said to them : We want to get Joe Martin removed out of the province of Manitoba, and I want you to hire him for five years at a salary of $10,000 a year. Appoint him your solicitor and send him out to British Columbia. The Canadian Pacific Railway asked : How are we to be recouped ? To this question Mr. Tarte replied:	You are
asking for a bonus to build the Crow's Nest Pass railway. The late government offered you a bonus. Appoint Martin your solicitor for five years at $10,000 a year, and we will double that bonus. The Canadian Pacific engaged Martin and sent him away, and legislation was brought down to this House increasing the subsidy to the Crow's Nest Railway to an extent sufficient to double the payment which the Canadian Pacific Railway were giving Martin for acting as their solicitor. Then Mr. Tarte approched Mr. Prendergast and said to him : Prendergast, you are a poor man fighting the interests of the minority in Manitoba. Give up your position, and we will appoint you to the bench as chief justice of that province. Mr. Prendergast looked at the salary of chief justice, compared it with the little pay he was getting, and said : I will take it. And lie was given the position. Then Mr. Tarte went to Mr. Sifton and said to him : You are the man who lias been helping on this agitation. Now we want to settle the difficulty. There is a vacant portfolio at Ottawa, that of the Minister of the Interior. You will there have control of all the lands in Manitoba and the Territories and the gold lands of the Yukon. Withdraw from your position in the Manitoba government and join in making concessions to the minority, and vou can have the office of Minister et' the Interior. Mr. Sifton. shrewd fellow that he is, said : I would take it but on one condition, and that is that I shall have full
[Stage Direction]
4907
control without being suoject to counsel. That was a pretty hard thing for Mr. Tarte to agree to, but he agreed to it, and Mr. Sifton was comfortably installed as Minister of the Interior with full power to deal with the business of the department free from any control by counsel. Well, Mr. Sifton was eight years at the job, and if common repute is to be believed, he has made it pay pretty well, because he is now worth between one and two million dollars.
Mr. DERBYSHIRE.: Hear, hear.


George Taylor: And my hon. friend from B'rockville will endorse this and thinks it all right that a man with a salary of eight thousand dollars a year should after eight years be worth one or two million dollars. The hon. gentleman approves of that and would equally approve of every job this government may bring down, no matter how bad it may be. No doubt he also approved of the commission of one, consisting of Mr. Tarte, which was appointed to deal with these three men. Mr. Tarte then came back to Mr. Greenway and Mr. Greenway said to him : My' treasury is pretty well depleted. You have a large school fund down there that belongs to the province of Manitoba and the Northwest Territories, because when the lands were set apart for school purposes the law provided that according as these lands were sold, the money should be funded and the interest thereon used	for	school	purposes.	Mr. Greenway	said	: You	have a treasury	fund,vote	me	$300,000 out of	that	fund.Mr.	Tarte said	:	I will	do it	; andlegislation was passed, this House misappropriating these $300,000 out of this trust fund and handing it over to the province of Manitoba. Mr. Greenway then made some modifications in the law. a bargain was drawn up, signed by Mr. Sifton, Sir Wilfrid Laurier and Mr. Greenway, and the Prime Minister then claimed credit for having settled the school question effectively for all time to come.	[DOT]


Mr. BARKER.: With his sunny smile.


George Taylor: Yes, but at the expense of the country in the way I have just described. Then we came on to last fall when a general election had to be held. The government felt that the country was going against them, partially on account of their not having carried out them promise on the Manitoba school question and partly because of the Grand Trunk Pacific scheme and many other unfulfilled promises regarding protection to native industries. Something therefore had to be done. The Northwest were clamouring for autonomy, and the government up to that time had refused it, knowing that the school question would be raised. The .Prime Minister knew he had not carried out his agreement with the hierarchy in reference to Manitoba and that they would not support them unless they granted separate schools to the Northwest Mr. TAYLOR.
when provincial autonomy was given to them. So a bargain had to be made, and it was made.
The ex-Minister of the Interior (Mr. Sifton) in his addreses on this Bill stated that he had read the speech of the First Minister and the speech of the leader of the opposition and he leaned to the opinion held by the leader of the opposition, but he put aside both these opinions and appealed to the man on the street. He cast aside the constitution and everything else. It was simply a matter of half an hour's religious instruction in the school after school hours, and he asked the opinion of the man in the street, the common elector. But what will the man on the street say, in view of what has transpired. He will say that the whole thing is a job from beginning to end, simply a play on the stage with a farce attached. He will say that the Prime Minister and the exMinister of the Interior put them heads together and said, we will go to the country but we will be defeated unless we grant autonomy to the Northwest. But, said the First Minister, if we grant autonomy to the Northwest, we shall have to grant separate schools, because I have not carried out my promise to my clergy with reference to the Manitoba school question, and I cannot count on their support unless, in granting autonomy to the new provinces, we also grant separate schools. It was agreed that the school question should be included, but this was to be kept private until after the election. The ex-minister of the Interior (Mr. Sifton) hurried off to take charge of the elections in Manitoba, the Northwest and British Columbia ; and he promised the people in the west that autonomy should be granted, and said : You have my past record on the school question as an indication of what will be done in that matter. And the Prime Minister hied himself down to the meeting of the bishops at Three Rivers and said :	We are going to grant autonomy to
the Northwest, and we will make provision for separate schools, but the matter must be kept quiet in the meantime.


Jacques Bureau: If the hon. gentleman (Mr. Taylor) will allow me a question, I would like to ask him at what time Sir Wilfrid Laurier came down to meet the bishop at Three Rivers?


George Taylor: At the conference they had, just before the election.


Jacques Bureau: I was inquiring from the bishop of Three Rivers as to the truth of what I saw in the Toronto 'Sunday Sun' and he denies it in toto.


George Taylor: I have seen it published in a great many papers, but I have never seen it denied. This is the first denial of it that I have ever heard. The result of the election proves that there was a bargain and that three-quarters, and in some of the provinces nine-tenths, of the Roman Catho-

lies supported tlie Prime Minister. And the i man in the street says:	Now comes the 1
farcial part of the play. The session was called. The Minister of the Interior (Mr. i Sifton), previous to calling the session, had to go away to a health resort. He was so nervous he could not help with the Bill, and the Prime Minister thought it not well to advise him of the clauses of the Bill for fear of the effect it might have upon his nerves. The Bill was introduced in his absence. It was introduced also in the absence of the Minister of Finance who also had a call away from Ottawa before this parliament was called. Parliament met. The Bill was introduced. The Prime Minister. contrary to all parliamentary usage, made a great speech on the introduction of the Bill. Two days afterwards the ex-Minister of the Interior (Mr. Sifton) comes home on the run. When he came here he did not look at all as if he had been sick. As soon as he read the First Minister's speech, playing his part of the Act, he tendered his resignation. But he came back again. He came back under an arrangement it is said. And the arrangement was this: After the row, and after he had resigned, an amended clause was to be brought down by the Prime Minister, which is practically the same as the original clause, but tlie ex-Minister of the Interior was to put a different construction on it in his speech. But I will challenge my hon. friend from Three Rivers (Mr. Bureau), the hon. Minister of Justice (Mr. Fitzpatrick) and the Prime Minister (Sir Wilfrid Laurier) to say that this amended clause gives no more than is stated by the ex-Minister of the Interior (Mr. Sifton) and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding)- simply half an hour's religious teaching after school hours.


Jacques Bureau: That is what the hon. member for North Toronto (Mr. Foster) said.


George Taylor: I challenge the hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. Bureau) to say that that is what is meant by the clause. The consideration for which the ex-Minister of the Interior (Mr. Sifton) was to stand up and swallow himself was that he would be appointed High Commissioner for Canada or else given back his old job, which would pay as well as the other. The man on the street will say:	You may talk all you like,
but this is simply a game that has been played. And the man on the street, with the ballot in his hand, only waits for next election to vote against this government. He will say: I will not vote to support a government that are trying to fool the people all the time. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Fielding) also was not consulted in the framing of the Bill, and when he came back he kicked very strongly for a while. He was playing his part in the farce. The government had a serious time for two or three weeks, with the resignation of the ex-Minister of the Interior (Mr. Sifton) in and accepted and that of the Minister of Finance threatened. I do not wish to take up the time of the House in reading the former utterances of the Minister of Finance, but I would like to read what he said when he was swallowing himself. I quote from 'Hansard,' page 3139:
I am speaking in all seriousness. This is no matter for levity. I repeat that there is in a certain sense a crisis. There is no party crisis, but there is a crisis with regard to the administration of public business in Canada by any government and any party. If my right hon. friend should retire on an issue like this, then the only thing that could possibly happen, if my hon. friend the leader of the opposition should agree to form a government at such a time, would be that he must form a Protestant government and he must have a general election.


An hon. MEMBER.: Shame.


Mr. FIELDING.: Who says shame ?


Mr. OSLER.: This is the first time that the religious question has been introduced.


Some hon. MEMBERS: Order ; sit down.
Now, I would like to ask my hon. friend from Shefford (Mr. Parmelee) w'ho it was wlio first raised this question of religion?


Jacques Bureau: It was first raised in the circulur of the 16th of February, issued by the bon. member for East Grey (Mr. Sproule).


George Taylor: There is nothing in that circular that any one should object to.
I read further :


William Stevens Fielding: I do not think that the hon. member for West Toronto (Mr. Osier) has paid me the compliment of trying to understand what I was presenting to the House. Again I repeat-and I want to guard against any misapprehension, I want to give the hon. gentleman who said ' shame ' an opportunity to say it again, because I want to% state the situation as it actually exists. I say this is becoming a religious queAion. Who denies it ? My hon. friend the leader of the opposition said as much to-day.


Robert Laird Borden: I beg my hon. friend's pardon, I said nothing of the kind. If so understood, I desire to disclaim any such intention. I argued this question, as my right hon. friend the First Minister did in the first instance, on the constitutional ground, because in his remarks to this House, both on the 21st February and again to-day, he put the question solely on that ground.


William Stevens Fielding: The point is not important. I understand my hon. friend, the leader of the opposition, to have spoken, in the course of his speech to-day, of the religious differences which unhappily would arise in this matter. I think that will be found somewhere in ' Hansard ' ; but it is not important, and if he says he made no allusion of the kind, I withdraw the remark. But I say that it is in the minds of a large portion of the people of Canada a religious question. I lake the responsibility of saying- and every man opposite knows it-that this question to-day is largely shaping itself as a religious question. We have on the one side the Roman Catholic body, largely united and on the other side a large portion of the Protestant body who are agitating against this Bill on wfiiat may be called religious lines. I

am not discussing their motive or purpose, but the line of separation is religion, and no one can contest that. I say that inevitably if the right bon. the First Minister had to retire from office on this question and my hon. friend the leader of the opposition were called on to form a government to settle this school question in the Northwest, he could not unite the hon. member for East Grey (Mr. Sproule) and the hon. member for Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk) and the hon. member for Beaurharnois (Mr. Bergeron). There is nothing wrong yi saying that. We all know that these gentlemen have their differences on this question and could not agree. I say that the government then would have to be formed on religious lines, and that would be the greatest calamity that could occur to the Dominion of Canada.
What does the man on the street say about this statement ? Simply this, that according to the Minister of Finance, if the Roman Catholics of this country want anything, whether it is constitutional or not, and if the government refuse it', no government can be formed that will have any Catholics in it. The ex-Minister of the Interior says the same thing. Let me quote what he said, ' Hansard,' page 3259 :
I am very much inclined to think, Mr. Speaker, that they will not be able to convince me. I do not think they would be able to convince me that it would not be better that the legislature of the Northwest Territories should be free. Now, what are we going to do ? We are face to face with an absolutely irreconcilable state of affairs. My hon. friend the Minister of Finance put it very well the other evening. He said :	What are you going to
do ? what are you going to decide ? The King's government must be carried on ; the business of the country must be carried on ; and there is only one of two ways in which this question can be decided. The Protestant people of Canada can say feo the Roman Catholic people : You cannot convince us, we cannot convince you, but there are more of us than there are of you, and we are going to vote you down. I put aside a proposition of that kind. There is no man in this government who would contemplate attempting to carry out a proposition of that kind if he had the power. Least of all would my hon. friend who leads the opposition desire to see a proposition of that kind carried out, no matter what his views on the merits of the question might be. Then, what are you going to do ? What is the position of affairs going to be ? You cannot make a political issue on these questions either for the members of this House or for the inhabitants of the Dominion of Canada : and even if you did-as my hon. friend the Minister of Finance very well said : if those who thought in this House as he did combined with him, and if the result of their efforts were to drive the right hon. gentleman from office on this question, all 'hat my hon. friend the Minister of Finance said the other night, and much more, would be true. No greater political misfortune could happen to hon. gentlemen opposite than that they should be called upon to take office under such circumstances. Suppose it happened. Every man *who knows the political history of Canada knows that we might fight about this question year in and year out for years, the political and financial progress of the country might be para-Mr. TAYLOR.
lyzed, the business of the country would be blocked by the condition of affairs, and after it was all done, we should be simply where we had started, and the people would have to come together on this question and compromise their differences.
Now, I would like to inquire where the Finance Minister and the ex-Minister of the Interior got their information that if the Prime Minister were driven from power on this question nothing but a Protestant government could be formed ? I think I find a solution of that question in the leading organ of the right hon. the Prime Minister, published in the city of Quebec, ' L'Evene-ment.' It gives the story of the negotiations of the Prime Minister with the Apostolic delegate. It says :
Preparatory to the introduction of the Bill Sir AYilfrid Laurier had, unknown to important members of his government, many interviews with Monseigneur Sbarretti. The representative of His Holiness accepted at these meetings the original separate school clause, and wished Sir Wilfrid success., with it. When the other ministers saw what Sir Wilfrid proposed certain of them baulked, and Mr. Fielding threatened to resign, in imitation of Mr. Sifton. Sir William Muloelc was also ' frightened,' and was going to drop out. Then Sir Wilfrid announced that he had given his word to the representative of the Holy See that the law should be as proposed, adding that if the others resigned he also, under the circumstances, would have to go. Messrs. Bouiassa and Lavergne here appeared upon the scene and urged Sir Wilfrid to stand by his proposition against the fanatics.
The fanatics, according to tills paper, are the Minister of Finance, the ex-Minister of the Interior and Sir William Muloek.


Mr. ARMAND LAVERGNE.: I beg my hon. friend's pardon. In the country the fanatics are understood to be the hon. member for South York (Mr. W. F. Maclean) and other hon. gentlemen on that side of the House.


George Taylor: I am reading from my hon. friend's paper.


Armand Renaud La Vergne: ' L'Evene-ment ' is a Tory paper.


George Taylor: Thereupon Sir Wilfrid prayed for an interview with the Apostolic Delegate, and told that dignitary that the fanatics would put a knife to his throat if he persisted in pressing the clauses. He added to Monseigneur Sbarretti : I shall do what your Excellency tells me. If you believe that I should fight the opposition I will do that. If you think it is better to compromise and thus save as much as possible of separate schools, I will do that. He added that he alone could do anything W'ith the fanatics, and that if he were to resign because of the Bill Mr. Fielding would be callgd in and he would give nothing _at all.
Who is the fanatic now, I ask my hon. friend ?


Armand Renaud La Vergne: If the hon. gentleman is quoting the words of my hon.

friend from Isabelle (Mr. Bourassa), I do not know who he means. But if he wants to know who I consider are the fanatics, they are the members who are opposing every clause in the Bill that will give any rights to the Catholic minority in the Northwest.


George Taylor: I am quoting from a newspaper supporting my hon. friend.


Armand Renaud La Vergne: I thought he was quoting from a Conservative paper in the city of Quebec.


George Taylor: Monseigneur Sbarretti asked Sir Wilfrid what the new proposition would be like. Sir Wilfrid presented it to His Excellency at a later interview', stating that * this is what they impose upon me.' The delegate thought the original proposition could be carried, as Sir Wilfrid had a majority of 70. Sir Wilfrid, however, declared to the contrary. Something in different language had to be presented in order to get it through. Sir Wilfrid then told Monseigneur Sbarretti that the case was in his hands. Whatever he ordered he (Sir Wilfrid) would do. If the delegate wanted the matter fought out ' I will get a dissolution and will ask the people to pronounce between me and the fanatics.' ' Only,' added Sir Wilfrid, ' it must be borne in mind that if I am beaten there will be no lOatholic in the government [DOT] that will succeed me.'
That is where the Finance Minister and the ex-Minister of the Interior got their information, they were quoting the statement of the Prime Minister to the Papal ablegate, that if he were beaten there could be no government formed with a Catholic in it.
Monseigneur Sbarretti tried to convince Sir Wilfrid that the situation was not nearly so grave. But in the end the amended clause Was adopted.
Mr. Speaker, as I said at the outset, I represent a constituency containing some 3,500 Roman Catholics, and on their behalf, and on behalf of the French and Irish Catholics of this Dominion, I repudiate any such statement as that made by the Minister of Finance and the ex-Minister of the Interior.


William Stevens Fielding: My hon. friend had better go to a Roman Catholic ; let him get the hon. member for Jacques Cartier (Mr. Monk) to repudiate it.


George Taylor: I think the member for Jacques Cartier will repudiate it.


William Stevens Fielding: No he won't.


George Taylor: If the Roman Catholics come to a government and say : We want legislation, whether it be constitutional or not, it makes no difference to us ; if we don't get that, no government can be formed in this country with a Roman Catholic in it


William Stevens Fielding: Will my hon. friend permit me a word ? I made no such statement. I said that if the Prime Minister were obliged to retire on this particular question the government that would be formed could not be composed of Catholics and Protestants, because they could not-agree.
Mr, TAYLOR. I read the hon. gentleman's statement word for word, and what he has just said agrees with it.


William Stevens Fielding: The hon. gentleman read it correctly ; I am not objecting to his reading, but I am objecting to his interpretation of it afterwards.


George Taylor: That is the language the hon. gentleman used. He asks me to go to tire member for Jacques Cartier and get him to repudiate that statement. I say there is not an Orangeman in this country who would make any such statement as that. I believe the Catholics of this country are just as loyal and ready to uphold the government of this country as any other class of the community, and they will not say that if they cannot get what they want, whether it is constitutional or not, they will take no part in the government of this country.


William Stevens Fielding: Nobody said that.
Mr. TAYLOR, My hon. friend said that if the Prime Minister was driven from power on this question, notwithstanding the fact that the Bill which the Prime Minister brought down was unconstitutional, that would be the result. He balked for two or three weeks until the right hon. leader of the government told him that he would lose his job. that a Protestant government woujd have to be formed, that there would not be a Catholic in it and the result was that the hon. Finance Minister swallowed that statement and made the speech a portion of which I have just quoted. 1 cannot believe . that such a crisis is before the country and that these two hon. gentlemen, the Minister of Finance and the ex-Minister of the Interior, swallowed themselves as they did in their speeches for the sake of peace.
I think the man on the street will say the same. Let me read a quotation from a speech made by the hon. the Minister of Justice (Mr. Fitzpatrick) about what I have just been saying and which will be found in ' Hansard,' 30tli March, 1897, page 194 :
The state has nothing to fear, but everything to hope from the existence of the Catholic church in their midst. She has everything to hope and nothing to fear, not only as regards her independence and constitutional liberty, but as regards the liberty of political parties, as well, to none of which does the church or the Pope desire that Catholics should bind themselves. The church holds herself on a higher plane and looks only to the common good, to the reign of truth, justice and peace.
That statement is made in the speech of the hon. Minister of Justice, ' Hansard,' 30tli March, 1897, page 194. In the face of that statement made by the Minister of Justice referring to the Catholic church, of which he is an honoured member, that that is the



position of the Catholic and of the Catholic church in this country, the bon. Minister of Finance and the ex-Minister of the Interior get up and say that because they come to this parliament and ask for legislation that is unconstitutional they will withdraw and take no part in governing the country if they do not get it. The statement of the hon. Minister of Justice is the correct one, and I am sure it knocks the legs from under the Minister of Finance and the hon. ex-Minister of the Interior when they make a statement to the contrary. So that the hon. Minister of Finance will not say I have misquoted him, I want to read his statement of what the Bill means. It will be found in 1 Hansard,' page 3135:
I am reminded of one point ; I have forgotten to state that even with respect to that half hour, it is not a matter of obligation, but if the parents of any child disapprove of that religious instruction for that half hour, the child may withdraw. There is, therefore, liberty of conscience in the highest degree. I do not hesitate to say, Protestant that I am, that I do not think that half hour of religious instruction given by a Roman Catholic teacher will hurt the children.
That is what the ban. Minister of Finance says this Bill means and it is all it means. Now, I challenge the right hon. Prime Minister or the hon. Minister of Justice to say that every word spoken by the hon. Minister of Finance in reference to the Bill is correct. and that all the Bill means is half an Hour's religious instruction. I ask any hon. gentleman from the province of Quebec to rise in his place and corroborate the statement made by the hou. Minister of Finance that that is all the Bill means. My hon. friend who sits beside me (Mr. W. F. Maclean) asks me to submit that question to the hon. member for Montmagny (Mr. La-vergne).


Armand Renaud La Vergne: What is the question ?


George Taylor: I read .iust a few minutes ago the statement made by the hon. Minister of Finance that this Bill provides for national schools with the exception of half an hour's religious teaching between half past three and four by a Protestant or Roman Catholic clergyman.


Armand Renaud La Vergne: That is my opinion of it.


George Taylor: And you propose voting against it on that account.


Armand Renaud La Vergne: I did not say that.


George Taylor: I understood my hon.
mend to say that when he addressed a meeting in Montreal with the hon. member for Labelle (Sir. Bourassa) a few days ago.


Armand Renaud La Vergne: I said what ?


George Taylor: That you would vote
against the Bill because it was not strong enough.


George Taylor: I


Armand Renaud La Vergne: I never said that and the hon. gentleman is entirely mistaken.


George Taylor: We will see when the vote comes.


Armand Renaud La Vergne: You will see.


George Taylor: Then the hon. Slinister of Finance went im as follows :
And if the only poiut of difference between them is that half hour of religious instruction, is there enough in it to quarrel about, and to have public meetings and agitation throughout the length and breadth of this land ? I believe that the great mass of the people to-day who are joining in petitions and holding meetings have not had time to understand this question. I believe that they have an erroneous view as to what the condition in the Northwest Territories is and as to what the condition which we propose to perpetuate is. When they discover, as they will, in the light of the debate which will take place In this House now and in the next few days, when the people of Canada shall learn that we have in the west to-day a system which is practically a national school system, and that the only point of difference between us is with respeot to that small matter of a half hour of religious instruction, I think the great mass of the Protestant -people of Canada will say that they regret that there has been any agitation on the subject.
I would agree with the hon. Minister of Finance if that is all the Bill means, but he knows in his inmost heart that the Bill means a great deal more than that.


William Stevens Fielding: Will my hon. friend kindly tell us what it means ?


George Taylor: I will take the opinion of able lawyers ; take my hon. friend for East Hastings (Mr. Northrup) ; I ask the hon. Minister of Finance to read his speech and if it does not mean anything more than that it means nothing.


William Stevens Fielding: I want my hon. friend to tell me.


George Taylor: The lion. ex-Minister of the Interior made use of the following language :
Now, what are the characteristics of this school system ? My hon. friend the Minister of Customs discussed the matter with great clearness last evening, and read from the ordinances to give the House a definite idea of what the condition of affairs was. Let me give what I conceive to be an accurate resumS of the principles which are enforced and carried out by these ordinances. We have one normal school with uniform normal training for all teachers, and when I say all teachers, I mean teachers of all schools, separate and public ; uniform curricula and courses of study for all schools of the same grade ; uniform text books for all schools whatever ; uniform qualifications of teachers for all schools whatever ; complete and absolute control of all schools as to their government and conduct, by the central school authority set up by the legislature under the ordinances ; complete secularization of all schools between 9 o'clock in the morning and 3.30 in the afternoon, except that any school, if

tlie trustees so desire, may be opened with the Lord's prayer ; distribution of the legislative grant to all schools according to educational efficiency on principles set out in chapter 31.
Then, where there is a public school, the minority, Protestant or Roman Catholic, may organize a separate school ; but every separate school is subject absolutely ito all the foregoing provisions, and is in every sense of the term a ipublic school. If the Protestants are in the minority in a district, their school is called a separate school ; if the Catholics are in the minority in a district, their school is called a separate school ; but both are public schools. They are absolutely similar save for one distinction : where the trustees are Protestant, there is Protestant teaching from halfpast three to four, and where the trustees are Roman Catholic there is Roman Catholic teaching from half-past three to four. That is absolutely the only distinction between these schools.
What does that preserve ? I have read these ordinances through, and all that I can find this section to preserve-and it is an important thing-let us not exaggerate or minimize, let us kno-w exactly what we are doing-I think that this is what we are doing and all that we are doing. This section preserves the right of the Protestant or Roman Catholic minority to have their school, a separate school in name, but a public school in fact, in a separate .building if they wish. That is the right it preserves. It preserves, secondly, the right of the Protestant or Roman Catholic minority in such school to have religious teaching from 3.30 to 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
But there cannot be under this system any control of the school by any clerical or sectarian body. There cannot be any sectarian teaching between nine o'clock in the morning and half-past three in the afternoon. So that, so far as we have objections to separate schools based upon the idea of church control, clerical control, or ecclesiasticism in any form, this system of schools is certainly not open to that objection.


Mr. BERGERON.: Who said that ?
'It. TAYLOR. The hon. the ex-SIiuister of the Interior (Mr. Sifton) when he recanted and came back with a promise of being sent to England as High Commissioner or getting back his old job.


William Findlay Maclean: Has he got it ?


George Taylor: He will get it. I prophesy that he will go to England or back to his old job as soon as the session is over. Now, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a proposition to the Minister of Justice which I shall ask the Minister of Finance to convey to him as he is not in his place. I suggest to the Minister of Justice that if the statements of the Minister of 'Finance and the ex-Minister of the Interior are true, he should let the lawyers on both sides of the House get together and frame an amendment in accordance with the statements of these two gentlemen, an amendment which shall contain nothing more, but which shall be put in plain language so that the man on the street may know what it means. Then, so far as I am concerned, 1564
there will be no opposition because it is a national school as both of these hon. gentlemen say, a national school with only one half hour's religious teaching between 3,30 and 4 o'clock in the afternoon. And I am sure the people of the Northwest or of Ontario, or of any other section of the Dominion will raise no objection to that. It is because as the ex-Minister of the Interior says, the draughtsman who drew the original clause and the amendment put a good deal more in it than appears on the face of it that my challenge has not been aeeepteq. The Minister of Finance, although he has made that statement and although it has been published to the world for electioneering purposes, knows in his inmost heart that the amendment as it has been interpreted since he spoke means a good deal more than that half hour.


William Stevens Fielding: Tell us what ?
Mr. TAYLOR, What does it do with the money from the school lands ? How is that apportioned, will the minister explain?


William Stevens Fielding: There is no reference to it at all.	.


George Taylor: Read the law of 1875 v hich is not repealed.
Mr.. FIELDING. Tell us what the difference is.
Sir. TAYLO'R. I have given my hon. friend one statement and he has not risen to contradict it.


William Stevens Fielding: I beg the hon. gentleman's pardon ; I stated I could not give the explanation about it, because it is not there.


George Taylor: I have not the Act to quote the amendment or I would give it.


William Stevens Fielding: In the clause as it now stands there is no reference to the school lands. There is a reference to the distribution of public moneys, but my hon. friend did not ask about that, he asked about school lands.


George Taylor: School lands fund, I said, and they are part of the public money.


Thomas Simpson Sproule: Where do the school funds come from but from the school lands ?


William Stevens Fielding: Sly hou. friend's question was about school lands.


George Taylor: The funds from the school lands ; they cannot apportion the lands.


William Stevens Fielding: There is no change in tlie law about that.


George Taylor: But my hon. friend (Mr. Fielding) in his speech did not say a word about it.


William Stevens Fielding: I ioId you that there was no change in the law about it. It is

just what it has been for years, neither more nor less.


George Taylor: I oppose the Bill because in my opinion it is unconstitutional, it is a matter That should be left wholly and entirely to the new provinces to deal with. 1 have not said nor will I say one word against separate schools. I live in a town with a population of about 4,000, of whom about one-third are French and Irish Roman Catholics. We have no separate school there. We had a separate school there 25 or 30 years ago when it was a small village containing about 1,000 inhabitants. We then had a public school and a Roman Catholic separate school, but the Roman Catholics themselves closed up their school, and ever since their children have been going to the public school. I have heard the archbishop of Kingston when laying a . comer stone, saying:	We must have a
separate school. But we cannot have one in Gananoque because his own people are better satisfied with the public school and they cannot establish a separate school because the Roman Catholics themselves will not have one in our town, and this is the history of Ontario generally, there are very few separate schools, because our public schools in Ontario are national, and not a word is said in them which is offensive to the religious opinions of any child attending them. It is not so with the public school in Quebec. No Protestant can send his child to the public school in Quebec on account of the religious teaching given there, but it is not so in Ontario and the Catholics know it, and they support and approve almost unanimously the public schools of Ontario and send their children to them. I cannot approve of nor agree with the statement of the Minister of Finance and the exMinister of the Interior (Mr. Sifton). I have made a proposition to let the lawyers on both sides of the House get together and frame an amendment embodying their speeches and I am satisfied if that is done, the Orangemen of Ontario will be satisfied with it because as I have said it is a pure^ ly national school. Because these gentlemen know that it means a great deal more than this is the reason why they are trying to force the measure through the House. But I propose opposing it because in my opinion it is unconstitutional and being unconstitutional I feel it to be my duty to vote against the Bill and in favour of the amendment of the leader of the opposition (Mr. R. I.. Borden) who as I stated before, is in my opinion the best legal authority we have in this country. In his speech he gives it as his opinion that the measure is unconstitutional and that the matter should be left to the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan to deal with exclusively.
Mr. KEMP moved the adjournment of the debate.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
William Stevens Fielding: 



ADJOURNMENT.-BUDGET SPEECH.

Hon.  W. S.@: FIELDING (Minister of Finance) moved the adjournment of the House.


Robert Laird Borden: Before the House adjourns I would like to ask the Minister of Finance whether he has come to any conclusion as to when the Budget speech will be delivered ?


William Stevens Fielding: It is not contemplated that any announcement will be made until the conclusion of the debate on this Bill, but it is expected that it will follow at a very early stage after this matter is disposed of.


William Findlay Maclean: After the second reading, or after the disposal of the whole Bill ?	'


William Stevens Fielding: Very much depends on what is considered necessary in regard to the Bill. If the committee stage is to be taken up at once, then the Budget will wait.


Robert Laird Borden: That is what I wished to ask about, whether the Budget will be delivered before the Bill has passed the committee stage. The hon. gentleman, I understand, has not come to a decision on that and is not prepared to make an announcement on tuat question.


William Stevens Fielding: No. Perhaps it would bt finished in a day or two.


Robert Laird Borden: The minister is not prepared to give us the information in regard to that, but perhaps the hon. minister would give us the information if the government come to a conclusion in regard to it.


William Stevens Fielding: For the present it is not the intention to have the Budget speech until this matter is disposed of. If any change of opinion is reached, I shall be glad to state to the hon. gentleman the conclusion arrived at.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and the House adjourned at 10.05 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, April 26, 1905.